Beams and Struts employs commenting guidelines that we expect all readers to bear in mind when commenting at the site. First and foremost, we welcome and encourage comments from our readers. It's our firm belief that the articles and posts published at Beams and Struts are the beginnings of interesting, engaging, and vital conversations, not their end. This site was created to house a discussion about a variety of topics from unique and thoughtful perspectives  and this is a discussion that should be spread out beyond just the sites contributors. Feedback and insights from our readers are vital to this effort. Your participation in the discussion may take on a variety of forms; excited agreement, elaboration, the introduction of new perspectives/information, or sharp criticism. We look forward to your comments and hope to engage them sincerely and spontaneously. That said, we do ask anyone participating in the discussion to focus their contributions on ways to evolve the discussion itself in meaningful ways. That doesn't mean constant agreement. But it does mean that personal gripes and agendas should be left at the door. Let's commit ourselves to the practice of exploring topics and issues in a way that leaves everyone richer for their participation. Above all we want to generate a commenting community that operates with an ingrained sense of respect for one another.   Specifically: Personal attacks against other commenters will not be tolerated. All comments that engage in personal attacks will be subject to immediate deletion. All obvious spam commentary will be subject to deletion Comments that are not germane to the overall discussion may be subject to deletion.       Repeated deletions may lead to an outright ban from the site, if such action is deemed necessary by the site's contributors. Comments at Beams and Struts will not be edited. If a comment is deemed to violate these guidelines, it will be deleted in its entirety. We do not allow anonymous commenting on the site. All anonymous comments will be deleted. All commenters must register for the site on the registration page: http://www.beamsandstruts.com/join . We will not share personal emails.   On Deletions: In order to maintain a degree of objectivity in the application of these guidelines, authors of posts at Beams and Struts will not be permitted to delete comments on their own posts. Rather, decisions about potentially inappropriate comments will be left up to the other contributors and made as a group. Where possible, the author of the comment will be contacted and made aware of the reasons for the deletion. We encourage all commenters on the site to read Olen Gunnlaugson’s piece Unearthing New Norms of Online Conversation. That article expresses the common intent and standard of the dialogue we want to see happen on this site.   We hope these guidelines will serve us well in cultivating a robust and lively commenting community at Beams and Struts. We thank you in advance for following these guidelines and appreciate any feedback you might to have.

 

  It’s an exciting time to be alive. Sure, turmoil dogs the human race and may before our time overwhelm us. But despite this and more likely because of it, so much is at our fingertips. It really does feel like pivotal change is at hand, and that each of us in our lifetime may well be pressed into heroic service. Welcome to Beams and Struts, an online project facilitating dynamic ideas, community development and social action.  The site was started by a group of friends as an experiment in collective intelligence. It’s run on a shoe-string budget from the corner of our desks in between work, school, children, life in general. Our North American middle-class privilege aside, we’re an eclectic bunch with ties that go back to childhood in some cases. Most importantly, Beams and Struts exists to provide a space for new thinkers, writers, activists and artists to publish their work, plug into a larger world, initiate discussions and build upon the most fundamental of inquiries: Who are we and what shall we do? We believe that a planetary civilization, in all its complexity, is emerging and crying out for integral expressions. Bridging the divisions is the sacred work of our times. The site presents material in four sections:  Journal - Longer, more complex explorations and overviews. Magazine - Medium length pieces, like you'd find in a...magazine. Blog - summaries, descriptions, presentations, videos we've found, short reviews and other bits and pieces. Podcasts - Audio interviews. Our Journal and Magazine articles are peer-reviewed before publishing. In every section comments are welcomed and responded to by the author. Our goal is to generate dialogue and expand what we all know. You are invited to contribute to this project. You can share thoughts in the comments, post on our FB page, send us a submission, or perhaps participate in ways not yet invented. Seriously. We want you to be part of this. ~~~ To find out more about Beams and Struts' genesis as a project, the process we've developed, the values we espouse and how they relate to the bigger picture, check out this TEDx talk by core Beams creator TJ Dawe: