Due to the constant stream of events and programming that the Kenan Institute orchestrates, I’m an old pro at rearranging and reconfiguring our space. Even I was astounded Monday night at the number of people we squeezed into the room for a talk with James Scott. (That’s me standing up in the picture, pondering where to put another body!)

We knew he was deserving of a large audience, and he did not disappoint. Scott is currently the Sterling Professor of Political Science, Professor of Anthropology, and Director of the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale University. Widely acclaimed in various fields, one of our graduate fellows expressed excitedly that it was like having an academic superhero come visit!  As this recent New York Times article shows, he also blends his scholarship with an agrarian lifestyle, living on a 46-acre farm and claiming that one of his biggest accomplishments is knowing how to shear a sheep.  Having read the article, I was not surprised to find him tending to the potted plants in our coffee room when he was breaking there during the day. His down to earth personality was refreshing and made me appreciate his talk even more.

The topic was a recent book on stateless peoples in the highlands of Southeast Asia called The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia.  We have a brief summary on our website. It was interesting to have this conversation while we also had the Nowhere People photography exhibit displayed in the hallway.  That effort by photographer Greg Constantine is meant to reveal the impact of statelessness on people and communities who find themselves excluded from society by forces beyond their control. (This is the last week to view Nowhere People before we make room for the What Is Good Art? Installation, so come check it out if you have not yet had a chance.) In the cases Constantine documents, though, the exclusion, the pushing out, the lack of citizenship is for the most part unwanted. People may be deeply tied to a place but are not allowed to fully claim it. Scott, on the other hand, was describing the intentional fleeing of the oppressions of state-making processes, a deliberate and reactive statelessness. He contrasted “hill” people versus “valley” people, the lifestyles that accompany these and other geographies, and the ways the combination of geography and lifestyle can help or hinder state encroachment. If you look longitudinally, migrations to the hills coincide with specific state-making processes—losing rebel factions, those feeling oppressed, or those with some sort of unorthodox practice all want to flee the state. The state wants control of its people; a provocative illustration of this point: have you ever thought about how great walls or barriers built around civilizations might be meant not only to keep “barbarians” out, but to keep taxpayers in?

Both of these scenarios of statelessness call into question the ways in which institutions of the state can be helpful and harmful. We tend to think of the rights of citizenship and the protection of the state to be of the utmost value. And thus, the problem of displaced peoples is that of exclusion. But what if those rights are unwanted by others? What is the costs of state “protection” outweigh the benefits?

I mentioned recently that I’m reading The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. In a fascinating chapter on “The Felicity of Virtue,” Haidt details an experiment by Benjamin Franklin. It turned out I had a copy of his autobiography on my bookshelf (passed down from my grandfather), so I went straight to the source to explore further.

Ben Franklin decided that he was going to pursue “the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.” While he thought he knew right from wrong, and the virtues that would lead to a good life, he realized he would really have to train himself to simultaneously and continuously follow his proposed virtues.  I’ll list his guiding principles:

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order: Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. Industry: Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice: Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation: Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. Tranquillity: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

To habituate himself to all of these virtues, he decided to focus on one at a time, for one week at a time. He devised a chart with the 13 virtues as rows, and the days of the week as columns.  The first week he would monitor his devotion to temperance, and if he perceived himself to transgress, he would make a mark on that day of the week. The next week he would move on to the next virtue, and thus go through a thirteen week cycle, four cycles in a year. With practice, the virtues were strengthened and the chart was marked less and less. After some time he said, “I was surpris’d to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish.”

A bold and arduous project indeed! Do you have any interest in trying it? Which virtues would vex you the most? (Franklin, for one, said he found himself “incorrigible with respect to Order.”) Do you even agree with this framework? I shared the concept with a friend who said he thought that such scrupulousness would be exhausting, for one, but also constraining in an unhealthy way. Another described it as taking a lot of the humanity out of the good life. It may be extreme, and it is limiting in its conception of “the good life.” I do appreciate, however, the attention it gives to character formation, as a kind of moral education. A question we ask around Kenan all the time is “how are we to live an ethical life?” Don’t worry; we are not going to hand you a virtue chart when you walk in the door! But it’s an interesting thought experiment – what does virtue mean, and how does it contribute to our lifestyle, our communal well-being, and our happiness?

If you catch yourself reading this at the end of the workday, I’ll mention again that Jonathan Haidt is speaking at 5:30 this evening in the Bryan Center for the 2013 Boyarsky Lecture in Law, Medicine & Ethics. I think it will focus more on his second book, The Righteous Mind, which is next up on my reading list.

I’m writing from a coffee shop in Atlanta today. I think this is as good a time as any to share that I am preparing for the next big step in my life – I have decided to go back to school this fall for a Masters of Divinity degree. So, this week I have traveled north to visit Yale, and now south to see Emory University. The other options keep me in North Carolina – Duke and Wake Forest. Where will I end up? That is the million dollar question at the moment. I have a lot to think about over the next week or so, and I’m sure I will be sharing more about my desire to go to divinity school as well as the school that ultimately seems to be the best fit.

Because I have had the contrast between New Haven and Atlanta in quick succession, I have been thinking about lifestyle factors that relate to where I may live. I’ll expound briefly on one that may seem trivial, but in fact is an important consideration: TRAFFIC! I flew into New York beginning of the week and had to drive a rental car to New Haven, which, as a native of rural North Carolina, was a rather harrowing experience. For the most part it went smoothly, but I just did not understand the angry honks and hand gestures that I occasionally received. Both the emotional and physical tension that builds when I drive in heavy city traffic is bound to be unhealthy. Interestingly, though, I have been driving in Atlanta with much more ease. Perhaps I’m being biased, but I have perceived other drivers to be more generous, and I just don’t have the fear that I’m going to be harassed.

I know from plenty of friends at Duke from all over the country that Southerners are viewed by everyone else to be horrible drivers.  My inclination is to claim it proudly and continue to wave people to turn ahead of me. I do wonder, however, what is the ideal balance? It seems a responsibility to drive safely, correctly, and according to law. But depending on what you are used to, either the aggression of some drivers or the slow-moving carefulness of other drivers is likely to “drive” you crazy!

Coincidentally, traffic was a topic I came across in my current book last night. I’m reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis, in preparation for his visit to Duke on March 19 for the 2013 Boyarksy Lecture in Law, Medicine, and Ethics. He uses modern research in positive psychology to examine ancient wisdom about virtue and morality, and what ultimately gives people meaning, purpose, and fulfillment in life. It is a fascinating read, and I find myself sharing little findings constantly. I’ll try to stick to the point. Haidt explains that happiness research in psychology has found that there is a strong relation to genes, and surprisingly, a weak relation to environment. The environment has a smaller effect than we might think mainly because humans adapt to changes in our environment so easily, whether good or bad, and our happiness quickly levels out based on the new conditions. There are, however, a few external conditions that we have an extremely hard time adapting to, and may lastingly affect our happiness level.  One of those is commuting! People often move further away from jobs for larger homes, but while they adapt to more space, they never fully adapt to driving in heavy traffic.

I guess regardless of the other drivers around you, navigating in traffic is inherently stressful. With that in mind, perhaps I should stay put in Durham where I can walk to campus and ride my bike around downtown.

Last week Kenan’s DukeImmerse: Uprooted/Rerouted students went abroad for a month of field research with Iraqi refugees in Egypt and Bhutanese refugees in Nepal. This article on the Kenan website gives an overview of their work so far and activities going forward.

A year ago I was preparing to make the trip to Egypt, as I was able to join the research team for two of their four weeks in Cairo. I’ve been reviewing my journal and reflecting back on memories. This was certainly one of the ways in which my involvement with Kenan has expanded my worldview, in this case quite literally taking me to a different part of the world. I remember being confused and troubled and exhilarated by the bombardment of sites and sounds, all at the same time. As a willful traveler it was an adventure, but one of my first observations on the cab ride into the city was, “how one enters such a vast city and finds their way eludes me.”

I think that question is at the heart of what the DukeImmerse group is studying—how do individuals and groups find their way—physically, mentally, emotionally, socially—when they have been displaced?

Looking back even further, it was through Kenan that I first spent extended time abroad, through their DukeEngage Dublin program, which also addresses the refugee experience in a dynamic new place. I wrote a piece for Duke’s undergraduate magazine on Christian thought, Religio, about my internship at an organization offering health and education services to refugees in Ireland.

Considering both experiences, I think two strategies that were necessary for connecting with people in a transient land were the sharing of personal narratives and the celebration of commonalities, of the ties that bind. The interactions included refugees from various parts of the world, students traveling abroad, and natives of the country of resettlement/travel. Complex dynamics of power, intention, and service could be at play, but they usually dissolve amidst shared stories.

I wrote in the Religio piece that tea breaks were the best time for meaningful conversation. “As we became more comfortable with each other, the huge social and political dilemmas between the United States and the Middle East were condensed into a few memorable conversations in which it turned out that, on an individual level, we shared many values and ideals.” In Cairo, connection also often occurred over food. Our friend Sharmarke, a Somali refugee who had been in Cairo for ten years and was now a community leader and psychosocial worker, spread a wonderful meal before us at the local Somali restaurant that was the community’s gathering place. Another highlight evening was in the home of an Iraqi family, a dinner party for some of our group and other friends at which we talked for hours on end. I noted that, “they probably do not see this apartment as home—they are stuck here, the things are not theirs, and they want to be resettled and move on with their lives. Their warm spirits, however, certainly constituted ‘home’ in the sense of family and hospitality.”

These were all occasions without specific activities, without planned outcomes.  They simply built relationships, from which we could all benefit, regardless of why our paths were crossing. In the midst of a chaotic and rapidly changing world, it’s important to notice moments of connection and celebration. The DukeImmerse students now traveling will make their own different memories, even though through the lens of the same program. Oftentimes the refugee experience seems endless and hopeless, and yet amazing changes have taken place in the course of this past year. Sharmarke has been resettled to Canada, our Iraqi dinner party hosts are now in the DC area, and another Iraqi friend and colleague who was a research assistant for last year’s group is now living in Durham and working at Kenan!  Landscapes change, but relationships built—even over the course of an evening—stand firm.

It must be a healthy sign about your current environment when you regularly stumble across new ideas or opportunities that intrigue you. I’m not sure there’s any better place for such run-ins than at a university. My current discovery: the Duke Free Store. A partnership between Students for Sustainable Living and Duke Recycles, DukeToday describes the free store as a “bimonthly swap-meet style event” where items are “freecycled.” You can drop things off, pick things up, or both, with almost no stipulations (just leave the “potentially dangerous, alive or illegal” items at home please!).

With environmental concerns weighing on us in ways that can seem daunting, I think we can get a real psychological boost from small, tangible efforts like a commitment to recycling. And don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good – every small item that we throw into the trash thinking it is not going to make a difference adds up to a lot more trash! In the case of the Duke Free Store, not only do we benefit psychologically and societally from the effort at sustainability, but also from a positive sense of human connection. Kenan Senior Fellow and behavioral economist Dan Ariely has lots of interesting things to say about both the act of giving, and the alluring force of that thrilling little word, FREE!