By: Elmarie Parker on March 11, 2022
It seems our readings have had a theme the past couple of weeks—blind spots. Last week it was the challenge of recognizing the limitations of an economic system that has enveloped the world. This week it is the challenge of recognizing one’s own implicit or unconscious biases. Pragya Agarwal—British behavioral and data scientist, activist, and…
By: Henry Gwani on March 10, 2022
Bias refers to discrimination on the basis of race, gender, social-class, educational status, religion, theology, denomination, nationality, ethnic group, profession or other factors. The high incidence of bias today has resulted in a toxic environment characterized by racism, gender-apartheid, nepotism, tribalism, exclusion and a host of other undesirable behaviors. Bias is not only a reflection…
By: Roy Gruber on March 10, 2022
Over the last year, I helped with the chapel service for the local college football team. As I got to know one of the coaches who attends our church, he told me about his first seven months in the area. After playing in the NFL, he joined the coaching staff to work with the running…
By: Andy Hale on March 10, 2022
“Humans are not naturally rational. Information overload is exhausting and confusing, so we filter out the noise. We only see parts of the world. We tend to notice things that are repeating, whether there are any patterns or outliers, and we tend to preserve memory by generalizing and resorting to type,”[1] argued Dr. Agarwal, in her…
By: Troy Rappold on March 9, 2022
In her book, “Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias,” Pragya Agarwal, a behavioral scientist and freelance journalist, tries to show that we all have unintentional biases that effects how we perceive the world and therefore how we act and communicate. Her book was published in 2020 and contains twelve chapters in four sections. She states the purpose…
By: Eric Basye on March 9, 2022
A fascinating read! Named as one of the 100 most influential women in the UK nonprofit sector, Dr. Pragya Agarwal lives and works in the UK as a behavioral scientist, author, consultant, and speaker. In her book, Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias, Agarwal utilizes the field of social science to help readers understand how our unconscious…
By: Nicole Richardson on March 9, 2022
Pragya Agarwal brings her education and experience as a behavioral and data scientist to her deeply researched book, Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias. Agarwal deftly unpacks the science of how the brain is responsible for the inclinations of human biases, in particular those that are unconscious and take place through System 1 thinking.[1] She shares stories…
By: Kayli Hillebrand on March 9, 2022
Pragya Agarwal’s Sway provides a comprehensive understanding of the various biases we each have, how we utilize them in our interactions with others, and offers suggestions for how to combat those that result in negative outcomes for our self or others. Agarwal, a behavioral and data scientist, not only provides a research-based analysis of biases…
By: Michael Simmons on March 8, 2022
“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then they heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the…
By: Denise Johnson on March 6, 2022
I am deeply impacted by the fact that I am writing this post in the safety of The United States, while my friends and colleagues are being run ragged attempting to meet the ever-mounting needs of the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine. The emotional upheaval that wells up within me…
By: Mary Kamau on March 5, 2022
Karl Polanyi is a historian and political economist who wrote the book, The Great Transformation, as historical explanations of the political and economic origins of the collapse of nineteenth-century civilization, and the great transformation that he had lived through in the twentieth century.[1] Jason Clark is a Theologian, leadership expert and a pastor in the…
By: Elmarie Parker on March 4, 2022
I recognize there is an inherent logic challenge with my blog title. By definition, one cannot see one’s blind spots. If it were possible, they would not be blind spots. And yet, this week’s readings pushed me to see the blind spots in the economic system that has been like what air—polluted air—is to my…
By: Henry Gwani on March 3, 2022
Perhaps more than anything else, The Great Transformation highlights the incredible power of human ideas, the need for these ideas to benefit all, and what could result when these ideas miss the mark. Polanyi argues that market liberalism, regardless of how good the intentions of Friedrich Hayek and other proponents may have been, is significantly…
By: Jonathan Lee on March 3, 2022
The Great transformation was written by Karl Polanyi who was an Austro-Hungarian economic historian and historical sociologist who lived from 1886-1964. This book was one of his best known works in which he argues against the self-regulating markets. Joseph Stiglitz summarized Polanyi’s central argument in self-regulating markets as “deficiencies, not only in their internal workings…
By: Nicole Richardson on March 3, 2022
In less than 2 hours I will tell the church I have been serving for five years I am resigning and moving to North Carolina to serve a new church. It would be nice if “The Great Transformation” referred to my mental and emotional clarity this week, but alas it does not. Instead, it is…
By: Roy Gruber on March 3, 2022
Decades ago, when our family prepared to move, and I was a teen, my mom went through my belongings and discarded some items. Among those things thrown away was a Nolan Ryan rookie card. In 2020, that same card sold for $500,000 in mint condition. I imagine my card deep down in a landfill and…
By: Andy Hale on March 3, 2022
Considered to be one of the leading economist historians of his day, Karl Polanyi gives readers insight into the rise, thriving, and downfall of the many iterations of the Industrial Revolution, a period from around 1733 to 1914, along with the post-war eras of the 1920s to 1930s. The Great Transformation cannot be read without…
By: Michael Simmons on March 2, 2022
I’m drawn to this idea of decommodification. Karl Polanyi cites land, labor, and money as the three natural entities, which the free market commodifies in order to attain self-regulation. “Self-regulation implies that all production is for sale on the market and that all income derives from such sales. Accordingly, there are markets for all elements…
By: Kayli Hillebrand on March 2, 2022
Karl Polanyi, author of The Great Transformation was credited for saying “my life is a ‘world’ life–I lived the life of the human world…. My work is for Asia, for Africa, for the new peoples.”[1] While much of this economic and historical book was beyond my basic understanding of economics, what struck me in both…
By: Troy Rappold on March 2, 2022
“The Great Transformation,” written by Karl Polanyi and published in 1944, traces the history of the free market economic system. It also criticizes its ideological foundation. Milton Friedman would use its pages either for starting a fire or to line the litter box. The best part of the book is the history lesson he takes…
