No, it's not a sign of the coming apocalypse. But the organizers of the 5th Annual Earth Charter Communities Summit, to be held Saturday (Oct. 8) in Tampa, have invited the lead researcher of an honest-to-goodness conservative family-values study as one of their speakers.
Earth Charter, whose Earth Charter Communities USA initiative is run out of Tampa resident Jan Roberts' Bayshore living room, strives to create a caring, just, sustainable and peaceful world via an international grassroots movement. One libertarian commentator called the movement "socialist" in these very pages, so the fact that they'd include a right-leaning viewpoint in the summit is at the least unexpected.
This year's program is designed to "cross the chasm that appears to exist between liberals and conservatives," Roberts said.
Kathleen Kovner-Kline, a child psychiatrist affiliated with Dartmouth Medical School, was the lead researcher on "Hardwired to Connect: The Case for Authoritative Communities," a 2003 study into why childhood and adolescent mental health problems are increasing. A panel of 32 researchers — including physicians, scholars and neuroscientists — found that children are biochemically wired to need connection with others, especially what it called "authoritative communities," such as civic, educational, recreational, business, cultural and religious organizations.
The report defined those authoritative communities as social institutions that include children and youth, are warm and nurturing, set clear boundaries and limits, are multi-generational, and encourage spiritual and religious development.
But in today's modern world, the report concluded, those groups are weakening and becoming disconnected from children, leading to serious risks of anxiety, mental illness or addiction.
"The infrastructure of the community has changed," Kovner-Kline told a Dartmouth publication when the report was released. "People don't even get together for dinner parties like they used to."
The study was used by pro-family conservatives as evidence that government should support such authoritative social groups, either secular or religious. But Roberts, too, sees merit in the study, even suggesting that the goals of Earth Charter are compatible with the findings.
Other speakers at the summit include David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World, and John Holton, who directed Harvard's neighborhood study that found when neighbors look out for each other's children, those kids are less involved in crime and perform better in school.
See Freebie, p. 5, for Earth Charter details. Earth Charter Pinellas's summit is the same day, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Oct. 8, at USF-St. Pete's Campus Activity Center, with different programming.
This article appears in Oct 5-11, 2005.