Genius of ordinary Americans in the USA and elsewhere

 

fast-food table and benches with uneven floor: napkin solution

Stopping for a snack at a hamburger franchise, just after getting ready to leave the booth, this small gesture of kindness caught my eye. It is the unsung solution to a practical problem that a fellow diner identified, took ownership of, and used local materials to fix. And while the immediate beneficiary may have been the person alone or those she or he was dining with, the stability of the table goes on to benefit others for days or weeks; at least until a cleaner goes beyond sweeping and douses the floor in water to mop up. That could dislodge or perhaps weaken the napkin solution to the tippy table.

Why would a customer intervene and fix the problem rather than ignore it, complain to the supervisor directly (or from a distance if going online to lodge a complaint)? It is true that not every customer is inclined to veer outside their lane in the role of consumer. But it happens often enough, that there must be some precedent, cultural expectation, or personal satisfaction in making things work better - big or small. Perhaps the rate of interaction or engagement parallels the findings of Website engagement: estimates of the proportion of website visitors who actually proceed deeper or who respond to surveys and other forms of interchange say that maybe a maximum of 3% of the people go beyond passive consumption of scrolling and actually start clicking and writing. That is something like the proportion of people in civil society in the USA who show up to demonstrate, communicate with elected officials, run for positions paid or volunteer, or who belong to service clubs like Lions, Kiwanis, Rotary, and many others. In other words, even though it is only a thin slice of the demographic pie, these people account for a disproportionate amount of social infrastructure, vision, engagement, and accountability.

Impressionistically, this willingness in certain circumstances to leap from spectator to player on the field may be related to the colonial phases of occupying and modifying the land and water, displacing (or worse) the people and other living plants and animals of the place. When there are few or no authorities and experts to call upon in a frontier setting, it is up to the person and those nearest to hand all to work to fix the problem - both the kind affecting many people (risk of riverbank erosion and flooding; oncoming wildfire; stampedes of buffalo) and the kind affecting just one neighbor, but too big for one person to respond to. That experience for most people residing in 2025 USA is many generations in the past, and yet something of the outlook (dismissing authority, celebrating skillful problem-solving and practical mindset, optimism, and minimizing pretense so that everyone can be equal in the moment) does seem to persist - reproduced in family stories, popular culture (books, movies, classroom projects), and so on. 

No matter what theory best explains local people or strangers passing by to spot a problem and then speak up or directly intervene, the fact is that such things do arise from time to time, normally without public awareness, accolades or other formal acknowledgement: just solving the problem is its own reward in this culture logic. So here is a bow or tip of the hat to all those unnamed people who quietly fix things that many others benefit from.

Numbers to plan, make, maintain - illustrated on desktop

From Yinka Shonibare March-October 2022 exhibition - Enlightenment

This exhibition embodies in visual form so many themes, such as the Batik origins of Indonesia for the fabric dyed with patterns using wax, later industrialized and commodified for international sales by the Dutch and most beloved among buyers of West Africa. The mannequin has one arm of wood to represent the historical figure of this woman polymath who was known to have an artificial limb. The quill and ink are reminders of literacy and distant or local communication across space but also across time. And the figures on the page show the purpose and power of calculation using numbers and measurement. But for the purpose of this article, it is not the many sides of the artwork to focus on, but instead to think about the functions and powers of math and its applied form in engineering.

A person with training and who has wide and deep experience of designing structures of the built landscape, or to make objects of beauty, including tools, weapons, vehicles, containers, machinery, and so on is able to translate an idea into specific lines, angles, and curves that takes visual form on paper (or digitally these days, thanks to automatic measurement and calculation from CAD, computer-aided design) to communicate instructions to others who will make use of the measurements, but also to communicate this visible record to others implicated in the creation (suppliers, financers, future maintenance and repair experts) and those not yet born who may research the matter in years to come.

Looking at the function and use of such drawings that make possible large and small projects shows its power. But by considering the absence of these drawings, it is also possible to appreciate the value of this visual and numerical technology. Large public works from the ancient world were successfully erected using limited mathematics and record-keeping, and some of them exist still today in full or as trace ruins. Obviously, no CAD was involved, but some form of recording measurements, supplies ordered and materials received was necessary, since the scale and degree of detail was too much for any one person to hold reliably in his or her head alone. In the complete absence of design plans, measurements, and calculations the biggest project would surely be limited: earthen pyramids, stone barrows for burials and other rituals, river weirs to direct migrating fish into traps are examples of biggest limits for design solutions to problems posed when the precision and mathematics illustrated in this photo do not exist.

The words 'accounting' (tracking of numbers) and 'accountability' (responsible for one's actions or inactions) clearly are related. And while one is more literal (records of income and out-go) and the other is more figurative (of one's title, authority, expectation, liability) there is clearly a shared forensic element of measuring results against a standard, an existing record, or a point of reference. Looking, again, at the above photo, it is easy to imagine the use of plans to accomplish a project that meets the stated measurements.  But in a larger sense, too, there is a kind of gestalt or way of seeing the world for a person who is accustomed to measuring resources and accounting for them. Colonial governors, military officers, and corporate managers all rely on record-keeping and numbers more generally, not just to accomplish the stated plan, but then also to maintain that finished plan in good working condition so it is fully operational; or if less than fully working, then studying the plans to discover what changes to make in order to resume the full functionality as envisioned and designed.

Although this picture is part of an exhibition piece from the Nigerian-British artist, Yinka Shonibare, it also illustrates this peculiar development in social life of using numbers and mathematical manipulation to engage with countrymen and foreigners. It is a kind of language that expands and amplifies the verbal kind of language that comprises social life.

Being seen, heard, and able to talk publicly

 

Flying a colorful 'non-binary' flag of sexuality, gender, and sex

Over and over a similar pattern can be seen in expanding civil rights customs, laws, and attitudes. This was true in the 1960s experience of African-Americans, parallel with women's rights, and a few decades later for disability rights, and most recently for refugees and asylum-seekers, as well as with regard to same-sex marriage laws and protections against discrimination and violent hate speech or actions of (domestic) terrorism. 

Advocates for a previously suppressed, persecuted, outlawed, or maligned group of people begin by raising up the visibility: celebrities, symbols, public protests and marches and teach-ins, for example. With more frequent visibility, it is natural to react and respond to the subjects that come with the subject. In other words, after increasing the visibility comes increasing the listening and speaking by prominent people as well as ordinary residents. Once a topic is visible and part of public discourse among authority figures and in popular culture (entertainment, education, consumer thinking) and non-governmental organizations (civil society), then it becomes an established and ever-present social fact, no longer mute or invisible. It becomes part of normal life; it is non-threatening, non-marginal, non-exotic or strange.

The reverse is also true. In the example of six months of invasion and war crimes by #PutinWarCriminal, making invisible and silent the awful disaster is a big part of the foundation for social control within the Russian Federation and in metropolitan Moscow in particular. Without outlawing independent journalism and blocking foreign sources of documenting and discussing the military invasion of #SlavaUkraina, it would be impossible to perpetuate the lies of Putin's insanity.

What begins in small acts and visual expressions, like the flag flying in front of this downtown Grand Rapids house, leads to normalizing the cultural landscape filling one's eyes. From there it is public discussion that engages individuals and allows personal reckoning with the subject matter. Back and forth the reactionary forces push back against the advocate forces in all sorts of lifestyle of culture wars. In 10 or 20 years, perhaps, there will be no need for this front-porch flag and instead the matter at hand will be Carbon Footprint excesses, habitat destruction, #ClimateChange reparations owed to the world contributing least and for the shortest number of years can be compensated for harm to livelihood and life itself. Until that day comes, though, it will continue to be important for advocates to inject visual reminders of the subject and not to be afraid, shy, or hesitant about talking up their subject, too.

Notes from polling precinct 3 November 2020 USA General Election

 

scenes early morning and later afternoon in Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505

Pandemic and relatively recent voting law changes in this state to allow "no reason absentee voting" resulted in something like 3 million ballots around Michigan's 83 counties being voted by mail, drop off at the respective county clerk office or its designated dropbox(es), or in some cases "early voting" at the counter of the clerk's office. So even after the in-person, conventional voting period from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. ended and each of the 76 precincts in the city of Grand Rapids transmitted their results electronically (and by paper and duplicating SD card delivery to the tabulating headquarters), still the results could not be concluded while the many mail-in and absentee votes were being tabulated by an army of workers. While states like Florida allowed early votes to be processed in the days ahead of the precinct in-person voting, the Republican-controlled legislation in Michigan refused to allow any processing ahead of time with the exception of jurisdictions of 25,000 or more residents. In that case the outer envelope could be opened 24 hours before the voting day.

These photos show a few of the scenes at a 1928 neighborhood elementary school vacated by the pandemic so that children are relegated to online connection to teachers and peers. The day begins with crews delivering the voting equipment the day before and then the poll worker chairperson opening the door to fellow workers at 5:45 a.m. to begin setting up the gymnasium polling place starting at 6 a.m. and then declaring "The polling place is now open" at 7:00 a.m. In this case about 5 voters keen to be at the head of the line had arrived a hour before that official start time. But very soon the line ran from the first station (writing name, address, date of birth) for application to vote, all along the hallway and out the door, over the sidewalk leading the roadside and all along that streetside sidewalk for a total length of perhaps 80-90 yards.

There are 2594 voters in this precinct (maximum of 2999 per precinct by law): on this day at this precinct 763 voted in person, of which 1 man did not accept the mask offered him; another had a health condition precluding mask-wearing. All others waited in mask, mostly silently. Some people engaged with their smartphone in texting, reading, gaming, or with earbuds connected for music, recorded book, news, or podcast. The first 2 hours were long, long, long lines socially spaced, requiring about 90 minutes from lining up to leaving the polling place. By noon there was just a 10-minute wait thanks to a helpful "challenger" (party-appointed and registered observer) who called in 6 cardboard booths to supplement the 7 that had been assigned. From noon to 8 p.m. things faded away until just 200 or so arrived in dribs and drabs in those final 6-7 hours. Impressionistically, it seemed like many women under the age of 35 showed up in person and a certain proportion of retired people, too. One of the young women sported a Trump-branded face mask, which is disallowed on the polling premises. So she was politely asked to reverse it, which she did. The seven assigned poll workers never flagged during the 14 hours. When all was tidied up and signatures showing full-day work, certifying all steps fulfilled, and so on, then the chairperson and 1 of the others made the drive downtown to the headquarters to deliver the data and supplies. So their day was even longer than for the others.

In the 2016 vote when there was no pandemic and before Michigan's "no reason absentee" voting, the election DJ Trump brought 800+ voters to this same precinct in person. For the 2020 General Election maybe half the votes (still being counted at DeVos Hall downtown) were early or dropbox or mailed in. So the total number of ballots seems to be more than in 2016. For poll workers 14 hours makes for a long day. When greeted or directed to the entry door, several voters remarked "this is my first time to vote." In some ways the shiny hallway, silent lines, solemn context stirred by in the frenzy of mass media and online-targeted user campaign advertising contributed to the whole experience being quasi-religious or civic ritualistic.

We Are One - so says the sign, but one what?

About 7 weeks on display: since pandemic week 4 in Michigan [17 June 2020]

Both sides of the sandwich board give the same bold assertion. Such a short, direct statement is powerful and unambiguous. And yet there may well be several interpretations carried by the message at the same time, depending on the state of mind when a person notices the streetside note. The location is about 2 miles north of Grand Rapids city center in west Michigan on a major traffic route for local travel. So even when most people obeyed the Governor's directive to "stay home, stay safe" there were still cars traveling up and down this route. And people on foot or bike who complied with the guidance on social distancing also pass this way from time to time.

The ALL CAPS is a typographic emphasis similar to shouting or speaking in a loud enough voice for people far away to be able to hear the message. The choice of this shade of blue may signify something, too: neither is this color a somber dark navy or official looking tone, nor is it cheerfully light-hearted sky blue. Instead the color is somewhat light (not taking itself too seriously or self-righteously) while still displaying a slightly muted aspect (in respect for those harmed by the Covid-19 disease directly, or by harm to their livelihoods and social/psychological vitality).

As for the text itself, "one" implies shared destiny and shared present conditions and shared past experiences. It does not insist that everyone is alike or should be uniform in their lives; only that unity in relation to the threat posed by the pandemic is a unifier. "We" is inclusive, like "one," as well. Unlike "me and you and they over there," the subject "we" encompasses one and all together, no matter the deep or the surface differences. "Are" is a state of being; the present moment; the state of existing in time and place. Taken all together the intent seems to be encouraging one another with a message of the present and a promise of the future. By extension the message suggests, therefore, that each person should express responsiveness and bear responsibility for one's fellows in need of small or big help now (and extending indefinitely into the future). "Be your brother's keeper," is the message, to reference a Bible passage.

People with friendly, optimistic, or trusting disposition may accept the message at face value: yes, OK, we all will manage to sustain our economy and social and spiritual life during and after the pandemic. On the other hand, people who have not been sustained or rewarded or respected by The System of social services, attitudes, abuses, and injustices may take a different interpretation of "WE are ONE" (but excluding selected categories of people who do not fit our preferences, ideals, or mental image of belonging together). In other words, whereas many readers see the message as hopeful and encouraging; a proclamation or permission to go out of one's habits and way of doing things in order to care for others, in the eyes of other readers the message repeats a set of exclusions so that only certain people who meet particular conditions can be included in the declaration. Such is the flexibility of meaning, rationalization, and us/them distinctions reproduced one relationship at a time. Even if the sign-painter authored a statement intended to be inclusive, some readers may take exception and define "we" in their own image alone. Other readers, accustomed to being excluded or cut-off from some relationships, social capital, and other opportunities in the community may well see the message as yet another assertion of moral superiority or otherwise exclusionary movement. In the end, each instance of noticing another person's distress and responding (or ignoring) will make the full meaning of the signboard apparent.

Italy's "sardines movement" (sardini contro Salvini) - vigorous civil society in play

As many parts of the world wallow in dictators and the "strong man" model of governing in fearful times of much change of social status, livelihoods, and environmental destruction, there is a hopeful outburst of citizen activism in the north and central parts of Italy that calls itself "the sardines movement," in part for the symbolism of small fish in great abundance that can slip through many kinds of net and go unnoticed, but when gathered together the mass can cause things to happen. There is the heritage of the poor man's meal in the humble fish, too. Despite the low cost, it provides lots of flavor and nutritional value in an unpretentious way.

so many sardines packed into a single tin today and long ago, too

The imagery of small fish tightly packed is particularly fitting in the case of the 2019 movement that stands up to criticize the country's conservative political leader, Mr. Matteo Salvini. From the standpoint of powerful and monied individuals and organizations this cacophony of voices is an inconvenient nuisance: too loud to disregard, too sincere to disrespect, and too persistent not to notice them. Still another way to play with the sardine idea is that they come together to form a school (a place where things can be taught).

While the scale of voluntary gathering into an enduring and focused movement here is different to the one in the quote, below, the sentiment is the same: people in common cause can cause change.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

[attributed to Dr Margaret Mead, U.S.A. anthropologist, 1901-1978)]

Perhaps the closely-packed crowds of protestors in Italy will dissipate after the person whose policies and pronouncements have provoked this response disappears onto the pages of history. But in the hours and days that so many people come together from so many walks of life, there is real purpose and potential to change minds and habits and standards of accountability; if no where else, then in their own hearts and minds. For to publicly engage in the open space of civil society there are at least two audiences, the ones who are protesting and the ones who are being addressed by the movement. Both sides may well come out changed at the end of the cycle of engagements, shaped partly by the words and images of news media and other chroniclers who articulate the jumble of expressions, feelings, thoughts, aspirations, and fears.

May the sardines long persist in their movement and in so doing inspire others, too, to group together into a mass that commands some attention and is able to hold up the mirror of accountability for those in power to see how things look.

Largest neighborhood association in the city of Grand Rapids - Pancakes

The annual community pancake breakfast was organized by the Creston Neighborhood Association, CNA, covering almost 2 miles east-west by 2 miles north-south, a couple of miles north of the city's downtown center. Volunteers collected $7 per adult unless that household pays the annual $25 membership fee, in which case there was no cost for the breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, blueberry and plain pancakes, french toast, and beverages (water, apple or orange juice, coffee).

This video clip was soon after the 9:30 a.m. brief presentations were made to introduce the exhibitors at the edges of the large dining hall in the lower level of the Second Congregational Church, the venue hosting the event. Things started at 8:30 and went on for about 3 hours. Table covers were paper and boxes of crayons encouraged children and everyone else to doodle directly on the table tops.

In the age of Internet, fragmented lives and overscheduled children in multiple activities, it is heartening to see people get out of their speeding cars and away from their ubiquitous portable electronic devices to meet one another face to face, exchange small talk, and find out about opportunities to get involved in a few of the common interests in keeping the area safe and satisfying. This is a pretty good glimpse of Civil Society in 2019 in West Michigan, although the neighborhood email bulletin board is a living tissue that contributes an important layer to community sense of place and problem solving. It has many viewers and posters who ask or answer questions for newcomers and old-timers.

Exhibitors included the county solid waste and recycling program, the medical services for uninsured and underinsured residents, fire-fighters and a uniformed policeman, the low-income housing agency, the neighborhood association itself, among others. As the biggest of the city's neighborhood associations perhaps it also is among the most vigorous in supporting and encouraging innovations and business successes. There were breakfasters of all ages around the tables, so it looked to be a success for volunteers and visitors.