The Past
The Washington Ethical Society has a proud 75+ year history of focusing on our community now, our society now, and our work now for a better future. That is the focus of our love, concern, and energy.
Yet we know that we can learn from what has gone before. Arguably, you can’t understand the present without knowing how we got here. After 75 years, a lot gets forgotten – can’t help that. And a lot gets lost to digital decay, to that great /dev/null in the sky if you are a geek. This section will be the area to which you can turn for information recovered from past WES web sites and other digital sources. Members can use it to nominate and submit material that they want preserved. And, preservation will work if other members download and maintain backup storage of the contents.
You can find the available artifacts by clicking on any of the topics below:
WES Classics Cellar – The Classics Cellar is a curated collection of platform talks digitized from audio cassette tapes that were made during the 1980’s through mid 2000’s. The purpose of the collection is the preservation of the viewpoints and insights that were typical of the time. Some of these recordings give timeless observations about Ethical Culture and society.
FAQ 2004 – Earlier versions of the WES web site had an FAQ section that is more extensive than the current FAQ section. Here you can see a version from 2004 captured by the Wayback Machine. It is believed these FAQ are derived from the 1993 book “Creating Ethical Community” by WES Senior Leader Don Montagna.
Relationship Building
Eliciting the Best
The Ethy Kett Column –
The Washington Ethical Society’s emphasis on community meant that, for a while, WES taught an interactive, participatory courses on building relationships with family, friends and community. The primary courses were called “Relationship Building” and “Eliciting the Best.” This archive has some of the teaching material from the courses as well as a collection of questions and answers written for a regularly appearing column in the Monthly Newsletter called “Ethy Kett”.