If only we could all give as much as Brice Phillips
Friday, October 27th, 2006I just finished watching “The Net @ Risk,” a Bill Moyer’s program, here.
BRICE PHILLIPS: “I cannot replace my house. I don’t have the money to do it. I’m on social security. I get 500 bucks a month. But there’s no way that I can rebuild my house much less the studio. You know? So actually in a way, that’s why I’m in this level of service to my community. Because when you’re left with a last resource, you share it with your friends, you share it with your family and you share it with each other.”
Brice isn’t lazy. He’s on disability from an injury (the details of which they did not mention). In fact, Brice would broadcast local emergency information for 24 hours straight from his torn home.
What Brice said, and the way he said it, brought tears to my eyes. When the interviewer, Rick Karr, asked him, “What makes you want to give and share when you’ve lost everything?” Brice replied, “It’s what you do. I didn’t get into public radio not to share. Otherwise, I’d be in commercial radio.”
I run a commercial enterprise. I believe that endless giving can coexist with, and even complement, for-profit business–and I also realize the critical need for local radio as a public good, for fiber-optic internet access as a public utility, for non-profits to focus on research, serving markets in which the pursuit of competitive advantage typically leads to exploitation in some form, and filling in where for-profit enterprises fail.
It’s called “both/and,” integral, inclusive, holistic. The more we can see what everyone else is doing as useful, while also staying committed to ruthless honesty and jettisoning what clearly isn’t working, the more we can co-create a world that works for everyone. Call me a generalist, a reductionist, or an idealist, but hey, that’s where I stand. 
