I would argue that walking that line between pride
and acknowledgement of heritage vs. bragging and prejudice is a tough
road. It is often difficult to tell the difference and thus the idea
of "patronizing." I would also argue that the
term conventional is the least toxic of the names to
label historical accomplishments and the style. I would further
argue that to take the step that the "conventional" is superior is to miss the
boat. The Germans thought that conventional German culture
was superior and they created horror. The English and Spanish
speakers did the same here in the Western Hemisphere. In both
cases it made thieves of them all and demeaned the best in their conventional
heritage. There is always a battle in every tradition between
the positive and the toxic.
I believe that to "find the way" to simply let the
past be the past and accept the truth no matter where the cards fall and to rise
above the conventional is to become human and to represent your own
group and conventions well.
Before we proceed I will explain that I will use
CAPS as a way of emphasizing a word as important to me and a heightened
inflection. I do not mean that you don't understand or need to be
shouted at. This medium only has loud or soft and everything soft
means nothing has inflections so I'm using the device of CAPS to mean some
special look at the word that would be understood if spoken.
For me, the problem is always to know which I'm
talking to, a "convention" or a "person." KNOWING the
PERSON is important but very difficult in this situation or in any literary
situation whether internet, media or books. e.g. when I say Swiss
or the English, I am talking to convention and not to a
person because I feel that the conventional is usually old, out of date and
destructive in the present. I feel the same way about old art.
A common mistake in the performing arts is to
believe that the performance of the convention or musical score IS the
PERSON. This is especially a problem for performers for
adolescents. That mis-understanding is the fertile ground of mob
psychology inherent in the R & R concerts as well as attrocities like
stalkers stalking people who are performing the convention of sex and violence
in their art. We make a big distinction between where the convention
or stage platform begins and ends in our lives just to remain sane.
But let me return to the "convention" of culture or cultural
systems.
If I am referring to the best in that
convention then I consider the PERSON to be rising out of the convention
and using it like the foundation to a beautiful, well thought out
"house" of the conversation. That makes it possible for
me to enjoy and appreciate the past and the conventional as I do Beethoven,
Schubert, Verdi etc. If the house is too different and the
furniture doesn't fit my definitions then I must return to the
foundation to get a context in order to have a dialogue.
That conversation, in myself, takes me out of my
own house and helps me increase my knowledge of the world.
But PERSONS aren't houses, they are dynamic and possess the possibility of
dialogue and change. Unlike Beethoven who is now a
"house" Ned Rorem is alive and a PERSON to me from
a convention. It was the great piano pedagogist Francis Clark
who taught me that to play with her discoveries while she was alive was a
conversation, a dialogue. But to manipulate her work as
representitive of her after she was dead was theft. My father tried
to teach that to me but he couldn't so he let her do it.
Often our fathers can't teach us about the
conventional because they are our fathers and we must leave them in order to
find our own way back. That knowledge is difficult and lost if we
don't return or if they die first. But that is another thought
more for the social sciences and not so much for character study.
I struggle to know each of you in this inadaquate
medium, while knowing that it is impossible, and that I can only truly know the
results of all STYLES, i.e. conventions in the world.
Such is the fertile ground of misunderstandings, arguments and
wars.
I would argue that what is truly important is to
always assert the PERSONAL and to stress experience alive in the present through
the life of a real person. Only then can we dialogue around whether
past personal experience is efficient for a current problem or
question. Only then am I comfortable speaking the big Generalities
or Mega-thoughts. In my past, such thoughts detached
from PERSON in the present were always used as political acts for cultural
gain.
In the past I've taken the Swiss and the English
conventions to task on this list and most recently the
Texans. Texas PERSONS I do know since I have such a close
connection. For anyone who believes that Bush is representitive they
should be forced to read a years worth of Molly Ivens. She is an old
fashioned Texan who knows the convention and IS it. Bush is an
upper crust New England immigrant to Texas who acts like most immigrants in
their affects. (I think the real Texans should have put him in his
place but the dark side of Texas is using him.)
Without the conventional we have no base
for our identity nor any context to understand differences.
But to relate solely from the conventional is mis-termed "stereotype" (a
printing term). I would simply call it an ignorant,
stupid, limited and beneath any human being (Person) action. On the
other hand if someone represents their convention i.e. their ancestors, poorly
by using them as a bush to hide in, then it is OK to insult the
ancestors. Doing so often gets the PERSON's attention and you might
even get a real dialogue going.
One last point. Sometimes people
thinking conventionally use the "hiding bushes" as a rhetorical devise
for avoiding the other person's arguments. I was taught that in
debate and it was considered a cynical sarcastic device to be used sparingly
because it grows old quickly. The cure I've found for that is
personal experience that allows the other person, IN THE PRESENT, to have had
their own different experiences.
Also you can take a person aside and talk off list
and say anything that you believe and as long as they understand it
as a personal effort to get beyond themselves and not an attack.
When that happens a genuine progress and even closeness is possible.
An example of how difficult this can be is how the
tools of psycho-analysis have been integrated into American and Canadian thought
due to the multiplicity of cultures (conventions) that we confront all
using the same English language but meaning widely different things.
The Old World of Europe is still pretty homogeneous culturally although they
have had immigration with the break-up of the empires.
In my understanding from afar, with the breakup of
the Empires and the resulting Empirial immigration into places like France
(Moslem) Holland (Sarinamese) and England (India and
Pakistanis) environments have become a lot more like the "New
World." As a result Psycho-analytic strategies are much more
popular today in Europe than they were a generation
ago. Strategies for conversation and understanding that
were between nations in the past are now the next door
neighbors. The English seem to be going through the same types
of culture shock and struggle that I had leaving my Indian family and going to
University in an all European American city. Freud cross cultural
strategies got me through University with a magnificent Cherokee elder who
understood both places. The Arts also helped as I learned about the
realtivity of music and conventional cultural styles. That is
one of the glories of New York City if you are an artist or have an artistic
personality. The relativity of styles translates comfortably to the
relativity of cultures and in New York you have a different culture every block
with the Pakistani cab drivers taking you in between.
For those of us who have lived in such a
diverse cultural experience the idea of breaking up nations is absurd while for
those whose cultures are being assaulted it seems the world is coming to an
end. Every nation and culture has its own genius and history and
complexities that are unique and no nation has solved the problems of
humanity. We are all still a work in progress from the context of our
conventions.
I believe all of these conversations are
basically conversations with our own individual selves. The
"external" is a world that we can't possibly know and so it is basically an
internal journey with the external helping break down our conventions and
putting us into the present.
When I was in training to be
a Gestalt therapist we were taught a device where we role
played the things we believed the other person was thinking, while the other
person watched. As we had that observed conversation with
ourselves we exposed all of our assumptions about the other person TO that
PERSON. He or she in return would do the same exercise,
(Gestalt calls it "experiment") and so many of the underlieing assumptions
would be exposed. The conventional plus the projected beliefs
would be made more clear and we could approach a problem for the sake of
the problem itself. In respect to my own convention I must
say that Fritz Perls who used this "experiment" technique in
Gestalt borrowed it from the Ojibwa in Canada and adapted it through
his own Jewish Freudian convention into a psycho-analytic tool. My
father used the device all my life and he never knew any Gestalt folks.
So what does all of this mean for an internet
list? I'm not sure. The written word is so bare and has
so many directions that convention can take it that it almost seems useless for
real dialogue. In order to break through the convention you almost
have to "stay on theme" for so long that you seem like a parrot. If
you do so, you are discounted personally but, like American football, the ball
gets through. It all depends upon whether the purpose of
the conversation is a game or some sort of proscelytizing
purpose. If, on the other hand, the purpose is
exploration then the path will be different. Exploring the devices
by which a genuine conversation can be held and opinions developed and changed
within all of the discussants is crucial.
It might begin with a simple "what I read you
saying is this...................is that what you mean?"
Ray Evans Harrell
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christoph Reuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 9:41
AM
Subject: [Futurework] Re: This sceptred compost
heap
> > However, during the dogwalk -- and I hope you don't think I'm being
> > patronising here -- I think our society is more complex than yours because
> > we have so many layers of history.
>
> Dogwalk? Turd way.
> Dog eat dog? Third Way.
>
> Britain's Third Way certainly belongs on the compost heap of history.
> So does imperialism. But you already noticed the fallout, it seems:
>
>
> > and now we're the furthest advanced in showing that
> > [public services] are breaking down
>
> Yes, leading by negative example...
>
>
> > We are
> > the third/fourth largest exporting country in the world -- not of products
> > (we're mined out of almost everything we ever had by way of resources), but
> > of a variety of services.
>
> Aren't arms products ? Britain is the fourth largest arms exporting country
> in the world. Plus, throughout its colonist history, Britain has planted
> [does this count as "services"?] the seeds of most conflicts still plaguing
> the world today (Israel, Iraq/Kuwait, Kashmir, various in Africa, etc.etc.),
> so the "demand" for its weapons exports is still alive and kickin'...
> And if exporting arms and seeds of wars is not enough, Britain even exports
> phony "evidence" (such as the "45 minutes" claim on Saddam) to serve as
> "justification" for war.
>
> Talking about innovation: The world's first computer was built in Germany
> in 1941 (Konrad Zuse's Z3) and then bombed by the allies. How much
> innovation did Britain destroy (or prevent in the first place) in other
> countries, only to boast with own "innovations" later?
>
>
> > However, I believe that many of the trends
> > and problems here in England that I am writing about will come to you, too,
> > in due course -- because we are much further on in what I believe to be the
> > decline of the industrial revolution.
>
> The question is, why isn't Britain leading in the successor of the industrial
> revolution, e.g. open-source software ? (Linux comes from Finland and
> open source is flourishing most in Germany.) Now THAT would be something
> to be proud of, instead of "leading" the world down the rat-race to the
> bottom.
>
> Chris
>
>
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