IEI conference in Asheville

Went down to Asheville for a day for the ReConnectNC conference from the Institute for Emerging Issues. The premise of the conference was to reconnect communities that weren't communicating well. At that it pretty much failed. It was desperately overprogrammed. The breaks were too short and too few, because there were too many speakers. The speakers were generally overfocused on promoting what they were doing in their own communities, and of those there was dramatic overrepresentation of liberals: people of color, women, people in the arts, blah blah blah. Of course, I generally agree with those people about most things, with the exception of the transformative power of arts and culture in the public sphere. All too often when arts and culture are undertaken with state support, you get cant, bullshit, and half-baked pieties, at best.

Then at lunch, which was late because there were too many speakers, they tried to have each table have a focused discussion on a theme put forth by one of the speakers. I'm so sure. When were we supposed to "connect?"

I go to bed with a liberal every night, I brush my teeth looking at one in the mirror. I don't have a problem finding more of them to talk to. The problem is that I don't talk to enough conservatives, and people who could bring themselves to vote for Trump. I still don't get how conservatives can have done that, and still look at themselves in the mirror.

David Brooks of the NY Times was good, and the story of how Tru Pettigrew and the Cary Police initiated and fostered dialogue between the African-American community in Cary and the police there was pretty amazing.

In short, the model was excessively dirigiste. IEI is nestled with NC State and has pretty significant headcount. I don't know what its funding model is, but I am surprised that it has not come under attach by the legislature while the Republicans had a veto-proof supermajority.