When I was in the Army it was very helpful to have the dubious older
folks around my naive patriotism. It took two enlistments but I finally
saw the immorality of the Vietnam war and the folk who used reason to oppress
minorities. I provide at my own cost the same lesson for those close
to my representitives. If it is tough for them then they
can come out here in my world and give up retirement and medical benefits
and not have to deal with SOBs like myself. I am the bear.
You're thinking in dualities. I'm thinking in a time cycle.
One side is finishing while the other is learning the same lessons in a
new cycle and context. Both have the responsibility to
balance the circle by being either 1. the enlightenment of the child's
learning, or 2. the warlike drive to deconstruct their rote knowledge and
reconstruct it in a masterful skill or 3. being an absolute artist virtuoso
at their job and finallly 4. An old hand filled with reflection and awareness
of the meaning of it all. I'm a teacher in one of my
jobs and that is the learning cycle that fills all professions including
the government.
Stalemates happen when there are agendas that have nothing to do with
the task unless both sides are ignorant and complexity is too high in their
brains.
Perhaps that is the outside agenda, the accrual of power rather than
the power of accomplishment. I'm really quite serious in proposing that
many people currently feel that they are in the process of losing something
vital and beyond recovery. The problem would seem to be that they're
not really clear on what it is, or how to go about defending it. Art
begins when you become a master virtuoso at your craft. That involves
giving up that vague dream of vitality to the task of struggling with your
own potential and creativity. Where business and science diminishes
and simplifies, Art flowers and complicates for the sake of development
and growth. There is a great deal to accomplish
out here. Come on in the water's fine.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, September 29, 2000 1:32
PM
Subject: Re: Price or policy?
Come on guys, you're missing the fun of politics. It is as
much fun, to call the local campaign headquarters, threaten them (to get
their attention) and then point out their lies, half-truths and demagogery,
as typing on the internet. You should get off the net
for a few minutes and use the phone. Don't go for the top, go for
the little guy, or girl and try to stir them up. Make them doubt
their prejudices and work to change the candidates from the ground up.
As for bureaucrats, times change. The constant up and down of
government and private sectors is creative and information that made sense
in one context becomes out of date in another, although the underlying
systems tend to be reborn in new linguistic contexts.
I've found that many on this list don't speak the language of the Fine
Arts when applied to economics or politics. Both Ed and
Keith have had, at times, difficulty understanding my musical bureaucrateeze,
when I spoke in my profession's tongue, but that doesn't mean that
our thought is not complimentary.
Keith believes new music is dead while I believe that it is simply an
issue of complexity just like the learning curve in the information age.
I know some very complicated world class composers who feel about e-mail
the same way Keith does about modern music. But I support Keith's
and their efforts and pleasure in the art and literary tools that
they enjoy. On the other hand I believe that being able to do it
with ease and expressivity makes initial negative reactions disappear
just as in a new language. I believe the same is true
with the rebirth of a governmental cycle. The Secret Service
used to complain about every new President and probably still does.
Their cycles were out of sync and that made for a patronizing attitude,
towards the most powerful elected man in the world, from some pretty
prejudiced senior workers who should have known better.
Presidential enemies used such personal complaints in the Monica
caper but they should have heard what the Secret Service individuals had
to say about their new Presidents.
So I guess you could say that I don't think that the local government
worker is dying off or decaying, but changing and eventually
rediscovering old truths, just as the elder or ex government workers
did on their early shift.
What the rest of the world needs, IMHO is something like the AARP because
the youth in their boundless energy and extravagant belief in their rightness,
would cut off everybody else as non-productive and irrelevant. We
need to protect them in their ignorance, because they are the future,
and to protect our benefits because we know more than they do and deserve
a future for what we have and will contribute from our experience.
America has always been a country built on avoidance of responsibility
and often downright genocide with new immigrants diffusing the immorality
with their struggle with English and desire to walk the Yellow Brick Road.
Hence "English Only" movements (on the right) and protect the immigrant
flow at all costs on the left.
Both Right and Left balance each other and retain a lack of culture
and a destruction of community values through physical change and
the necessity of constant economic growth. The status quo is
maintained and everyone escapes jail for their crimes, except for minorities.
To blame this on privitization is wrong IMHO as much as to blame socialism
for communism's poor destribution systems. America "exists"
based on both sides being healthy and holding each other at bay.
When that collapses America will either give up its addiction to victimhood
and mature or disappear.
REH
Edward R Weick wrote:
A few comments on Keith Hudson's comments:
> I refer to Ed Weick's contribution of 19:58 27/09/00 -0400:
>
> In a way, yes. I would not dispense with politicians because they
are
> necessary. By "they" I mean the civil service. Far more intelligent
and
> far better politicians than the those we vote for, they are the real
> power-holders in the modern nation-state. They are well-nigh invisible
and
> unaccountable, yet they are the people who actually carry out the
policies.
Keith is onto something here, though I'm not quite sure of what it is.
As a
one time bureaucrat, I would agree that there is tremendous power lodged
in
the bureaucracy, power to promote, power to distort and power to thwart.
At
one time, as a young civil servant, I used to think of the bureaucracy
as
something rather evil - as something which took good ideas from both
the top
and the bottom and so muffled and twisted them that what finally came
out
was anything but what was intended. I'm much older now, though
perhaps not
much wiser, and now see the bureaucracy as something that takes wild
ideas
from both the top and the bottom and filters them into something balanced
and sensible. Aging does wonderful things!
> The state (civil service) cannot be relied upon to lay out all the
> information to the public. Nor do I see the public, en masse, as
somehow
> able to produce the answers, particularly on complex issues. What
we need
> are specialist forums that are open to the public, so that all those
> individuals who wish to take part in policy discussion and formulation
can
> do so. Mind you, they would have to prove their commitment by attending
> meetings and by being able to argue their case.
I have at times gone back to the Canadian federal department I worked
with
just before I retired (well over a decade ago now) as a consultant.
Initially the experience was positive, but then it became less and
less so.
The department has been "downsized" and many of the things it once
did have
been moved out or are simply no longer done. Many of the people
who really
knew the issues and who could provide sensible policy advice that the
politicians and public could then consider are long gone and have not
been
replaced. Friends who worked with other departments tell me the
same thing
has happened there. What this suggests is a bureaucracy of declining
competence and a growing inability to deal with significant public
issues.
I do hope that this is not the case, but I fear it is.
> I think we see two signs of this happening in the advanced countries
--
one
> of them a very strong sign. This is the growth of single-issue
pressure
> groups and societies. The other (in the UK, anyway) is the relatively
> recent introduction of House of Commons Select Committees. These
are
> specialist committees and meet and cross-examine experts in their
own
> field. There are also the American Congress Committees, but I don;t
know
> much about them. The problem with the UK Select Committees is that
MPs who
> are specialists do not have the right to join the Select Committee
of
their
> choice. They are selected by the Whips, and the Whips are in
the service
> of the Prime Minister. So they are not always as objective as they
might
be.
>
> I see these two signs, one from the bottom and one from the top as
being
> glimpses of the sort of direct democaracy of the future. However,
even if
I
> am right, they will take generations to develop to the extent that
they
> need to.
I'm a little more cynical than you are, Keith. I see a weakening
of public
power, and a growing concentration of power in private hands, and not
only
in private hands, but in the hands of very large agglomerations which
are
able to operate entirely out of self-interest beyond the rules and
boundaries of nation states. What I fear is that democracy will
become a
sham in the sense that people will continue to go to the polls, will
continue to mark their ballots, but that very little will happen because
of
it. Less and less will happen and fewer and fewer people will
go to the
polls. As you point out below, this is already happening in the
US.
With less and less public power, and less and less meaning in democracy
as
now institutionalized, people will feel they have little recourse but
to
take to the streets, as they have already done in Seattle, Washington
and
most recently Prague. I don't agree with their tactics, but I
recognize
they are doing it out of a sense of something ominous on the horizon.
> But, really, the present political system has had its day. Fewer and
fewer
> people are turning out to vote. This particularly applies to younger
> people. The latest survey in America shows that only 61% of
people aged
> between 18 and 24 have not bothered to register to vote, and 83%
didn't
> vote in the last Presidential election. This trend is seriously wrrying
> politicians in all countries. Campaigns are being linked to basketball
> tournaments in America. In the UK, compulsory Political Education
will be
> on the syllabus in schools in 2003. (Of course, that will make politicas
> even more unpopular!)
I rather hope that your last sentence (in parenthesis) does not turn
out to
be true, but it probably will. Much will depend on what is taught
and how
it is taught, and here I'm pessimistic. But that's for a posting
another
time.
Ed
Ed Weick
(613) 728-4630
Visit my website: http://members.eisa.com/~ec086636
