The old kneejerk reaction is always to claim the superiority of your position and to declare war on some enemy to organize your population, cut down on the work force in battle and destroy old infrastructure by blowing it up. New organizations make old economic arguments irrelevant through chaos and overwhelming power and small groups get exterminated as viruses. Been there done that.
Here's an URL. http://wn.com/The_Serenity_Prayer at the site go to the right hand column and check number 8. REH PS for fifty years I've taught people with wonderful instruments and negative mindsets to make a decent living mostly in religious music, commercial entertainment, opera and teaching. Some of them who sing every week have come to me for a lesson every week up until retirement. Their mindset needed to be circumvented once a week and to adjust to their changing bodies. In some cases they hated their voice but sacrificed their feelings for the success that the technically developed virtuosity brought them. Identity is a complicated thing. Especially National identities as we've seen on these lists. Excessive negativity and a lack of personal generosity is a killer for anyone who performs on stage. Also, they have to feel secure about their product although they often feel as if it is a beast just waiting to pounce and that the teacher keeps them at bay, warms them up and adjusts to the perils of singing on such a dainty instrument as the vocal chords. That generosity of spirit necessary for a generous performance filled with charisma and power is often at odds with the real danger of critics and others who try to cut back fees and competitors who will literally sabotage a performance with a whiff of an allergic perfume, etc. At the end, there is often a pride and a relief. Finally they can eat and drink what they want. But the interesting thing is how the negativity and conservatism of the beginner student emerges again at the end to make them bitter and convinced that their original ideas were correct. As Keith would probably say, their education subverted their epigenes and kept them at bay but never really changed them. I often thought that was what Jesus meant when he spoke about the need for a "new birth" for the privileged. The biggest nightmare for me personally is if they then begin teaching and teach that first year of paranoia to the next thirteen years of poor students who must bear up to get a degree that costs twice as much as the teacher's education with me. They didn't teach what I taught them but what they brought and would have failed with if they had tried it. The question is whether I should have let them fail and maybe have no career. Would they have been better people? Along that parallel pattern I've wondered that about FDR and America in the depression. Whether it would have been better for economics if America had continued to play out that classical economic argument that we still hear especially today. REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2010 9:35 PM To: [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: [Futurework] Economic Pain in the Euro Zone Aggravates Old Continental Tensions - NYTimes.com http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/business/global/29euro.html?nl=afternoonup date <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/business/global/29euro.html?nl=afternoonu pdate&emc=aua22> &emc=aua22
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