Dear At, you wrote
> The plundering of poor countries in the name of global commerce has taken
> epidemic proportions by amounting to trillions of dollars. Do the
> constitutions of your advance countries forbid it? Do your democratic
> elected governments avoid it?
>
> >And if so, please remind At's contribution
> >on this issue - try to formulate the rules, laws,
> >and regulations in a positive way.
>
> I am sorry that I had been so negative about what is happening here in
> Africa, but we cannot call a spade by any other name as a spade. Once we
> know what is destructive, we can begin to plan constructively. Perhaps
> there are some fellow learners who want to make positive suggestions here.
Edmund Burke wrote that, Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact
proportion to their disposition to put moral claims upon their appetites.
I heard a story today, maybe it can be made to fit better later.
The day after 9/11 an American named Joe ******* went down to his
solicitors office to change his will. He changed it to the effect that his
entire fortune of one million dollars was to be left to the people of the
city of New York and that the cheque would be written to the mayor
himself. No-one knew about this 'change of will;-) until he passed away in
october, just a few weeks after his metanoia. A local journalist
researched his background;-). He was a Polish immigrant in the fifties and
he had for a while been in one of the Gulags of eastern Europe. He had
arrived in New York where he settled at first, and he worked under the
shadow of the Statue of Liberty for a while, which filled him with great
joy. Later he moved inland away from the city. Joe had no family. It
happened that all his life he had saved his wages. One wonders why a man
like that would save a million dollars when he had, effectively no family
to leave it to. Joe was a carpenter.
The American Jeff Gates writes that "This nation [America] was born in
prophecy, the product of a gnawing hunger of a people in pursuit of goals
far more than a steadily rising standard of living." in a beautiful
passage called, The Hunger for Human Happiness he spins some golden
threads of yearning and learning. There is a sense of inner impoverishment
that he senses, and I sense it here in the Uk too. He calls for some
effort toward the possibility of transferring attention and energy from
the material to the non material side of life...sensing that when the
setting (background) is right " the work of being fully human emerges
spontaneously as humanity harmonizes with itself and its surroundings." He
says, that is when we see a Renaissance or an Enlightenment. He sees
beauty in the emergence of the information technology into the fostering
of a universal connectivity never seen before. He, like others, sees the
tipping point we stand on, the sliping-sliding of institutions and
boundaries. He sees, like Joe maybe did from the cell of his Gulag, " --
an enormous company of allies (-; a larger population of creative people,
who are the carriers of more positive ideas, values, and trends than any
previous Renaissance period has ever seen. And they can probably be
mobilised to act altruistically on behalf of our future." He sees a need
to invent new stories among ourselves about what makes us unique, to
transform by inventing new ways of seeing ourselves. "The creation of a
new perspective requires new symbols, new imagery and new pictures in the
mind." I have always admired Mary Parker Follet's notion of liquid
leadership and the leader-follower relationship...Gates says that there is
a generosity that animates democracy that cannot be forced; it moves
through us ( like Lincoln saw a great good force move over his land during
the time of civil war)..."- when we feel deeply connected to others and
when we allow ourselves to be conscious that a sense of shared destiny
rises in us as compassion and moves through as as grace.
I recall last year sometime when some people wanted to force changes on
the list, and you called Rick Karash our host and moderator, "the good
doctor"...and that is apt for what follows...a little reading of old Mr.
Plato
TWO CATEGORIES OF DOCTORS
ATHENIAN.- So should the legislator whom we appoint skip any such
announcement at the beginning of his laws? Is he to say without ceremony
what one should and should not do, and simply threaten the penalty for
disobedience before passing on to the next law, without adding to his
statutes a single word of encouragement or persuasion? it's just the same
with doctors, you know, when we're ill: one follows one method of
treatment, one another. Let's recall the two methods, so that we can make
the same request of the legislator that a child might make of its doctor,
to treat him as gently as possible. You want an example? Well, we usually
speak, I think, of doctors and doctors' assistants, but of course we call
the latter 'doctors' too.
CLEINIAS: Certainly.
A T H E N I A N: And these 'doctors' (who may be free men or slaves) pick
up the skill empirically, by watching and obeying their masters; they've
no systematic knowledge such as the free doctors have learned for
themselves and pass on to their pupils. You'd agree in putting 'doctors'
into these two categories ?
CLEINIAS: Of Course.
ATHIENIAN: Now here's another thing you notice. A state's invalids include
not only free men but slaves too, who are almost always treated by other
slaves who either rush about on flying visits or wait to be consulted in
their surgeries. This kind of doctor never gives any account of the
particular illness of the individual slave, or is prepared to listen to
one; he simply prescribes what he thinks best in the light of experience,
as if he had precise knowledge, and with the self- confidence of a
dictator. Then he dashes off on his way to the next slave-patient, and so
takes off his master's shoulder, some of the work of attending the sick.
The visits of the free doctor, by contrast, are mostly concerned with
treating the illnesses of free men; his method is to construct an
empirical case-history by consulting the invalid and his friends; in this
way he himself learns something from the sick and at the same time he
gives the individual patient all the instruction he can. He gives no
prescription until he has somehow gained the invalid's consent; then,
coaxing him into continued co-operation, he tries to complete his
restoration to health. Which of the two methods do you think makes a
doctor a better healer, or a trainer more efficient? Should they use the
double method to achieve a single effect, or should the method too be
single - the less satisfactory approach that makes the invalid more
recalcitrant?
CLEINIAS: The double, sir, is much better, I think.
Well, you know if we substituted the word 'doctor' for 'consultant' or
'manager' or 'trainer' as Plato himself did;-) then one has to wonder, how
long it is going to take for us to get better enough unless some people
with proper authority (like 'proper selfishness' Handy's appropriated term
from the Greeks) take to some 'more than gentle' cajoling;-) in which
spirit I took your posting to becoming from;-)
(My dearest friend Hanchung, "crash bang wallop" is what happens when the
pent up forces of the concrete world come smashing down upon the gentle
body that is mankind.)
One of Americas best performing (sic and sick;-) energy producing
companies sank today into liquidation, in London alone 1200 jobs gone. All
the pundits praised that great 'top ten performing' ship of commerce, a
wonder of the age;-) mmmmmm. It was riddled with debt. America itself is
riddled with debt, some thirty to fifty trillion dollars of debt, she has
mortgaged her children's future. Your children will pay the price. Are we
those children?
In the summer I made an image I called Icarus. It depicts a whirlwind and
other elemental things like wind and fire. I have been painting fire and
angels for a while as you know. With the image comes some text.
"Come to the edge", he said.
They said, " we are afraid."
"Come to the edge", he said
They came.
He pushed.
He pushed them.
And they flew.
Guillaume Apollinaire.
Perhaps they were angels with new angles?
Ah! Time to clean up the studio.
Love and chimo,
Andrew
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