Democracy
Understanding democracy
What is freedom?
What are the elements of democracy (in politics, culture, economy and morality)?
What kind of culture and ethics is necessary for democracy?

Industrial democracy: Limitations on actual freedom
How does the industrial system impact democracy?
Do we have 'economic democracy'?
What is the nature of our actual freedom?

Alternatives: Revitalizing democracy
Earth democracy, Radical democracy, and Advanced democracy
Political reform: Elections, public forums, citizen committees, etc.
Strengthening civil society and reclaiming the commons

Industrial Society
Understanding industrial society
What are the organizing principles of contemporary society?
Ethics of the modern world
Institutions of industrial society
Advantages and disadvantages
Alternatives: Community
How does industrial society destroy community?
What is spiritual community?
Wendell Berry's view of traditional community: Locality, understanding, and care.
Alternatives: The Commons
The creative, political, physical, natural and moral commons
What is the ‘common good?’
What invades the commons?

Economics and globalization
Materialism and real wealth
What is the 'gospel of grab'? What purpose does it have and what needs does it satisfy?
How can we judge what wealth is? (John Ruskin)
How does industrial society produce a mechanical, sterile way of life?
How is it possible to go beyond the utilitarian, trivial, egotistical self?

Industrial economics: Globalization and 'Corporation nation'
How are we impacted by and dependent on corporations?
Do we have a free market? In what ways is it not free?
How are corporations subsidized and protected?
Should corporations have the same limits and responsibilities that human beings have?

Industrial economics: Poor countries
Do the poor benefit from globalization?
What is our complicity and responsibility for economic abuses?
What is the effect of development aid on the poor?

Alternatives: Local, living economies
What sort of economy would be responsible to the holiness of life?" (Wendell Berry)
Aspects of 'living economies': Local, human-scale, stakeholder-owned, life-serving, democratic, just, safe, healthy.
Practical steps to form these networks and reclaim our economy.
Fair trade and local currencies.

Cities
Understanding cities: Visions of the city
What are the functions of a city? Democracy, business, beauty, diversity, adventure.
How does our city help us (or hinder us) to develop our full capacities?
What makes a city 'livable'?

Our cities
How does the modern city affect or determine our identity?
What are the primary functions of contemporary cities? Who benefits? Who and what suffers?
What is so attractive about the 'suburban sprawl' model?
Why are modern cities and buildings so dull and ugly?

Industrial cities: Cars, parking, sprawl
What is the effect of the automobile on the quality of life?
What are the actual multiple effects of cars on our choices?

Alternatives: Public spaces
What is a public space? What is a private space?
What are the multiple functions of public spaces (for example, in relationships, democracy, and culture)?
Why are public spaces are being replaced by private ones?

Technology
Understanding technology: Its nature and meaning
What is the proper role of technology?
What are the qualities of machines, and what are the qualities of life?
How can technology serve the whole human being, helping develop the full range of our capacities, for autonomy choice, emotion, creativity, and consciousness?

Industrial technology: The Internet and information
What is the ‘dark side’ and the ‘bright side’ of the Internet?
What is its revolutionary importance?
What is its impact on democracy and global culture?
How does it impact culture, morality and spiritual consciousness?

Focus on the genetic engineering of food
What are the advantages of GMO food?
What are its potential (and actual) dangers?
Do consumers have a choice? Should they?
Is it inevitable? Should this technology be developed?

Alternatives: Democratic and appropriate technology
Possibilities for improving our attitudes toward and choices about technology
Appropriate technology
Democratic technology: Creating popular forums for the evaluation of new technolgies

Challenge
The primary impact of technology is mechanization and collectivization. What can we do about this?

Other institutions of Industrial Society (see Volunteer: Help Create Classes)
Media
Food
Legal System
Criminal Justice System
Architecture
Health Care
Education
Military