I seldom quote this extensively. But this is worth sharing. It perfectly epitomizes the difference between ‘me’ and ‘us’. Specially in a ‘democratic’ environment. Specially when we try to figure out what’s gonna happen to us ‘going forward’…
From where I’m standing, there’s a fine difference between doing something – planning for it, even – just because ‘that’s how we do things over here’ and performing the very same thing as the consequence of a genuinely free decision making process.
”Remember the old adage, ‘Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me’. True courage consists in doing what is right, despite the jeers and sneers of our companions.” The Christian Recorder, 1862
However fleetingly, words do scare! Otherwise, why bother?!?
And since I really doubt that enough of you will follow the link and read the entire article, here’s another interesting thing.
Which means that back in 1862 there were enough black people interested in reading. Enough to constitute an audience for a periodical! A periodical which dealt in words…
Some people are convinced that all they have to do is to follow the rules. Other people are convinced that freedom – their freedom, in particular – is the most important thing.
Apparently, these two convictions are incompatible.
Which is not true.
Those convinced that following the rules is the only way to ‘get there’ – wherever that might be – forget one thing. Two things, actually… That no journey starts until the traveler makes the first step. And decides where they want to go… Those convinced that freedom is the only important thing forget one thing. One thing only. That whenever the traveler breaks a rule… there will be consequences!
The fact of the matter being that freedom is a human achievement. Achieved during the long journey towards the future. Achieved as a consequence of the process through which we have learned about rules.
‘Rules’ is our definition of ‘possible’. Defines a space where things can happen. As long as the pertinent rules are being observed, of course.
At first glance, flying is possible. For birds… After learning the pertinent rules – and mastering certain skills – we have learned to fly. But we can continue to fly for only as long as we keep observing the pertinent rules!
At first glance, walking a rope strung between Manhattan’s Twin Towers was impossible. Not for Philippe Petit. He had the skills and he was crazy enough. He even didn’t ask for permission… Click on the picture and read ‘all about it’. My point being that he remained alive because he had observed the laws of physics. All of them! And because the human laws he had trespassed didn’t involve the capital punishment…
I believe you already understand what I want to convey. Have a nice week-end.
China, on the other hand…. Am I wrong or Trump’s tariffs have been used by the Chinese leaders as an opportunity to position themselves as ‘champions of the free world’? Free from Trump’s version of America…
In nature, change happens. It is produced by chance. According to rules but only when chance starts it. No one plans it, if you leave God out of the picture. And, evolutionary wise, change ‘remains’ if it doesn’t bother too much. If the individual things/organisms affected by change are able to survive. Please note that if ‘dramatic’ enough, change may ‘alter’ everything. A star changes constantly but at some point it will become a nova. Or even a supernova. Which event will change everything around it…
In a social setting, things are a tad more complicated. Change, social change, is initiated. By individuals. Not necessarily according to a plan and almost always ignoring the end results. But it is always initiated by somebody. And is allowed to stay. Or not… By those experiencing the consequences. According to what they make of it. Again, even in the social setting there are rules. Just as in nature. But while the natural rules are enforced by nature itself, the social rules need to be enforced. By people. By those who end up experiencing the consequences of the afore mentioned rules being enforced properly. Or not…
What am I babbling about?
You’re not comfortable with a bragging pussy-grabber signing presidential orders in the Oval Office? How comfortable were you when Clinton got away with “I did not have sexual relations with that woman!“ You’re not comfortable when ‘US national-security leaders’ establish a private group on a social network to share sensitive data? How comfortable were you when a Secretary of State had established a private e-mail server to handle official messages? And got away with it…
I was arguing in the previous post that we think using images stored in our memory. While we are convinced that we deal with real ‘objects’… ‘Hammers’ versus ‘nails’…
As you should have already noticed, Abraham Maslow had said more or less the same thing sometimes in the first half of the previous century… Well, he was a ‘clinical’ psychologist while I’m nothing more than an engineer. He was interested in how our mind works, I’m interested in the consequences of how our minds work. If you understand what I mean…
‘And what about the pretext you used for today’s post?’
Free market capitalism is nothing but an environment. Man made, for sure, but also ‘natural’. As in ‘evolved’ to the present state as opposed to ‘designed’ in the present state. Free market capitalism doesn’t do/cause anything. People toiling in this environment do whatever happens here.
Gravity doesn’t cause any falls.
Gravity pulls us, all of us, towards the center of the Earth. Regardless. Of us walking sober in the middle of the town versus skating ‘under the influence’ on a thin iced lake in the middle of nowhere.
Recent developments have helped me to understand something. And no, not the fact that there are more worlds out there. One happy about what’s going on, one horrified and a few rather indifferent.
Trump being elected for a second term as President of the United States hasn’t changed much in the real world. Not yet, anyway. What it had changed, dramatically, was our image of the world. Of the US, in particular, but also of the world as a whole.
This development has helped me to understand that we don’t deal in realities. We don’t consider things, make decisions, by examining the things themselves. No!
We consider things by examining the images we have in our minds.
We look at things and we get a ‘set of data’. A virtual image. We recollect from our memory whatever other information we have on the subject. Another image. We put two and two together. And we reach a conclusion. Most of the time ignoring the fact that we’ve been dealing with images instead of the real thing.
Until we are forced to acknowledge that our image was incomplete. Inaccurate… Or that, simply, we’ve chosen to see what was more comfortable for us!
By 1917 it seemed to Lenin that the war would never end and that the prospect of revolution was rapidly receding. But in the week of March 8–15, the starving, freezing, war-weary workers and soldiers of Petrograd (until 1914, St. Petersburg) succeeded in deposing the Tsar. Lenin and his closest lieutenants hastened home after the German authorities agreed to permit their passage through Germany to neutral Sweden. Berlin hoped that the return of anti-war Socialists to Russia would undermine the Russian war effort.
Do you remember the story about the early American Colonists “gifting of blankets and linens contaminated with smallpox” to the native inhabitants of the place? It worked, to a degree, because the natives had no prior experience with the disease. Their immune systems had no prior experience with this pathogen. Which had been construed as an opportunity by those who had cooked up the plan, even though – in those times – nobody had any idea about ‘immunity’.
Lenin was also effective towards pulling the Czarist Empire out of WWI. Do we really care whether he was aware of the fact that he had been used as a 5-th column by Kaiser Wilhelm II’s strategists?
nicichiarasa 