I agree completely with your assessment of Fairfield life. It is a vibrant, creative, and spiritual community. My comments were about the TMO, not life in Fairfield. I have worked on campus twice in two different capacities. I taught tenth grade boys for two years. The boys were great. Most of them are still good friends ten years later. But the administration and some (though by no means all) colleagues were---well, cult members. Later, as I said in another post, I was called as a consultant when the ESL department couldn't get Chinese grad students in computer science competent in English. Again, my experience was that the atmosphere was repressive---not on the part of the people who'd called me in, but the administrators involved acted like cult members. I want to emphasize again that this is not true of many faculty members I have met. But I have also met many good teachers who left the university because of the kind of cult-like repression I've observed.
dhamiltony2k5 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > curtisdeltablues <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >wrote: > > > As for the fascist vibe of the TMO, I stand by it. It's > unmistakable here in Fairfield, which is crawling with bliss >Nazis. > > > You are on the ground in Fairfield, so you should know. But this >is > not what I have heard from friends who have visited recently. > Although there is a group think consensus on some beliefs >like "nature > support", I heard that Fairfield supports free thinking. At least > outside the inner core or as it is known, the Raja's realm. Aren't > there many different styles of thinking within a basically >spiritual > framework there? > Great Question Curtis, i would observe that people are here mostly because in core they are 'transcendentalists', in the highest American tradition of that. That is probably what people feel in core most as they are part of the larger whole 'meditating' community here. Most people would say they are or came here as meditators in that sense, but most would also say now that they are not 'that' up there on campus as the Raja thing would project it now. This German Raja on stage will only re-enforce this. FF is a big active spiritual practice meditating community outside of campus here. Things are quite vital here and there is much spiritual practice work going on. It is quite a special and unique place to live. There are many active veneers of diversity with a core of transcendentalism in the middle of it. It is very free-thinking and American. -Doug in FF > Personally I might have trouble with a constant undercurrent of > spirituality assumptions. I live among recent immigrants because I > love the stimulation of few intellectually shared assumptions. So >why > put up with those Winters if the intellectual climate isn't working > for you? > --- In [email protected], Angela Mailander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I wasn't describing the totality of Fairfield. It does support all kinds of thinking and all kinds of wonderful craziness. But there is definitely a fascist vibe to the inner core of the org. We've got town Rus and Campus Rus. I sometimes refer to them as house niggers and field niggers. And there are plenty of ex Rus and seekers from other traditions as well. The raja costumes are part of the inner core. Y'all are prolly all used to the fascist vibe looking exclusively like Darth Veder, but Germans remember something more varied than that. There was a large "New Age" component to German fascism, which started out as stupidly insipid as those rajas are, and then got increasingly dark. There were dudes in ridiculous robes running around in Germany under Hitler. They didn't wear the same style of crowns but preferred wreaths made of oak leaves, sometimes gilded. a > > > > > > authfriend <jstein@> wrote: --- In > [email protected], Angela Mailander > > > > <mailander111@> wrote: > > > > > > The audience reacted negatively because to them, the > > > rhetoric of the TMO sounds just like Hitler style > > > fascism. It's not just the word "invincibility." > > > It's the whole vibe of the thing. a > > > > No, they were fine with Lynch, and he was using the > > same rhetoric, just not that particular word. They > > quieted right down when Lynch took over the podium > > again; they were willing to hear what he had to say. > > > > They were reacting negatively to the *raja's* vibe; > > who wouldn't? (Not because his vibe is "fascist," but > > because he's a pompous ass.) But that reaction didn't > > extend to Lynch even after the raja had blown it. > > > > I thought Lynch did a good job straightening out > > the misunderstanding. At least the audience seems > > to have realized the way they took it originally > > wasn't the way it was meant. > > > > What puzzles me is, the TMO has been using the word > > "invincibility" for many years. You'd think *somebody* > > in the German TMO would have pointed out the problem > > with the German term by now. It's like advocating > > "states' rights" or "Jim Crow" to an audience of > > African-Americans (only worse). Why didn't the raja > > dude know that, if he's German himself? > > > > > Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
