Archives for posts with tag: Collective identity

Have you considered ‘being friends with your neighbors to such a degree that you may count on their help’ as being part of an adequate preparation for what ever we may have to confront in the future?

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This is the second time I came across with this video.
While some of the arguments presented ‘inside’ are valid I beg to disagree with its conclusion.

Here are some valid arguments for rejecting that conclusion but I’m afraid they don’t get the gist of it.

America is number one, and has been for quite a while, because she is able not only to weather such soul searching controversy as depicted in this video without falling apart as a nation but also to draw a lot of energy from it.

For self centered foreigners and also for disgruntled Americans such bickering might seem a sign of divisiveness and frailty, but in reality this is how America keeps herself on her toes in absence of credible menace from outside. Well, sometimes she was so successful in scaring herself up that she started such hapless wars as the ones against drugs and poverty but this is another topic.

But when push comes to shove she is able to pull herself together. Hitler, the communist leaders of the USSR and bin-Laden are only a few of those who have mistaken lack of unanimity with lack of strength. They are all history now and haven’t arrived there using the recommended venue…

Being able to adapt to whatever comes to cross your path demands being able to think with your own head and original thinkers are renown for sometimes acting boisterously but that doesn’t mean they cannot team up to cross that treacherous mountain!

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M-a intrebat cineva ce cred despre articolul asta:

“Nouă personalităţi răspund pe ce se întemeiază credinţa lor: De ce cred în Dumnezeu”

Dupa ce am citit (doar) “Omul fara rost” am raspuns repezit:

“Icoana de pe peretele clasei nu este un indemn catre narcomanie sau orice altceva (din ‘clasa’ celor evocate de Dan C. Mihailescu) ci este unul catre conformism.

Si exact asta este motivul pentru care am intrat, cu totii, in criza in care suntem de vreo 50-60 de ani: am ascultat prea tare de altii si am imprumutat prea disciplinati modelele care ne-au fost propuse.
E adevarat ca dezvoltarea la care a ajuns spatiul cultural din care facem parte (cel ‘vest european’) are foarte mult de a face cu faptul ca am fost crestini numai ca noi oamenii am dat nastere crestinismului nu invers.
Cu alte cuvinte noi am dezvoltat crestinismul, noi l-am creat pe Dumnezeu (tocmai pentru ca avem credinta – “Nu M-ai cauta daca nu M-ai fi gasit!”) si nu invers.
Distanta care a aparut acum intre oameni si Dumnezeu nu se datoreaza faptului ca Dumnezeu ar fi facut ceva rau (nici nu poate, el este insasi ‘firea’ – tot ce exista – asa ca daca ar face ceva rau ar fi ca si cum si-ar trage un glont in picior.) Se datoreaza faptului ca unii smecheri incearca sa profite de credinta oamenilor. Prea mult preoti catolici isi bat joc de copii. Ortodocsii construiesc prea multe biserici monumentale si prea putine azile de batrani. Prea multi protestanti se straduie sa invete pe unii cum sa-i urasca pe altii (legile anti-homosexuali din Uganda se pare ca sunt opera unor evanghelisti americani) in loc sa-i indemne sa depaseasca diferentele dintre ei. Prea multe ulemale indeamna la varianta exterioara, violenta a jihadului.
In realitate oamenii nu se indeparteaza de Dumnezeu. Se indeparteaza de chipul pe care i l-au cioplit smecherii astia si ii cauta adevarata fata, cea care se arata fiecaruia dintre noi in particular si nu atunci cand batem matanii in fata bisericii ca Iliescu sau ca Bush dupa ce s-a ‘nascut a doua oara’. Sau ca sa ma intorc la Mihailescu oamenii merg “prin păduri, pe vârfuri de munte, prin livezi, podgorii, fâneţe, ori în largul mării” tocmai pentru ca acolo gasesc o fata a lui Dumnezeu mult mai sincera decat cele zugravite prin unele ‘altare’ sau zbierate prin difuzoare de unii predicatori!”
Abia dupa aceea am citit si restul articolului. Merita. Pe mine m-au interesat mai ales cele spuse de Radu Gologan. Pe urma am mai citit odata si predica parintelui Galeriu.

“Man is hungry.
He steal bread to feed family.
Get home, find all family have gone Siberia!
“More bread for me,” man think.
But bread have worm.”

If somebody really wants to understand this “Latvian Jokes” he needs to remember that the only period of independence enjoyed by the Latvian people in its entire history until 1991 was 1918-1939 and even that short period was spent under a dictatorship.

That somebody also has to remember that jokes describe how the people who keep telling them over and over feel about a certain situation and are not necessarily an ‘accurate’ description of that situation. These jokes were ‘kept alive’ in spite of “Latvia was one of the most economically well-off and industrialized parts of the Soviet Union” exactly because the Latvian people felt oppressed by foreign rule. (Besides that the Baltic republics  were better of than the rest of the USSR in spite of the communist rule, not because of it.)

Who would have thought of something like this?

Yet someone already had and also had it approved, by the medical authorities for starters.

Actually it’s something like the chips implanted at the back of the neck of our pet dogs and cats.

In a very short while we’ll have one implanted ourselves, instead of passports/ID cards/drivers licenses. Only we’ll have it screwed tight someplace, so that it will be considered difficult to remove. And very soon afterwards some ‘surgeons’ will become so adept at ‘hacking’ that they’ll be able not only to provide you with a new identity but also to screw it inside your body, in place of the old one.

As Pink Floyd once said, “Welcome to the Machine“!

“… sitting ducks for German fighters and antiaircraft gunners. Tens of thousands of men perished in the sky over Europe. The entire United States Marine Corp didn’t suffer as many casualties in the War against Japan as did the airmen who flew bombers over Germany.”

So people can do almost unimaginable things when they think their ‘collective identity’ (way of live, common values, etc.) is in danger. If you examine this in detail you cannot fail to notice that while the Marines fought on a more or less stable/natural environment (the sea shore, mostly) the Airmen first put themselves in a very dangerous and unnatural situation – high up in the sky – and ONLY THEN started to fight one another…