Merle -
Thanks for offering this up. My own maunderings about "what is in
human nature" having me trust that we are still *mostly* the animals who
gathered in groups of order Dunbar number (150?) who *mostly* loved one
another and treated one another with respect and generosity (up to a
myriad quirks of personality and a shared fate).
On the other hand, while members of said community/group/tribe/pack/herd
might extend some of that goodwill toward others they recognized as
same/thePeople, they had good reason to be less generous/trusting toward
others who were not so familiar, who spoke unrecognizeable languages,
whose skin/hair/eye color or features were significantly different. I
think these are very real evolutionarily adaptive roots of what we see
as Xenophobia today.
I don't describe this as a way of trying to normalize racist/ethnic
bigotry, but rather to acknowledge that it has some instinctual roots
that focus the "hateful/fearful teachings" that become institutionalized
in subcultures and perhaps entire cultures. And it is this wholesale
adoption by a group which ends up not only teaching, but maintaining the
fear (and therefore hate?).
I know your work is IN "peacebuilding". Does your model include an
acceptance of these somewhat instinctual responses to "the Other" ?
I was very pleased to see the speech by Heather's mother today which I
thought held a very positive message in what must be a very tragic
moment for her.
- Steve
On 8/16/17 4:16 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
Obama's tweet about the events in Charlottesville got the most "likes"
of any tweet in twitter history. It is a quote from Nelson Mandela:
"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his
skin or his background or his religion … People must learn to hate,
and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love … For love
comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite,”
On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 12:50 PM, Steven A Smith <sasm...@swcp.com
<mailto:sasm...@swcp.com>> wrote:
Marcus/Eric -
Great observations, both. I think this cuts to (part of) the
heart of the matter.
I just recently watched "Glass Castle" (current run at Violet
Crown) with Woody Harrelson playing the role of a fairly
intelligent (his daughter, the memoirist characterizes him as
brilliant) but highly dysfunctional father of 4 who himself has
(mostly/almost) escaped the small Appalachian coal-mining town he
was raised in by an acutely abusive mother and an
apathetic/dysfunctional father and greater community. The family
lives a vagabond life with Harrelson's character (Rex) leading
them on an alternatingly merry and curiosity-driven chase through
skipping out on bill collectors and trying to find the "next big
opportunity" and "escape the forces out to repress us!". It is
(IMO) a great story of a nearly effective attempt (by the parents)
to escape/transcend their own dysfunctional roots and the mostly
effective experience of the children escaping their own (passed
down a generation) from that half-functional platform.
I also picked up (at a "tiny library" in a neighborhood) a copy JD
Vance's "Hillbilly Legacy", a memoir written by a 31 year old
Harvard educated lawyer, now living happily (and presumably
functionally) in San Francisco with his wife and child(ren?), but
still quite attached emotionally/romantically to his own roots in
Appalachia (a small KY coal mining town) and the Rustbelt
(Middletown OH, aka MiddleTucky) where all of his family and most
of his childhood friends still live and vote for and continue to
support Trump.
The common thread is the abject hopelessness that surrounded the
people locked into those environments by circumstance, including
lack of perspective to "just leave". Vance credits his
Grandparents who raised him most of his life for having had enough
perspective to shield him from the worst of that and to
encourage/help him "just leave". His chronicle (I also listened
to an NPR book interview when it came out maybe a year ago)
includes feeling that he had "done everything in his power to
waste his life up until about 18 years old" and looking at his
cohort and family, might use the term "but for the grace of God,
there go I".
My Pollyanna (a fairly significant player in my personal Pantheon
of Personalities which helps me cope with the kinds of Cosmic
Ennui and Existential Angst that comes with trying to be a
thinking/caring person in these hyper-connected, seemingly chaotic
times) has me looking for a "bright side" of all of this.
I particularly want to call out the following quote from Marcus:
/A healthy society is one where individuals can mature to the
point they can begin to doubt the meaning in their own
anxiety (whether by themselves, with their shrink or their
spiritual authority) and make it to the next day. /
and offer a rewording (my words are _underlined_) or expansion:
"/whether with themselves, their shrink, their spiritual
authority,/ _or their community of emergently self-enlightened
people_"
and
"/and make it /_beyond_/the next day/ _and into a new era of
contagious enlightened self-interest_"
I hope that if we can ever get through this acutely dark/inverted
time that we can follow some of the example of Nelson Mandela in
his perspective and leadership out of the centuries long
oppression of his people that was most recently exhibited as
Apartheid. Obviously that moment was only a partial antidote, as
too many of the original problems linger or arise again. But I
*think* it was a better solution than to the similarly
genocidal/punative response many of his people were calling for
when the descendents of their Colonial Overlords finally fell.
I heard recently a quote from Barbara Boxer as she left the
political stage after many decades:
"No victory is final"
This underscores why we are dealing with the rise of
white-supremacy/nazi/confederate/kkk, gender oppression, and many
other battles presumed to have been won. This moment (in most
places) is nothing like the conditions of the antebellum South,
nor the era of Nazi/Fascist power in Europe, but there are clearly
strong echoes. Such things *might* be suppressed temporarily by
force, but ultimately those kinds of behaviours/activities
dissipate through healing and enlightenment much more than
regulation/punishment/suppression.
my $.02,
- Steve
On 8/16/17 9:10 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
Eric writes:
< It is not so far from Nietzche’s notion that “God is dead”
creates a problem for people, and they will face a fork in the
road in how they try to deal with it. >
Yeah, it is probably nothing new that is happening nor a new
interpretation. Institutions of various kinds can give
individuals a role to play and guidelines for conduct, but a
highly interconnected population with a complex economy will
stress these institutions and reveal their limitations.
Meanwhile, only exceptional and delusional individuals can really
make a convincing case (esp. to themselves) about their unique
value either coupled-to or uncoupled-from from institutions.
However, I fear the stakes are pretty high now -- the contagion
of people going bonkers could be fast with social media. A
healthy society is one where individuals can mature to the point
they can begin to doubt the meaning in their own anxiety (whether
by themselves, with their shrink or their spiritual authority)
and make it to the next day.
Marcus
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com>
<mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com> on behalf of Eric Smith
<desm...@santafe.edu> <mailto:desm...@santafe.edu>
*Sent:* Wednesday, August 16, 2017 6:56:23 AM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] the Skeptical Meme
> Their desperation and rage just comes from a feeling that they
can't confront, that they just don't have much to offer.
>
> Marcus
Reading this, I feel like you could found a new generation of
something that is like existentialist philosophy but equally-well
political theory.
It is not so far from Nietzche’s notion that “God is dead”
creates a problem for people, and they will face a fork in the
road in how they try to deal with it. Maybe even, considering
the currents running through European and particularly German
society at the time he was writing (and that he specifically
wrote about), driven by concerns based on similar observations.
It strikes me that this is an available point of view for almost
any person. Granted, the distribution of rewards and
frustrations differs from person to person and also from region
to region, and that matters. But the black box (black hole?) of
how minds form characters and orientations in response to streams
of these things draws from an immense and to me-obscure range of
inputs.
Makes me wonder,
Eric
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--
Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D. President, Center for Emergent Diplomacy
emergentdiplomacy.org <http://emergentdiplomacy.org>
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
Visiting Professor in Integrative Peacebuilding
Saint Paul University
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
merlelefk...@gmail.com <mailto:merlelef...@gmail.com> mobile: (303)
859-5609 skype: merle.lelfkoff2
twitter: @Merle_Lefkoff
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