Dear All,
I am feeling obliged to comment by Liz (thank you, Liz) and add my two
pence worth. Liz Cantrell wrote:
> > it scares me when on a daily basis I see people trying to 'make safe'.
>
> > Our risk filled world is becoming more so, in part as the unintended
> > consequences of our attempts to reduce risk [car accidents involving
> > 'safer' vehicles driven therefore at higher speeds, is one example]
>
> It seems to me that the ways in which people try to make the world safe
> are also very much ways in which they attempt to avoid personal
> responsibility.
SNIP
> Make my neighborhood safe, get rid of the criminals, then I will not have
> to worry about where these criminals are coming from, or why they turn to
> crime.
>
> The safety we seem to desire gives us the opportunity to be lazy,
> unwatchful, thoughtless. Someone else is to blame, and we should have
> been protected. We can blame everyone but ourselves can't we. People
> seem to be unaware that making something safe and 'fixing' it are not the
> same thing. Arresting drug users will not get rid of drugs, and getting
> rid of video games will not erase the pain and rage of young boys. Not
> long ago someone mentioned the film Mindwalk, which touches on the issue
> of how ineffective these bandaid fixes are.
>
> We are sticking our finger in a dam that has already broken, and the river
> rushes past us. We see only the little trickle spraying us in the face,
> not the deluge that rushes around our ankles. It's true we cannot make
> the world safe, because it is not, it never has been. If the world was
> safe, would we not stagnate? Wouldn't the lack of necessity be the death
> of invention? I think I have seen to much of the complacency of man to
> believe that we would create and learn for the sake of knowledge and
> invention. The percentage of the population that thinks that way is too
> small to keep the entire world moving alone. We already stagnate to much
> as a result of all our safety, I think we can ill afford more protection.
>
BIG SNIP
Just WHO are the criminals and why? What does complacency do?
Not sure how to explain, but something wells up in me, because when we
discuss these things, what I see before me is a poor village in Nepal. I
see people who don't have enough to eat during the year, who ALL live
below the poverty line. I see, this year, a SECOND year in a row of a bad
harvest due to weather (rain that came early and then no rain for almost 5
weeks). I see people working their guts out and getting very little in
return. These people are MY people, their hunger is MY hunger. They KNOW
they will go hungry in April-May-June time. What will they feed their
children? Yet what can they do? They have no disposable income, they are
illiterate, they have little hope.
BUT, there is some hope. They are not as grey and unhappy as most people
I see in my day-to-day life here in Europe. They know how to BE-BECOME
and how to enjoy the art of happiness. What is their hope? It is
education. It is education for their children and some of the work they
do together to improve their lives BY THEMSELVES. Yes, they will probably
still go hungry in the spring, but they live more, are more part of their
becoming, than we are. Tell me, who is the one living in poverty?
I am not advocating that we should all go and invest money or time in
charities; that is up to each individual. I am asking people to think -
to really think - about what we are as a part of the greater whole of
humanity. How much we have to be thankful for, what legacy we wish to
leave behind.... and yes, what - if anything - we can do for the vast
majority of humankind who do not have our priviliged lives. And most
importantly, to think about what we can learn from them - for I have
learned far more from these 'simple' village people, than they have ever
learned from me.
I hope this makes sense, this seems to be one of those days when the
language does not come easily to me.
Best Regards
Tricia Lustig
LASA Development UK Ltd.
--Tricia Lustig <Tricia@lasa.demon.co.uk>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>