arachne-digest wrote:
>>I think that some cure for problems of today's world would be _real
>>economical and political globalisation_ - which would mean anyone would
>>be allowed to travel and _work_ anywhere, anyone would be able to elect
>>representatives to "parliament of United Nations", anyone would be
>>punishable for crimes against humanity, like killing other people, the
>>crimes against humanity would be investigated and judged equaly never
>>mind if they happen in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo or New York.
>>
>
> You were making quite a bit of sense up to this point. <g>
> The above is a good description of the CAUSE of today's problems.
I am talking about different globalization. West world is exporting
computers, software, culture, investitions, etc. But it is not importing
anything but raw materials (and maybe computers from Taiwan, but this is
different story...). What I am talking about is totaly unimaginable,
because it would turn streets of American and West European (and even
Central Europen) cities into streets looking like Delhi or Varanasi -
with all beggars, rishaws, poor people. I know it sounds terrible - but
all these people *are* people, they are not animals, and they should
have right to move anywhere on the planet, and to seek cooperation with
other human beings in their struggle for survival.
We won't do anything about starving people unless we see them on our
backyard - and even then, we won't do much. But if we allowed only those
willing to work to work for some time, they would make money, and than
perhaps they would return to their home countries, given chance to live
in peace and spend they money (like I did when I returned to Prague) and
perhaps learn local people the good things about western culture. And
maybe we would learn good things about their culture from them, who knows.
But at the same time, it's clear why rich countries are refusing to do
that. It is of course uneployment, and generaly fear, that if all
unqualified work is being done by refugees from poor countries, western
population would become comparable decadent, as citizens of late Roman
Empire. But this is already happening! Many people believe, that hard
and dull work is being done by machines and automation in factories, but
I got deep feeling, that all of us are at least partly fed and dressed
by poor people working hard in poor, or from poor countries. At least in
my country it is becoming visible - we have illegal Ukrainian workers,
often illegal, digging holes on streets and building houses,
semi-illegal Vietnameese markets selling cheap clothes made in
Vietnamese factories, etc. For Ukrainian and Vietnamese people, we are
the rich west they dream about. Living in my country gives you strange
point of view, when you are low-income visitor from developing country,
when you travel to the west, why at the same time you are from
relatively rich contry, and part of Western culture and civilization,
when you travel east.
The problem is, that we already have global economy and gobal market for
products, but not global culture, global citizenships, global human
rights, global freedom of movement, globar market of labour, etc. Global
economy only concantrates power of already powerful countries. But it is
not only economical domination, but also relatively innocent help - West
gave many poor countries its medical know-how, but you cannot prolong
life of people without changing their lifestyle and destroying their
habbits. You cannot have still 10 children if your reduce death rate of
small children. It is very simple math. If you get western child care,
you have to move (and you WILL naturaly move) to western-style families
with 1, 2 or 3 children. You get lot of free time, and of course, Islam
is problem, because it was invented for society, which makes absolute
borderline between safe home, where all housewifes with children are
"stored", and wild world outside home, where men struggle for survival,
do business, etc. This concept is widely incompatible with Western
civilization, which considers it's entire territory to be "safe home",
kind of shared by smaller families, and therefore women are not feeling
need (or they are not forced to) to spent most of their lives in households.
But maybe more psychicaly normal visitors from Islamic contries than
terrorists are, see structures in our society, which they consider as
ill, as we consider to be some structures in their society. First of
all, West should be very careful about (even economicaly) supporting any
regime anywhere, which is not compatible with the very basic principles
of any human society anywhere - and this is what is often being done,
because many dictatorships are "ecnonomicaly compatible" with Western
society, but their concept of government is totaly wrong, and when local
people see West supporting such governments, they must logicaly start to
hate West...
> While *I* agree it seems a good idea, those whose development is
> arrested at a point in time some 1400 yrs ago violently disagree.
The situation is complicated. I visited many western countries, I was
even offered to work there, and I returned home simply because I was
unable to change my lifestyle - although I always considered myself to
live relatively alone and isolated, I am deeplly connected to Prague
cultural infrastructure - pubs, cinemas, theatres, clubs, bookshops,
even ordinary shops, because I only seldom eat in restaurants, etc. And
of course friends to meet with. Although I don't use this infrastructure
very often, and spend all my time online, I am simply addicted to
Prague, and only need to escape war, totalitarian government or let's
say starvation or natural disaster would force me to move from where my
roots are.
But many people in developing world (and even in my own coutry) dream
about working in western countries, and they risk they lives to do so.
> Let us consider some REALLY subversive ideas. How about trying to
> understand the operation of the human mind well enough to damp the
> feedback loop it imposes on itself when fed the right combination
> of events and messages.
Well, this is what drugs do.... Anytime you try some psychoactive
substance, which doesn't have roots in your culture, you are closer to
understanding "where the problem is", but your are also less capable to
doing anything about it... (eg. drinking beer in Czech culture or
smoking marihuana being born in Himalaya doesn't learn you anything new,
but vice versa it can lead to certain level of understading of foreign
culture...of course, it only mild understanding compared to people who
moved from their countries and married abroad..)
> I'm quite serious. I don't understand how I came to believe the things
> I do. I like to tell myself that it is because I'm not dumb enough to
> believe certain other things. But that isn't correct. I know of people
> smarter than I that believe some pretty dumb things. But 'dumb' is
> always defined in the reference framework of each individual and how
> this framework comes into being is what I want to know.
Welcome to postmodern world, Clarence ;-) Or maybe you should welcome me
where you already are for years, who knows.... I haven't figured what to
do with that, except that I will try to talk and communicate, instead of
fighting and improving in fighting. But words are still tools of
manipulation - I can manipulate people in my culture to work for me,
instead of myself working for them, using words. This is very
complicated issue...
> Not the easy answer: "It's how you were brought up".
> The real answer. "I was at assembly in grade 9 and my friend didn't
> follow the 'programmed' sequence during the prayer, so I didn't."
Hmm... I spent my childhood in ateist regime. Their "social programming"
was quite stupid, and it was conflicting with what I was learnt at
home, by my parents. It is not like in Poland or Slovakia, where
Catholic church was strong even during communist era: we are almost
totaly faithless nation. I think our moral standards are relatvely low
when it comes to property, hard work, corruption, etc., on the other
hand, we among nations who hate agression and killing... maybe because
we don't really have any commonly accepted concept of life after death ?
What would you expect from nation, which was first in Europe to fight
for right to translate Bible from Latin to our native language ? ;-)
> What does that mean ? I discovered there was another way and I can't
> go back ? That's the self-serving "I'm smarter now" theory.
> Maybe it would have been EXACTLY the same if my friend was the only
> one that DID respond to the prayer in the desired manner. If I had
> accompanied him on THAT path, would I say I was "smarter" now ?
>
> Probably.
> But now I just think that being a social animal is very dangerous.
>
> Regardless which of the above happened to change my life, does
> anyone think there is anything short of sleep deprivation, hypnosis,
> torture or death that could be applied to make me change my mind ?
>
> At the moment I'm absolutely sure there isn't. :(
> And if there is, I'm absolutely sure I don't want to go there.
> It looks pretty hopeless to me right now.
Well, the problem are not social animals themselves, problems are with
certain patterns of behaviour.
I have travelled many countries, although almost always only as tourist.
I believe what I see myself, rather then what I see on TV.
I have never seen people really killing other people. The only time
in my life, when really dangerous weapon was pointed at me (I am not
counting that I was shot by pneumatic gun when I was child, by my
friend; but this doesn't count) was in Georgia, USA, near Atlanta. I
came from west coast, and thought that sleeping in car is ok; well, the
policewoman seemed to be pretty nervous about it). No one pointed any
weapon on me when I visited Indian part of Kashmir. Of course, situation
would be probably very different, if I visited some really hardcore
Islamic country, I know only borders of of this civilization, like
pre-war Bosnia, parts of Turkey, and parts of India. This world is very
different, but I believe there must be some way to communicate, to
influence each other.
I think people can "exchange experience", or "share experience", somehow,
and that it is better than than fighting and killing each other; but I
am no longer so optimistic about any media being able to provide this
"experience exchange", including Internet. You need to touch the people
in crowded buses or airports, to smell them, to eat the same food as
they do, to try to communicate with them directly (India was very good
playground for that, as English is 2nd language for those people, as
well as for me...), and you will find that people are more or less the
same everywhere, that the hierarchical structures that enforce agression
sit on top of the nation. The problem is, that such structures always
re-build themselves from nothing, when you remove them.
--
Michael "xChaos" Polak
+420 603 872631 / +420 2 33355668 / ICQ# 40434104
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