dialogue
It's been a long while since I've jotted down my thoughts, so enjoy the deep ones of today.
Today I learned about the importance of pursuing dialogue with all stakeholders involved in a policy. For my class project, my focus is welfare, which means I considered the dialogue idea around the policy of welfare. I wonder...what do those who are on welfare have to say? My guess is that I won't be able to bunch them into one large, congruent mass. My guess is that Bob will say it was great for a tight spot, Julie will say it's not enough, Sarai will say it didn't really help with her child's needs, Douglas will say it is a great program that helped and encouraged him as necessary, and Betty will say it has too many rules and regulations. How do you make policy with so much swimming?
Well, this is my conclusion, at least for today: you do the best you can. That may seem cliche-ish, but in all reality, policy is based on ideas and we fight about our viewpoints over the ideas--but at least we are fighting for the fundamental idea that those who have more should help those who have less. And we will never be able to do it perfectly when we live in a system so imperfectly run by imperfect individuals. But we work on it. We let time and experience educate us, and then we revise and refine. And we get new ideas. And we implement them and then interpret them and then look at numbers and results. And then we do it all over again, over and over, year after year. It is a process.
I guess what I would like to say is that the world is doing better at combatting poverty than they were 20 years ago. Can I say that? Is that true? Numbers would speak otherwise, but aren't programs and reach getting better? Isn't the fact that we care and are trying to do something about it (using our resources of time, money, and talent) more than we were before enough to declare we are a step higher than before? I think so. Hmmm, let me make that more definitive: we, as a society, are doing better at dealing with the problem of poverty. Kudos on us. But let's keep working and revising and interpreting and struggling so we get closer to perfection...even if we don't touch it, at least we are reaching for it.
Today I learned about the importance of pursuing dialogue with all stakeholders involved in a policy. For my class project, my focus is welfare, which means I considered the dialogue idea around the policy of welfare. I wonder...what do those who are on welfare have to say? My guess is that I won't be able to bunch them into one large, congruent mass. My guess is that Bob will say it was great for a tight spot, Julie will say it's not enough, Sarai will say it didn't really help with her child's needs, Douglas will say it is a great program that helped and encouraged him as necessary, and Betty will say it has too many rules and regulations. How do you make policy with so much swimming?
Well, this is my conclusion, at least for today: you do the best you can. That may seem cliche-ish, but in all reality, policy is based on ideas and we fight about our viewpoints over the ideas--but at least we are fighting for the fundamental idea that those who have more should help those who have less. And we will never be able to do it perfectly when we live in a system so imperfectly run by imperfect individuals. But we work on it. We let time and experience educate us, and then we revise and refine. And we get new ideas. And we implement them and then interpret them and then look at numbers and results. And then we do it all over again, over and over, year after year. It is a process.
I guess what I would like to say is that the world is doing better at combatting poverty than they were 20 years ago. Can I say that? Is that true? Numbers would speak otherwise, but aren't programs and reach getting better? Isn't the fact that we care and are trying to do something about it (using our resources of time, money, and talent) more than we were before enough to declare we are a step higher than before? I think so. Hmmm, let me make that more definitive: we, as a society, are doing better at dealing with the problem of poverty. Kudos on us. But let's keep working and revising and interpreting and struggling so we get closer to perfection...even if we don't touch it, at least we are reaching for it.
[testing, testing, one, two, three... T-Splines is great, use their plug-ins...]
posted by Tricia at 3:07 PM
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