Piece Comment

Review of How Can Humans Get Along


"It's not differences that divide us, it's our judgments about each other that do" is a quote by Margaret Wheatley which is used as the thesis statement for Dolna Smithback's piece about peace. She uses tape from a New Mexico Peaceworks Conference to illustrate her point that people can get along. The majority of the piece uses a light-hearted anecdote from a speech given at the conference that tells a story of trying to communicate with fruit flies. The story is told by Ocean Robbins (a peace activist since age 7), the point of his story is that if he can communicate with fruit flies there's no reason that humans can't communicate with each other.
The piece is a little choppy in the flow; especially when it moves away from the point to ask what some of the conference members want to do to change the world. Despite that, the overall point gets through that humans need to get along. This peace would be good for a show about communication or peace.