Replying to LO27510 --
Dear Learners All,
Fred writes,
> I guess there is a
> "real world" out there after all.
I'll just 'cut to the quick' if I may. Personally I long for the day when
I can perceive that a great deal;-) rather than the (I suspect) zero posts
to this LO come from both 'unreal' and 'real' people working on factory
assembly lines, supervisors, nurses, foremen, firemen, ....what again in
short terms we call in the UK ordinary 'white' and 'blue collar' workers.
Though I do understand that some 20 million American's for example are
busy working seventy hours plus a week to pay the mortgage and their
medical and educational fees...so they, I suppose, have little 'spare
time' to play in the two worlds LO or otherwise 'real' and 'unreal'? I
often get a powerful sense of people being 'excluded' when all the talk is
of 'inclusion'. I think it has a lot to do with people cutting the world
up into 'real' and 'unreal', 'civilized' and 'uncivilized', 'military' and
'civilian', 'us' and 'them'. What At de lange calls the 'excluded
middle'. Here is some information to process about the 'military'
'civilian' equation when it comes to crunch time. Since the first world
war the ratio of civilian deaths to military deaths in conflicts around
the world has gone from a ratio of nine to one soldier to civilian to one
to nine. The recent and most devastating assymetry of the 9/11 tragedy
takes this statistic further. The military mobilises itself around an
enemy. This is perhaps precisely what Abraham Lincoln knew and foresaw.
The new axis of world destruction is asymmetrical to an even larger degree
and what I see for what it's worth is that the 'civilians' may soon be
treated to the same mental indoctrination's common to most 'killing
outfits' elite and otherwise. Indeed, I think I already heard that
'knocking on the door'. At that unknowable, immeasurable point you might
find there is a very real 'enemy' in your posited 'real world ' 'out
there' and the real tragedy is, it's inside you and me.
Love,
Andrew Campbell
Oxford
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