Session 11: Passion and Politics

In this next session a little pot-pourri. Preston Manning began with a worrisome thought:  to work as a barista at Starbucks you need at least 30 hours of training: a member of the house of parliament of Canada needs exactly zero! Manning’s big idea, and his passionate mission for years now, is to strengthen democracy through engaging young people and educating future parliamentarians in a model parliament. This, he tells us, is the only way to intelligently reshape the composition of our elected bodies and make sure that our leaders are equipped with training in ethics and leadership qualities.

Mara Hvistendahl shared her research into the rising tide of gendercide, and some surprising information about Western complicity in this tragedy. 160 million women and girls are missing from the population of Asia through sex selection, and this trend is spreading worldwide. Hvistendahl emphasized the importance of understanding this issue in its historical context, and traced the problem back to the concern over population control in the 1960s. This concern was primarily held by Western intellectuals and governments, who saw developing countries as the source of the problem, and implemented policies to address this that ended up promoting gendercide. But we have amnesia, Hvistendahl claimed, about Western complicity and instead put the blame on “family values” in Asian cultures. Today we have advancing technologies that make it easier than ever before to select for sex, and Hvistendahl advocates regulation of these technologies and a whole-scale change in our attitudes.

Sean Aiken grew up without a satisfying answer to the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Like many of us, he couldn’t wait to get out of school and follow his bliss, but he didn’t yet know where that bliss would take him. What he discovered out of school was that work was something terrible, something that we endured rather than loved. Then if we’re lucky, we can retire. Aiken’s response was to launch his 52 week job project, wherein he worked a different job every week for a year to find his passion. He now shares what he learned from this year of collecting experience and advice. He points out that our job doesn’t have to be our passion, but can allow us to live out our passions outside of work. The important thing is to discover our gifts, what brings us to life.

Our speakers in this session were without exception people of passion, and our next speaker had passion in spades. His passion is a little mollusk that he sees as both a sensual pleasure and a model of sustainable living and eating – the oyster. His message about ocean conservation echoed some of our speakers from the morning session, but his journey in search of the perfect oyster is entirely unique.