Charles D. Hayes

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About Charles D. Hayes
Charles D. Hayes is a self-taught philosopher and one of America's strongest advocates for lifelong learning. He spent his youth in Texas and served as a U.S. Marine and as a police officer before embarking on a career in the oil industry. Alaska has been his home for more than forty years.
Promoting the idea that education should be thought of not as something you get but as something you take, Hayes' work has been featured in The L.A. Progressive, USA Today, and the UTNE Reader, on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation and on Alaska Public Radio's Talk of Alaska.
Praised for his remarkable depth of knowledge across numerous disciplines, Hayes affirms through his work that active, continuous learning is what makes life worthwhile. His books encourage the kind of thinking that can transform human relations on a global scale, urging us to continuously examine our values, motivations, and common beliefs. He inspires us to acknowledge our mortality and live authentically as a result, taking deliberate action to leave the world a better place than we found it.
"The temporary nature of our lives may be a reason for unavoidable despair," says Hayes, "but such is the price of intelligence--it doesn't render our lives meaningless. To the contrary, the opportunity to live a life as a human being makes us the most fortunate creatures on the planet. We should be experts at being human and creating a world where humans can thrive."
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Blog postPost-Publication Notes on Blue Bias
© Charles D. Hayes
Notes from a couple of Zoom appearances I have made recently, one at a university and another to a private organization.
I am seventy-eight years old. I grew up in Oklahoma and Texas in the 1940s and 50s. During those years, children grew up acknowledging that most of the people who lived in nice homes were white, most nurses and schoolteachers were women, and nearly all doctors, lawyers, and po11 months ago Read more -
Blog post(c) Charles D. Hayes
Finally, after a half century of reflection and four years of writing and obsessive rewriting, I’ve just published Blue Bias: An Ex-Cop Turned Philosopher Examines the Learning and Resolve Necessary to End Hidden Prejudice in Policing. In preparation for the flak I’m going to be getting from politically hard-right conservatives, I recently re-watched all five seasons of The Wire, written, produced, and directed by David Simon. To those who don’t understa2 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
I posted this short piece on Facebook a few days ago without a title and it sort of went viral. A half century ago, General Motors was America’s largest employer and the hourly wages then, were equivalent to $50.00 per hour today. Now, America’s biggest employer, is Walmart and the value equivalence of their hourly wage is $8.00 per hour. This is the reward of 50 years of trickledown economics and because this loss of equity happened so slowly over3 years ago Read more -
Blog post(c) Charles D. Hayes
I’ve been working on a forthcoming book for 2019 titled: Blue Bias: A Former Cop Rethinks Policing and Deadly Force and haven’t posted on this blog in almost a year, although I do post short pieces frequently on Facebook. I wrote the piece below my sixties and now I am half way through my seventies and this essay that is from my book Existential Aspirations is one of my favorites and I find consolation in rereading it every now and then. So Happy Holidays I hope3 years ago Read more -
Blog post(c) Charles D. HayesIn Staring at the Sun, Irvin D. Yalom, says the gift of self-awareness comes at a high price. “Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and inevitably, diminish and die.”
Death anxiety separates us from all the earth’s creatures. We are the only species whose lifelong motivation is subconsciously hijacked in myriad ways to avoid or postpone the inevitability of nonexistence. Death anxiety is the indoctrinating lifeforce of religion4 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Nineteenth-century reformer Henry George once pointed out that we never see a herd of buffalo or a flock of birds where only a few are fat, and most are lean or starving. In our society, however, there’s an assumption that less than living wages are somehow admissible. Egregious inequality is accepted as a just comeuppance for not measuring up to cultural expectations. As I see it, several psychological influences are at work that allow this to happen.
One is5 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes That Donald Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, wants Christianity to play a bigger part in the education of America’s children is appallingly unacceptable. Trump’s appointment of Jerry Falwell Jr. to lead an educational task force is equally unacceptable, as is the Supreme Court’s loosening of the separation of church and state. For me, these issues are the straws that break the camel’s back. An anti-science, anti-intellectual educational agenda in the 21st cent5 years ago Read more
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Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
I’ve been writing about aging and mortality for many years, and the older I get, the slower the going and the greater the existential gravity. I’ve long believed that each of us has a threshold for change, and that once past that threshold, we begin to grow fond of the notion that we are ready to be out of here. Enough already.
Okay, maybe not fond, but warming to the idea that there is an upside to nonexistence because it means an absence of the steady escal5 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes The 2016 presidential election made it clear that America is suffering an egregious vacuum of goodwill. Too many of our citizens are ill-equipped to cope with life in the twenty-first century. Simply put, they lack the knowledge to deal with the angst that comes with being mortal.
For decades, I have been trying to articulate the benefits of a liberal education. I have fully experienced the rewards myself, having gone from growing up as a hard-right conservative to5 years ago Read more -
Blog postThis is an excerpt from Existential Aspirations: Reflections of a Self-Taught Philosopher © Charles D. Hayes
A few years ago, I watched an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher. Among his guests were comedian Gary Shandling, actor Sean Penn, and former Congressman Harold Ford Jr. from Tennessee. They were discussing the war in Iraq, and Shandling suggested that we need to get beyond our “winner consciousness” regarding the issue of war. Penn seemed interested but remained silent. Harol5 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes If you care about future generations and have reached an age when you realize the time you have remaining is short, perspective about what is truly important has a way of surfacing with a resounding sense of urgency. This is ironic because you realize at the same time just how little impact you have for influencing future events.
I grew up in a racist culture in the 1940s and 50s. Now in my eighth decade, I’ve spent more than thirty of those years writing about how5 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
The early European settlers who first came to America were a diverse lot, but they had one thing in common. They shared a history in which feudal and monarchical authority had a way of encroaching upon those who failed to follow the protocols of deference to the signs and symbols of their time. As I explained in Existential Aspirations, the perils for misinterpretation included the gallows, the rack, having molten lead and sulfur poured into one’s open wounds, and i5 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes Day in and day out, confirmation that the political Right has reached a stage-four level of wing-nuttery is evident in social media, newspapers, radio, and television. Commentators of every political persuasion have grown weary of uttering the familiar refrain that “You can’t make this stuff up.” But people can. They are making up bizarre things to say, and other people are believing them. Every day we seem nearer to DEFCON 1 lunacy. Ultra-c6 years ago Read more
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Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Sarah Palin put my community of Wasilla, Alaska, on the map, as the land of know-nothings. Over a few short months, after she accepted her place on the Republican ticket as vice president in 2008, her approval ratings here and nationwide dropped like a rock, mostly for coming across in interviews and on the campaign trail for lacking knowledge about important matters, that anyone running for high public office should have.
Sarah Palin, in my view, is6 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes In the presidential election underway, do not make the mistake of assuming anything other than different standards apply when it comes to gender. The eons of our existence have resulted in hierarchal assumptions so deeply imbedded and ingrained in all human cultures that many prevailing prejudices are harder to distinguish and comprehend than what fish might have to experience in order to perceive the nature of water. I’m referring to the social malignancy we know as mis6 years ago Read more
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Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
If a sense of objective reality (as best as we human beings can discern it) represented the True North of life experience, where do you suppose a compass would show your location to be in relation to True North? How far away would you be from being as close as you could get, that is, if you were to try with all of your might to discover it? Imagine having a cell phone app that would give your position on a given subject with respect to True North and tell you how m6 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Have you ever wondered how the concept of freedom has evolved? Try to imagine what freedom meant to the immigrants in the seventeenth century who indentured themselves to five or more years of hard labor to pay for their passage to America. Then compare that frame of mind to the outlook of the slaves brought here from Africa in chains.
Imagine longing to fulfill an indentured servitude contract to secure your independence. Try to assume the mindset of those w6 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
In 1990, Walter Truett Anderson published Reality Isn’t What It Used to Be: Theatrical Politics, Ready-To-Wear Religion, Global Myths, Primitive Chic, and Other Wonders of the Postmodern World. The subtitle is discerning. Anderson’s stunning observations offered cultural insight into the new century we were fast approaching in the same way Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock had been prescient twenty years earlier.
The 1990s saw the term postmodernism bantered about6 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
If you ask people how they would like to be remembered, you will likely be met with silence, often with a look of bewilderment. Legacy is not something that most people give a lot of conscious thought to apart from material bequests. Psychologically though, at a deep subconscious level, how and for what we will be remembered is far important than many of us realize. For some of us this becomes clear as time passes.
To understand what an impact our inevi6 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
I’ve been a gun owner since I got a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas in 1948 at age five. I still have it. My grandfather laid out all of the ways in which the use of guns required common sense. Since then I’ve served in the Marine Corps and as a police officer.
In February of 2015 I caught a burglar in my home and held him at gunpoint until a state trooper arrived. The burglar pointed a pistol at me. I had a shotgun and convinced him to6 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Imagine what would happen if the referees calling penalties in professional football were paid exorbitant salaries by only the richest teams. One thing is sure: we would deem it a sham. If the game was obviously rigged, most people would stop watching. Ironically, that’s precisely what we have today in American politics. Our elected representatives (our supposed economic referees) are being openly bribed because not enough of us are watching and so many of our citiz7 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
My fascination with Alaska began in Irving, Texas, in the 1950s, when my fourth-grade teacher read to her class every day from Jack London’s Call of the Wild. Some sixty years later, I’m now a resident of Alaska and have been for more than four decades. Perhaps it’s my fate that, as a result, I would have the opportunity to drive the legendary Alaska Highway, not once, but seven times, four of those times by myself. I never tire of the drive and always look forward7 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
The pace of change has always delineated differences among generations. As often as not, each generation longs for something they grew up without. For this reason, in my view, the not too distant future promises a rediscovery of the rewards of solitude as something that will suddenly seem astoundingly meaningful because it affords so much time for thought. With thought comes perspective, and with that comes wisdom worth passing on.
Mos7 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes “Education is a defense against culture,” said educator and critic Neil Postman. An education that doesn’t result in a lifelong desire for knowledge is an education that didn’t take. If one’s efforts cease, the battle is lost to those who use political anxiety to manipulate vulnerable people.
Consider John, the accountant, police officer, engineer, attorney, welder, electrician, or any other occupation that requires learning, skill, an7 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
A strong middle class is like a vegetable garden, requiring a rich economic environment in the same manner that a garden needs fertile soil. We do not say to seeds, “It’s all up to you. Don’t worry about the PH factor or the nitrogen or the potassium in the soil. Just do your thing, seeds.” But this is precisely the economic policy that many people advocate.
Vegetable gardens require constant care. If their soil is depleted, testing may be necessary to e7 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Harper Lee’s shocking revelation in Go Set a Watchmanoffers us an extraordinary learning opportunity. Set twenty years after the events of To Kill a Mockingbird, this second novel discloses that Atticus Finch, the saintly hero of the first book, actually harbored some of the racist views dominant in the early twentieth century. In Watchman, Jean Louise, known earlier as Scout, returns home as an adult only to have the idealized memories of her childhood destroyed b7 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
The universe is visibly menacing. Our lives were made possible only because of freakish cosmic catastrophes. Our lives are short and fraught with danger, which makes reality scary. This is why we require a significant measure of illusion in order to cope with the ruthless nature of existence.
We seldom acknowledge that escape is a crucial reason for culture, but it’s easy to demonstrate. Many small children, for example, buffer reality by adopting security bla7 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
When flipping through the cable TV channels, it’s not unusual to find a pride of African lions getting ready to feast on Cape buffalo. Sometimes we’ll see several lions take down a buffalo while the rest of the buffalo in the nearby herd appear to stand around like idiots. At other times, a second buffalo will come to the rescue of the downed and chewed up animal, followed by more and more members of the herd, until finally the lions7 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Human genetics are a roll of the dice, and nothing highlights life’s unfairness like health issues. Some people sail through life in great health while others never seem to get a break, having one illness after another until they finally succumb. Needless to say, health is a major topic of interest among seniors.
Far too much attention is paid to the economic juggernaut but false promise of products and services offering eternal youth. What we ought to focus7 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
If you were to die in the next ten minutes, are there things your surviving family members would need to know but would have no way of figuring out? Are there things that you would really want them to know? If your answer is yes, please read on.
For nearly four decades I worked in the Alaska oil industry. Most of my time was spent on the North Slope, although I worked in several other remote locations as well. All of those positions involved sharing a jo7 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
If you are getting on in years and facing the reality that time is running out, you may experience an existential alarm that rings erratically and gets increasingly louder. You breeze by the aging markers of 40, 50, 60, and then, all of a sudden, it seems you are elderly. More and more, I find instances of people being described as elderly who are years younger than I am.For some people like me, being elderly comes with an urgent call for perspective, a pressing nee8 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
If you doubt that we’re born to deny reality, you’re actually proving the point. The evidence is indisputable that we human beings have built-in reality buffers. We smoke, drink, overeat, waste resources, and engage in every possible kind of risk-taking activity, oblivious to or disregarding the likely results of our actions. At the core of our tendency to deny reality is the barefaced inevitability of our own death. Unless we are threatened wi8 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Educational philosopher Robert Hutchins championed the life of the mind, which he encouraged through the study of literature and ongoing dialog with learned peers. He called this "The Great Conversation" and published a book by that name in 1952. I credit Hutchins’ work, and particularly the Great Books series that he fostered, with motivating me to embark upon my pursuit of self-education and to continue the course of lifelong learning that I follow to th9 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
In 2011, Stephanie Coontz published A Strange Stirring, a book about the status of women at the dawn of the 1960s. Even though I lived through those times as an adult, the memories Coontz brought to mind were shocking. Fifty years since that era, gender inequality still exists, especially when it comes to employment compensation, but the fact that today many of the cultural assumptions of the ’60s seem far afield is a sign of genuine progress.
&nbs9 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Instantaneous annihilation by a massive object from space seems like a merciful death compared to losing oneself day by day, moment by moment, in the passageways of your own mind. Okay, it's not an asteroid, but what's coming is just as bad, if not worse. I'm talking, of course, about Alzheimer's disease, and for more than five million people the asteroid analogy is too late; it's already struck with a vengeance. The result is nearly $200 billion a year in medical9 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Picture a young man who’s born and raised in the post-war South, trained in the Marines, and steeped in the ideological culture of Texas law enforcement. That’s who I was in the early 1960s. Like millions of others, I had internalized the popular ideas of my geographic region, which imbued me with a xenophobic and racist worldview as the one true window on reality. I was up to my neck in mainstream indifference. It would be another decade before I embarked on the pr9 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
A radio news broadcast recently reported that we are using up natural resources at a pace that exceeds our planet's largesse by half; if we continue, by 2050, we will require three planets to cover the deficit. This was followed by a discussion about our enormous budget deficit and political gridlock. These are formidable issues, although the evidence is overwhelming that few people are paying close attention.
Albert Einstein was quick to argue that the think10 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes One of my greatest fears about aging is that of becoming lost in the corridors of my own mind. I find the threat of dementia more terrifying than heart disease or cancer. Recently the World Health Organization published a report estimating that by 2030, the number of people with some form of dementia is expected to double and reach 65.7 million worldwide; 115.4 million people by 2050. The financial burden will be so staggering as to threaten the very stability of the econ10 years ago Read more
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Blog postMr. Richard Cordray, Director
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
1500 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
(Attn: 1801 L St.)
Washington DC 20220
info@consumerfinance.gov
Dear Mr. Cordray:
Congratulations on your recent appointment to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I'm confident I speak for millions of people when I say it's about time for this kind of effort on behalf of American citizens.
I have one simple suggestion that won't cost much, but i10 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. Hayes “Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.” -- Albert Camus
Why does it matter that the past assumes greater importance for people as they age? Why does getting older seem to cause people to discount the future, diminish the importance of the present, and experience a longing to live in the past? Furthermore, will this happen to you, and if it does, what will you do about it?In seventeenth-century Europe, nos11 years ago Read more -
Blog postHere is an essay titled "Killing the Things We Love" by John F. Schumaker, who is one of the cultural critics that I admire most on this planet. I thought you might find it of interest. Best.
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/762/1/
As always your comments are appreciated.
Charles D. Hayes
KINDLE Books and EBooks on Amazon:
September University: Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life
Existential Aspirations:11 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. HayesFor decades I’ve seen a spate of new books be published, almost as if the times demand them, celebrating the rewards of aging. Then a few years later, more books emerge to refute the lot of them by focusing on the darker side of growing old. I would like to think that September University falls in the middle, although that’s for others to decide. But four recent books in the latter category come to mind and offer some insight into the realities of aging when we compare the11 years ago Read more
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Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
Described as “an eloquent meditation on the nature of hatred,” philosopher Sam Keen’s Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Hostile Imagination, published 20 years ago, should be taken down from the library shelf, reread, and republished. It doesn’t, however need to be updated; it’s as pertinent to today’s reality as it was when it first appeared in print.
Keen opens the introduction with this observation: “In the beginning we create11 years ago Read more -
Blog post© Charles D. HayesWhen I was growing up in the 1940s and 50s, vegetable gardens were ubiquitous. Indeed, victory gardens were encouraged in both world wars, and although I was too young to perceive an association with patriotism and gardening, it helps explain the enthusiasm for gardening I witnessed among adults when I was a child. I have clear memories of the custom of sharing food and of a time when neighbors would come for a visit bringing bushel baskets of fresh produce. My guess would11 years ago Read more
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Blog post© Charles D. Hayes
A few months ago, while presenting a September University workshop, I made a point of suggesting that each generation longs for something it grew up without—something that is likely to be disrespected or readily dismissed by the generation to follow. This prompted a question from a participant about today’s younger generation currently in high school and college. What are they growing up without? What will they long for and subsequently rediscover in a f12 years ago Read more -
Blog postSeptember 2010
Sept-U: Setting the Movement in Motion
© Charles D. Hayes
One thing I think most people today would agree about is that the Internet is having far-reaching effects on society, and at this point in time, it’s difficult to predict the outcomes. Radio and television required passivity. The Internet invites participation; it promotes curiosity, conversation, and conviction. Social connectivity makes ideological amplification easy, allowing like-minded people to12 years ago Read more
Titles By Charles D. Hayes
In America today, we are witnessing efforts to manufacture hysteria about race for political agendas. Use of the N-word is surging. Incidents of explicit racism have increased even as people insist that they are not racist. Black colleges and churches are experiencing bomb threats. In some states, teachers are being forbidden to teach about race and gender differences, and book banning, when it occurs, represents a societal embrace of ignorance. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream is turning into a politically orchestrated nightmare.
Explicit racial bias in America has exploded during the past decade, demonstrating a resurgence of the old-fashioned kind of racial hatred. It is time to apply science to the subject of racism and stop this partisan nonsense. The way human brains deal with differences is an open secret. Understanding how this process works is critical to enacting meaningful change. There are no clear methods for totally eliminating politicized hatred, but, contrived political animosity aside, by far the most harm still endured by minorities is due to unconscious implicit biases—biases that form in the subconscious and affect our day-to-day behavior without us even realizing it. Charles D. Hayes says we can apply recent advances in behavioral, biological, and neurological science to dramatically reduce the ubiquity of unintentional biases. We can finally reap the benefits of understanding the confusion caused by our subconscious influences.
Evolving in a Dangerous World Made Racism Inevitable: Concerned Citizens, Police Officers and Teachers Can Help Change This is Charles D. Hayes' follow-up to Blue Bias: An Ex-Cop Turned Philosopher Examines the Learning and Resolve Necessary to End Hidden Prejudice in Policing. In his latest release, he shows why the culture war over race in this country is a tragic waste of human sentiment.
If you care about this subject, the argument in this book is a gamechanger. Spend a couple of hours of reading and your perspective on race and racism will be forever changed. You will know something extremely important that tragically remains a mystery to most Americans. And then you can help put a stop to the mindless hostility.
Blue Bias is a book for police candidates, seasoned officers, police supervisors, citizens who seek a truly just society, journalists who want to understand the psychology and temperament of peace officers, and people who simply want to better understand the concept of criminal justice beyond what can be learned by watching police dramas. Consider the following:
Another day, another video of a fatal police shooting hits the internet. Outrage, grief, fear, charges of racism and police brutality follow...and the officer in question may or may not face indictment. But in the end, very little changes—vulnerable communities feel that they cannot trust the police, and peace officers struggle to perform their jobs justly in profoundly stressful environments.
Former police officer and author of numerous books and essays on the subject of self-education, Charles D. Hayes wants to fix that. In Blue Bias, he delves deeply into the question of what can go wrong in policing, for both officers and communities, and explores ways to make it right. His solution is ultimately simple: Know thyself. But to accomplish this edict requires a genuine appreciation of the complexity of human biology, and an incisive understanding of the role our subconscious plays in forming biases, and then confirming prejudices that conflict with our own sense of morality.
If you want to be a police officer or simply better understand what policing is really like, this book is an insightful attitude check. Hayes asks that you, the reader, pin an imaginary badge on your shirt, a gun on your hip and take a front row seat in his big city police academy, because as he explains, it’s the only way to understand what policing is really like and why it is a much harder and potentially more rewarding and a more stimulating job than is commonly thought.
Drawing on decades of research, Hayes introduces his readers to their own brains and the sentinel awareness of their limbic systems. He covers the effects of prolonged stress and heightened adrenaline on the emotional centers of the mind, as well as the roots of the unknown biases that lurk in the subconscious. He encourages self-awareness and a caliber of mindfulness to help police officers act thoughtfully with discretion in intense situations.
Blue Bias pulls no punches: you may find some of it difficult to read, but it is filled with the kind of information that is critical for understanding the difficulty police officers face today when they are not armed with the knowledge necessary to understand that what we are asking them to do is often at odds with their biological predilections.
No book on police work in America today would be complete without acknowledging the topic of systemic racism, especially the way this can affect potential biases officers may experience in that area. Blue Bias examines both the history of human bias and the current state of racism in America, and then provides useful ways to detect and reduce your own biases. For decades, Charles D. Hayes has been one of America’s most passionate advocates for rigorous lifelong learning. Applying his early experience as a Dallas police officer with a half century of reflection, while intensively studying behavioral science, he has identified the learning necessary to end the hidden prejudice, commonly called implicit bias, that is still prevalent, especially in many economically poor communities.
In today’s climate, Blue Bias is a desperately needed work: It calls on police officers to learn about the behavioral sciences beyond their training requirements in order to fulfill their oaths and to protect and preserve their own mental and physical health.
Casting heart-pounding suspense against thoughtful reflection, Stalking Cindy is a story of treachery, deceit, cunning, tenacity, and self-reliance. It adds new insight into the moral dilemma of whether evil exists in Nature or is merely a malignancy of man. Cindy’s shocking final discovery raises as many questions as it answers.
About the Author
Charles D. Hayes is a self-taught philosopher and one of America’s strongest voices in support of lifelong learning. Promoting the idea that education should be thought of not as something you get but as something you take, his work has been honored by the American Library Association and featured in USA Today, in the UTNE Reader, and on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation. Hayes’ September University: Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life has been described as a “must read” for anyone aspiring to a better world. His previous book, The Rapture of Maturity: A Legacy of Lifelong Learning, upholds the importance of seeking truth and serving others to achieve our full potential as human beings. Hayes spent his youth in Texas, and then served as a U.S. Marine and a police officer before embarking on a career in the oil industry. Alaska has been his home for more than 30 years.
"Truly a handbook for thriving at work in the new economy. Every worker, manager, and professional will find this manual inspiring and immensely serviceable. Hayes tells us what we must do and how to do it." -- Ronald Gross, Chair, University Seminar on Innovation, Columbia University
Product Description
Training Yourself, has been described as a career survival manual, a reality check, and as $50,000 worth of advice for under five dollars. This book is Charles D. Hayes' vital philosophy of self-education applied to the workplace. Regardless of the nature of your job, your politics, or whether you work for a nonprofit organization or the size of the business that employees you, the advice in this little book will forever change the way you think about your work.
About the Author
Charles D. Hayes is a self-taught philosopher and one of America’s strongest voices in support of lifelong learning. Promoting the idea that education should be thought of not as something you get but as something you take, his work has been honored by the American Library Association and featured in USA Today, in the UTNE Reader, and on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation. Hayes’ September University: Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life has been described as a “must read” for anyone aspiring to a better world. His previous book, The Rapture of Maturity: A Legacy of Lifelong Learning, upholds the importance of seeking truth and serving others to achieve our full potential as human beings. Hayes spent his youth in Texas, and then served as a U.S. Marine and a police officer before embarking on a career in the oil industry. Alaska has been his home for more than 30 years.
About the Author
Charles D. Hayes is a self-taught philosopher and one of America’s strongest voices in support of lifelong learning. Promoting the idea that education should be thought of not as something you get but as something you take, his work has been honored by the American Library Association and featured in USA Today, in the UTNE Reader, and on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation. Hayes’ September University: Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life has been described as a “must read” for anyone aspiring to a better world. His previous book, The Rapture of Maturity: A Legacy of Lifelong Learning, upholds the importance of seeking truth and serving others to achieve our full potential as human beings. Hayes spent his youth in Texas, and then served as a U.S. Marine and a police officer before embarking on a career in the oil industry. Alaska has been his home for more than 30 years.
September University, the book, is a call to action, a social forecast, and above all a passionate pronouncement that a bright future depends upon the experiential wisdom of aging citizens. The exploration within its pages has the potential to alter worldviews, heighten aspirations, and elicit reflections about each person s legacy. Readers have the opportunity to discover new ways to find meaning in the last few chapters of their lives.
Silver Medalist Winner in the 2010 Living Now Awards
About the Author
Charles D. Hayes is a self-taught philosopher and one of America's strongest voices in support of lifelong learning. Promoting the idea that education should be thought of not as something you get but as something you take, his work has been honored by the American Library Association and featured in USA Today, in the UTNE Reader, and on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation. Hayes' September University: Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life has been described as a "must read" for anyone aspiring to a better world. His previous book, The Rapture of Maturity: A Legacy of Lifelong Learning, upholds the importance of seeking truth and serving others to achieve our full potential as human beings. Hayes spent his youth in Texas, and then served as a U.S. Marine and a police officer before embarking on a career in the oil industry. Alaska has been his home for more than 30 years.
What really matters when your own mortality looms on the horizon? Will future generations be better off because of you? Hayes reminds us that as long as we are alive these are open questions. By continuing to examine our values, our motivations, and our common beliefs, by exploring issues beyond the superficial level of popular culture, and by teaching our grandchildren to do the same, older adults can demonstrate to younger generations that we truly have something going for us after all. The Rapture of Maturity affirms the joys of discovery and insight that accompany thoughtful reflection on our years of lived experience and a pursuit of deeper understanding. It encourages the kind of thinking that can transform human relations on a global scale. Rapture is the reward of living authentically and acting deliberately to leave the world a better place than we found it. For those who seek such a goal, this book is indispensable.
About the Author
Charles D. Hayes is a self-taught philosopher and one of America’s strongest voices in support of lifelong learning. Promoting the idea that education should be thought of not as something you get but as something you take, his work has been honored by the American Library Association and featured in USA Today, in the UTNE Reader, and on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation. Hayes’ September University: Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life has been described as a “must read” for anyone aspiring to a better world. His previous book, The Rapture of Maturity: A Legacy of Lifelong Learning, upholds the importance of seeking truth and serving others to achieve our full potential as human beings. Hayes spent his youth in Texas, and then served as a U.S. Marine and a police officer before embarking on a career in the oil industry. Alaska has been his home for more than 30 years.
In his newest book, Charles D. Hayes submits that the American Dream we've learned to champion is an insufficient aspiration for human beings. Cultural expectations create social reality. "If having must come at the expense of being," he asserts, "then you and I are missing the best part of life and our culture is the worse for it."
Reaching the top--at any cost, by the current model--has outlived its usefulness as a go! al in human society. Those who make it, remain unfulfilled. Those who don't, become marginalized and resentful. Through the power of our intellect, says Hayes, we can begin living off the interest of our biological world instead of continuing to eat away at the principle. Either we improve society through our ideas, or we perpetuate its deterioration through a lack of them.
A sophomoric sense of citizenship might reason this way: "Since I wasn't alive during slavery, I bear no responsibility for it." Certainly, it is senseless to blame ourselves for what happened before we were born, but Hayes maintains we do have a responsibility toward what is. If you and I are the beneficiaries of an unjust system stemming from the biases, prejudices, and atrocities of the past, then we have an obligation to remedy the unfairness. Beyond the American Dream points the way to rising above the lock-step patterns of our culture and assuming our rightful roles as thoughtful, responsible citizens.
In failing to truly value to individual thought and reflection, our society guarantees that an ever-increasing number of citizens will practice neither. As in his previous works, Hayes urges readers to take control of their own learning and to adopt self-directed inquiry as a lifelong priority. Education should be regarded "not as something you get," he says, "but as something you take. Self-education is the lifeblood of democracy, the key to controlling your life, and a means to living your life to its fullest."
Beyond the American Dream illustrates these ideas in practice. Offering fresh insight on the wisdom of great thinkers from Aristotle to Alan Watts, together with a tantalizing juxtaposition of ideas that can't help but foster reflection, Hayes demonstrates how the sensual pleasures of learning can be inherently more satisfying than anything posing as entertainment. He gives compelling evidence that America's greatest treasures are found, "not in our shopping malls, but in our libraries."
Certain that the greatest means we have of persuading others is to live by the example we advocate, Charles Hayes challenges each of us to re-evaluate our values and to amend our ambitions accordingly. Beyond the American Dream is a thoughtful summons to awaken from the New Age doctrines that have so engulfed our culture. It is a book about the meaning of meaning and implores us to find purpose and meaning in life by leaving the world a better place than we found it.
How can people without college degrees prove competency and overcome common barriers to job advancement and success? Don't let missing, often arbitrary, credentials hold you down: Hayes provides a program of demonstrating competence in the workplace, emphasizing basic understanding of management systems and company politics in the process of making one's worth known to the right people in an organization. An unusual, excellent approach to ensuring job security. -- Midwest Book Review
About the Author
Charles D. Hayes is a self-taught philosopher and one of America's strongest voices in support of lifelong learning. Promoting the idea that education should be thought of not as something you get but as something you take, his work has been honored by the American Library Association and featured in USA Today, in the UTNE Reader, and on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation. Hayes' September University: Summoning Passion for an Unfinished Life has been described as a "must read" for anyone aspiring to a better world. His previous book, The Rapture of Maturity: A Legacy of Lifelong Learning, upholds the importance of seeking truth and serving others to achieve our full potential as human beings. Hayes spent his youth in Texas, and then served as a U.S. Marine and a police officer before embarking on a career in the oil industry. Alaska has been his home for more than 30 years.
Product Description
Proving You're Qualified is a career book for competent people who have learned their jobs, on the job. More than 75 percent of the workers in America are without college degrees. Many are highly skilled and capable, yet they are often passed over for promotion for lack of a degree, which has nothing, whatsoever, to do with their performance. This book offers a frank discussion of educational merit and actual performance in a workplace caught in the grip of frightening change. Proving You're Qualified enables the reader to better understand the nature of power in hierarchies, to gain insight into methods for fighting credentialism, and to save time and money by utilizing alternate methods of adult continuing education.
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