As a sculptor, one of my favorite lessons to teach when I offered short, introductory courses on design was on physical connection types as I loved (and needed) the opportunity to zero in on how important it is to think intentionally about concepts of constraint and translation, particularly when designing for movement.

It’s so easy to skip over connection considerations when thinking only about the appearance or static performance of a sculpted system, but when it is required to move – or, more accurately, to respond to movement – these are of principal concern. And I think the concept is relevant to the ways in which our system of governance was – and was not – designed to relate to the journalism sector given that, at the time, the American stock market sector did not yet exist.

Given that its merger with Wall Street has resulted in seismic shifts in the American media establishment’s effect on national governance, it feels essential to ask whether such movement has changed the shape of the intended design of our constitutional system dramatically enough to warrant reconsideration, especially as modes of engagement have transformed to account for amplitude, rather then directionality, of sentiment.

I have written about the topic at length before but feel it worth repeating that, just as high ratings are not an indication of any sort of desirable popularity (these often only imply mass curiosity over some spectacle), although there does seem to have been a degree of balance imposed along the left-wing/right-wing political opinion continuum among establishment media broadcasts, this does not mean the racket of corporate news profiteering via investment in problems rather than solutions has been addressed satisfactorily. And, just because the system as a whole may not have shifted laterally, it has arguably been stretched and dragged downward the more that the secretive investment firms that back them have betted on the corporate news sector’s ability to hold and direct citizens’ attention.

There has been so much discussion of so-called “wokeness” over the past several years as a procrastinatory proxy for what I continue to believe is another debate that remains to be had over the advisability of prevailing journalism funding mechanisms. And, especially as so many people – including kids – have seemed to react by feeling drawn to identify in increasingly unprecedented ways, especially where gender is concerned, I wonder whether getting to the underlying question as soon as possible could help reduce tensions.

When I was a child, extremely – and even unhealthily – thin supermodel physiques were very popular and arguably affected the self-images of too many girls who felt their only way to communicate with the world, and actually be noticed, was to comply with an unnatural standard. Constrained to a continuum defined by body identity and physical appearance alone like a platform on wheels, these girls’ answer was not to seek attention at any one of this unkind setup’s extremes, but, through challenging it, to elevate their self-concepts to focus on another dimension entirely: each individual’s inward wholeness and the ways this is expressed.

Today, while I continue to support people whose sense of identity is fuller than physical appearance alone may imply (I love when boys who wish to feel welcomed to creatively express their emotions and when girls who wish to feel supported in pursuing science and sport), I question whether a surge in young people who claim to identify with another gender identity may say something about a more general feeling of voicelessness and invisibility. (I once thought that the reason people had begun to become vocal on these issues was out of a felt need to encourage empathy and had not before really even pondered the possibility so many people in such a situation would seek actual physical surgeries or to compete in other-gender sports categories.) And as more of these individuals’ stories are broadcast, I further wonder whether, as was the case in addressing the objectification of young women overly focused on their bodies during the supermodel era, one component of the answer will simply be to celebrate and appreciate what is beautiful about this new generation’s inner lives even more than we do already. While I recognize doing so is by no means a novel concept, the phenomenon they are exhibiting is, and I wonder whether our ability as a world to appreciate one another as more than bodies is being hindered largely by a ratings-based based journalism sector.

One of the great advances of the past several years, of course, as been the elevation of social justice as a dimension of virtually all public affairs dialogues. But even this sometimes feels too constrained by the involvement of news media corporations because, as they have become adept at putting forward only stories that support their business models, contributions from the women’s movement based on direct experience in such organizations have been suppressed.

I felt encouraged this morning as I pondered how widespread sentiments are today that there remain improvements to be made to a system of governance arguably largely now led by a Wall Street unaccountable to any sort of journalism sector while I approached the running trails behind a man striding joyfully in a pair of text-embroidered “this meeting is bullshit” socks.

And I feel newly encouraged – again – to ask: what solutions could be found as we as a nation acknowledge what has happened to our communications infrastructure, re-examine the connection between the stock market sector and news, and allow translation upward along the vertical axis again?