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Subject: [humanmarkup-comment] Thoughts on Cultural Blinders and 9/11
Hi Everyone, As I have been coaxing myself out of the realm of aesthetics and back to the world internet standards and HumanML, I have been stuck in the process of fighting myself. The truth is I would rather be painting or sculpting or writing fiction, or doing any number of things other than diving back into this work and the collateral work of learning more computer languages to create websites with or studying the latest developments in the languages I know and work with. I haven't gotten to the point where my normal love of learning new stuff for its own sake has kicked in, and I have to admit to quite a bit of woolgathering in the last few hours as I struggle to get down to work. Okay, so much for the blathering introduction. I responded to Len's next to last post in reply to my previous wimpering request for help by noting just how important what we are doing really IS...if, and I say again, IF we are to produce a standard of anything other than marginal significance. THAT means connecting up to the mechanics of web, the way it is actually working, not in the way we might prefer. And THIS is what I mean by getting down into the trenches, for those who attended our last telecon meeting. And I will, but first I want to get a few thoughts off my chest with regard to what is important about this work and especially timely as the anniversary of the World Trade Center attack approaches. There was a show on Frontline on PBS this week that purported to examine the crisis of faith following those attacks, and I watched it for as long as I could stomach it before changing channels in deep disgust. That should tell you that I am about to relieve myself of some troubling feelings and thoughts and that what I am about to say is very personal. The fact that I had to turn away from a PBS presentation really worries me. As we have already tackled the element culture, I won't revisit that discussion except to remind us all that one of our most important goals is to reduce misunderstanding in communications with special attention to the cultural misunderstandings that contribute to such calamities. That said, let me explain why I was troubled by this Frontline episode. First, it was an examination of the crisis in faith resulting from the devastation following those events last September 11. However, before I had to turn away, I saw that the only faith being examined was ours--the victims. So there may have been other portions of the show which I failed to see which examined other viewpoints. However, I was too appalled to continue watching. The question, or I should say, the ultimate question, of why God could allow such a thing to happen to innocent people was the central theme. I was immediately staggered by two observations: Bhopal killed more innocent people in a single event and led to immensely greater long term suffering; and, the fact is that the perpetrators of this shattering event apparently believed that THEY WERE DOING God's will. I won't even touch the notion of God because that is personal as far as I am concerned, although that very attitude leaves people like myself very vulnerable to those fundamentalists of all religions who believe they have a mandate to act however they choose because of those personal beliefs. However the point is that the entire issue was not what in our clash of cultures allowed this situation to develop, but rather, how our faith in our beliefs was shaken by this event. I hope I am not the only person who wonders at how utterly condemned we will be to creating more generations who see us as the Great Satan if we continue to fail to even attempt to understand how they see us. We have mobilized great resources to attempt, through positive public relations, to change how we are seen, yet we have no idea how we are seen, except that it looks like we are seen as devils. There was yet another PBS show on last night, that examined how our embassies and ambassadors are seen and treated, and it documented the progression of attacks on our embassies over the last 30 years, and still there was not a single question about how this seemingly insumrountable misunderstanding came into being. The only facts analyzed were that the media of communication have increased the speed with which these misunderstandings are spread. That segment was called, the Big Lie, harkening back to Nazi propaganda that culminated in the Holocaust. Aside from the specific problems of Israel and Palestine as it is reported in culturally biased media of all persuasions, there are Lies aplenty. How they came about and grew worse? I wish I had answers. All I have is a work in progress that may give us a way to frame the questions and a structural way, a method, to encourage listening for what other cultures actually have to say. Showers are not only good for singing, they are also pretty good places to shout without alarming the neighbors, at least not too much. Sheesh! Rex -- Rex Brooks Starbourne Communications Design 1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309 http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com
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