Fairfield is an unusual town. As a traditional Midwest rural community it has a long and historically significant legacy. But as an oasis of progressive-thought and green design, the town has risen to be one of the most exciting, noteworthy cities in Iowa – if not America. As you can imagine, the clash of these two things can give rise to troubles.

As the creator of the Fairfield, Iowa Fanpage on Facebook, I’ve been blessed with a certain insight into the structures and communication problems of the town. It’s become apparent to me that the town these days no longer divides along the traditional “’roo (meditators) vs. townie” lines it once did (or even “town” and “gown” as it had during the Parson’s College era). Rather, you could say the town now splits between what I’d call traditionalists and progressives. The overlap between roos/progressives and traditionalists/townies is certainly large, but no longer accurate – there are now quite a few people in Fairfield who have no interest in meditation, but do want to see the town progress and change.

The traditionalists believe that Fairfield is – or more accurately was – a fine town, the pride of Iowa, and is being degraded by the restless, crazy influence of the progressives.

The progressives believe that Fairfield was some small, unremarkable town, but can be made into a utopia, a green mecca for social and environment causes, a future slowed or outright opposed by the traditionalists.

I believe that, for the most part, what causes friction between these two groups is a lack of understanding and communication skills. I’ll show you what I mean by the debate over the Quiet Zone.

Train traffic has increased significantly over the past few years (on average, 15 trains a day in 2001 to 58 in 2006). In addition to this, train whistle technology has made it more effective (louder). More trains, each one being louder than the ones of ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Some progressives got quite fed up with it, and checked into things. As it turns out, you can make the train whistles stop – by making train track crossings safer than they are now.

I want to stress this point: If we upgrade the safety of track crossings, then whistles are no longer necessary. If you approached the traditionalists and said: Will you donate to increase safety at railroad crossings? I feel very certain they would donate and/or pass along that information to everyone they knew. Who would be opposed to increasing safety? A minor point (less train noise) would have been virtually unopposed.

But progressives think like progressives, and the increased safety was good bonus, but not the point. The point was being able to sleep at night, to rid the community of the annoyance. The sale of this idea to the community, then, was in a progressive vocabulary of increasing quality of life (putting the safety issue as a side point) – even to the extent of the project being named the Quiet Zone (as opposed to “The Safety Zone” or other titles).

This was a failure to understand traditionalists. They tend to be older, having lived here longer, and some of them know someone who was killed on the tracks, or was almost hit when the guards did not drop before the train came through, but was saved due to the horn.

On the posters promoting the Quiet Zone initiative, it reads “STOP THE TRAIN WHISTLE!”

To the surprise of progressives, quite a lot of people did not want to see a vital safety measure disappear, and certainly not to accommodate relative newcomers who just don’t like noise.  The issue quickly boiled down to a perception that progressives are trying to warp the town to their bizarre needs, to the detriment of everyone else.  The progressives are left repeating themselves over and over – things would be safer, the whistles are louder and more frequent than before, other towns are doing it, etc – but the damage is done.

I’m writing this post in hopes of bringing these two groups together in a mutual understanding of the key point: Both groups want what is best for the town. Both groups want this town to be the best around, to have everyone be happy and healthy.

We may disagree on how to do that, but the desire is the same. Traditionalists may want to bring in another factory like Dexter to increase employment and support the local economy. Progressives may want to create an edible forest/orchard for the community to use. Rather than dismiss one group or the other as unrealistic or ignorant, we should take the time to understand how the other side thinks and sees the world, and speak to them in that language.

Progressives respond well to words like: sustainable, green, off-grid, spiritual, giving, Earth, heart, body, soul, growing, intensive, intuitive, love, holy, saints, new, human, gardens, environment, peace, and so on.

Traditionalists respond well to words like: safety, tax-breaks/incentives, local government, democracy, industry, employment, maintenance, historical, trade, rural, agriculture, traditional values, religion, and so on.

As a progressive, it’s my duty to re-define what I see in terms that the entire community – including traditionalists – can understand.

An example: Let’s say I want to start a program that takes food wastes from restaurants and grocery stores and brings it to a city-run central composting area.

For progressives, I should talk about reduced landfill wastes, the increased abundance of local compost, and how it is a step towards self-sufficiency (now all we need is to grow the food locally, and we’ll be set!)

For traditionalists, I should talk about increased revenue for the city via sale of compost, the creation of new jobs, increased tourism (helping local businesses) and possible grant money coming in.

If something is a benefit to the community, it can definitely be shown as a boon in all different lights – a tight-rope to walk, perhaps in this community more than others, but well worth the effort up front. Without due consideration for both sides, it seems inevitable that tempers will flare and misunderstanding will occur… and that bickering helps no one.

So please remember, Fairfielders: when you present an idea for the benefit of the community (and you want it to succeed), be sure to take the balanced approach and include benefits to both progressives and traditionalists.

[Section taken from the book  "The Sharp Knife of Forced Simplicity, Volume 1: The Numinous Rebellion"]

My revolutionary idealism stems from a radical new idea, one that is perhaps completely unheard of in the long course of human history: the idea that every human life is worth exactly the same.

That is to say that race, color, religion, sexuality, political belief, lifestyle, location, net worth, power, cash on hand, social status, health, fashion sense, tribe, history, leadership, virtues, failings, and every other possible way we can distinguish between people has no bearing on how much their life is worth. Put another way, the president’s life is worth no more or less than a prisoner, a sustenance farmer, or you. The law of equality of human life holds true across every spectrum. Read the full story

I’ve had the extremely good fortune of being involved with the state’s youth-let anti-tobacco industry movement (”Just Eliminate Lies” or “JEL” for short) since it’s inception back in 2000. This year’s theme for the state-wide summit was “JEL Number Nine” – the capstone of which were two “street marketing” events, one in Des Moines and one in Iowa City.

As you can see, the message was “50 people will die this lunch break from tobacco use.” Fifty teenagers in black shirts would “die” when “Big Tobacco” rolled in. Overall it was well-recieved!

You can find out more about Just Eliminate Lies here – http://www.JELiowa.org

This is a reprint of a letter written by William Goldstein, General Counsel of Maharishi University of Management. This letter recently appeared in the Fairfield Ledger as a PAID advertisement. I am publishing it here for free.

June 15, 2009

Dear Mr. Rooney:

Big Tobacco and Big Cell Towers

A very significant thing happened last week. In addition to your letter to our community printed in the Thursday Fairfield Ledger, the House voted 301-97 to pass federal legislation stringently regulating the tobacco industry, following the Senate’s 79-17 vote. That marked a great achievement after a decades long battle.

But even more noteworthy is that, contrary to its competitors, Phillip Morris – the nation’s largest tobacco company – came out in support of the bill saying it was behind tough but fair regulation. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., sponsor of the bill and committee chairman at the memorable 1994 hearing where tobacco industry executives denied nicotine was addictive, relished the long-sought victory:

“I think we are today at the last gasp of the tobacco industry’s efforts to protect their profits at the expense of the health and lives of the American people and to get children to take up this habit.€ Read the full story

Despite much opposition from the community and efforts by Mayor Ed Malloy and the City Council to find an alternate site for the cell tower planned at 509 W. Depot Ave, the news out today is that US Cellular is resuming construction of their cell tower.

Here is a letter from one of the opposition leaders, Diane Rosenberg: Read the full story

Mayor Ed Malloy will be presenting Lynne Twist the first Mayor’s Humanitarian Award in honor of Lynne’s visit to Fairfield.  Lynne Twist is author of The Soul of Money, which the Mayor tells me he is currently reading.  She is also the founder of The Pachamama Alliance, an organization with the two-fold mission of:

• Preserving the Earth’s tropical rainforests by empowering the indigenous people who are its natural custodians.
• Contributing to the creation of a new global vision of equity and sustainability for all.

Mayor Malloy described his inspiration to “create the award because of the work she has done for hunger and world poverty . . . and teaching the native principles of sustainaiblity to modern society.” Read the full story