“The Paradox of Persuasion: Motivating Americans to Sacrifice Present Consumption for the Future” by Ty Jones

“The Paradox of Persuasion: Motivating Americans to Sacrifice Present Consumption for the Future” will be presented by Ty Jones at the Sunday, January 19, 2025, meeting of the Ethical Humanist Society of Asheville, 2:30 – 4:00 pm at 227 Edgewood Rd, Asheville, NC. This will be a hybrid meeting, in-person and also available for interactive conversation by Zoom. All are welcome to attend.

Join Ty as he explores why the “Environmental Movement” mostly failed to motivate people to change their consumption behaviors. He will review some dark episodes in the nation’s history (Native American relocations, slavery’s profitability, numbing responses to today’s school shootings) as informative to today’s failures, that is, knowing something is morally wrong won’t likely change behaviors around the convenience of consumption, profit and loss, or national policy. He will consider how “what about expertise” and “weaponized politics” can also undermine well-intended motivations to reform ourselves.

Ty Jones [the Rev. Deacon John Tyler Jones] was born (1951) and raised on a farm in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains north of Pittsburgh, PA. He earned a BA in history (John Carroll University) and MBA (Gannon University). He was an industrial electrician, a technical writer, a communications manager and an IT manager for manufacturing and software companies and tech start-ups. From 2003-6 he attended Virginia [Episcopal] Seminary (Master of Theological Studies) with his wife, who became an ordained priest (died, 2023). Ty was ordained a deacon at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC in 2012, one of the first ever “permanent deacons” to be honored that way.

Ty and his wife retired to Asheville in 2016. He assisted at the Cathedral of All Souls and at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit in Mars Hill. He especially enjoys learning about archeological finds, indigenous cultures, and the history of early America.