Ray Wrote:
Selma,
I would like to stress that although I disagree with the
premise of Western education based on the desire to educate a work force for
drudgery pleasureless jobs with no incentive other than greed, I do not
think that the educators are ignorant or incompetant. I
think the assumptions of the system are flawed.
Selma:
I have no quarrel with that, Ray. Each of my kids had some
wonderful teachers but they had to fight the system, for the most part, in
order to keep doing their good work.
I agree that it is the system that is flawed. I am
amazed at the degree to which our children and now, for me, my grandchildren
do manage to survive in one way or another and sometimes even develop their
natural potentialities. For the most part that seems to depend on whether
their potentialities happen to match the priorities of the culture in general
and their particular school system in particular.
Ray:
My daughter got a wonderful education but it was in a middle
school that stressed math and poetry and in the high school of the Performing
Arts in New York City. She built a discipline based in the
pleasure of successful growth and our problem has never been to keep her from
working. In fact the opposite has been true. She has
the same drive as when she used to practice singing as a baby and provide
lessons for my students in practice discipline. Babies always make
their parents better singers if the parents are paying attention.
One point I would make is that she was ill for a year and a
half and during that time she kept up her studies and provided her own
incentive to work including working with her high school friends who
helped. The school system was flexible enough to both facilitate
her work and adjust to her schedule rather than just graduating
her. She elected to stay behind a year when they wanted her to
graduate with her class. She felt that she was not prepared
and decided to stay a year longer. That meant that the system paid
for her study a year longer. That was a big gift on the part
of the New York City Schools even though they were required by law to do
it. I appreciate that gift.
Selma:
I know that there are children who are able to develop their
potentialities and the story of your daughter is wonderful to hear and
lightens my heart. But, Ray, you do know that The High School of The
Performing Arts in New York City is unique; there may be other schools like
it, but I have not heard of them
Ray:
I find that work is native to humanity
Selma:
I am absolutely convinced that ALL babies born into an
environment that nurtures them in every way possible and provides them with
the stimulation they should have would develop into adults who would have WORK
and LOVE as the cornerstones of their lives. Maslow discusses this and Carl
Rogers alludes to it. I don't believe that there is any such thing as a lazy
person; there are people who have not been given the opportunity to develop
their potentialities and are not allowed to do what they love to do or even
find out what that is, and I believe this applies to almost everyone, even
those without average mental capacities and/or other limitations.
Ray:
and that the problem is the uniform robotic work of
Utilitarian thought which should be assigned to slave machines with no
consciousness. The next step is to decide how to facilitate the
continued growth processes of the young child into adulthood and integrate
them into the society. That requires a redefinition of work and
new ways of expressing the human spirit in action short of war and redundant
competition that uses up resources.
Selma:
Yes!
Ray:
I appreciate Fromm but he is still, a bit mired in the
language of his culture. My daughter's mother is
a Sullivanian analyst with an expertise in Fromm who was at William
Alanson White where she studied (but not at the same
time) Also I had a lot of Fromm type work when I was in
college and read the books. He meant a lot to me but doesn't speak
so much to me these days. I suspect it is not a difference
in content but simple style. Still I would like to hear from you
in your language and not the language of all of these other
people. It means a lot to me when you speak from your
experience. I afraid we are now the elders and must speak with our
own voices.
Selma:
To tell the truth, I haven't reread Fromm lately; it was
just that his idea about people becoming commodities seemed to be appropriate
in that discussion after your comment about looking at the underlying
structures of what we are talking about.
Also, my own spiritual and intellectual journey has made the
idea of Being a very important one, especially as it points up the problems
with a society in which 'having' is so much a part of the prevailing
philosophy. The idea of Being and all that goes with it also speaks to me of
an alternative to the linearity that you so justifiably see as limiting our
thinking.
Ray:
Good to read you again,
Selma:
It's good to be contributing to the discussion
again.
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble, Inc.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2003 3:25
PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework]
Workloads
Once again, I find myself in complete agreement with
Ray.
I would like to add that, like Dorothy Lee, who watched
four children enter the school system in this country to be horrified by
what it does to them, I watched my five children enter the same school
system I had been through and watched while their inherent love of learning
and uniqueness was battered at in a variety of ways. Lee went out
West and used her anthropological training to see how it
could be made better; I did the best I could in my circumstances and through
a combination of luck and some good and some bad decisions saw my kids turn
out to be fine people, but none of them are able to use their natural
talents and we just have to live with that; it is a nasty fact of life in
our society that the vast majority of children are not able to develop their
potential and that is as true of the very rich as it is of others because of
the structure and culture that values money and profit and is spiritually
bereft.
So what Ray is saying rings very true for me and to change
it will be an immense task; it may or may not get done, but I would love to
talk about the possibility that we could have a society that values humans
simply for their existence.
I believe that because we have the technological ability
to feed and clothe and house and educate and care for everyone there
may now be an opportunity that, perhaps, never existed before.
Selma
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2003 2:59
PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework]
Workloads
Ed,
I feel your economic bias is coming
through. I was trained in pedagogy and child development.
Children don't have to be taught to work. It is one of their
original instructions. The problem with "work" is that the
Western model is tied not to pleasure which makes the child learn and do
more work in five years then they accomplish in the next lifetime but to
drudgery and models that are not developmental of human
potential. Schools teach children not to have fun,
succeed and grow but to conform and fit within a model that the world sees
as "useful." The problem is "use" as defined in
utilitarian thought and particulate fragmentary knowledge
bases. But I've said this many times. The ultimate
usefulness is that which develops the finest human being.
Anything else is window dressing and transitory. The Aztec
called it "Flowers and Songs" Flowers are pretty
and nice but disappear, only the song exists as long as the human
does. But if you are singing everyone else's song and do not
know your own then your wealth is valueless.
"Mockingbirds" Learn to value and develop your own
uniqueness. Henry Ford was demonic and sold his
soul. Redefine economics around the terms of human potential
rather than goods and services. Until then you are doomed to
fail and be annual in your recessions.
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic
director
The American Masters Arts Festival Biennial
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, September 07, 2003
2:46 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework]
Workloads
Ed,
Are you advocating "From each according to
his/her abilities to each according to his/her needs?"
REH
I don't think so, Ray,
though I'm not really sure. My vision of an ideal society is one
which guarantees everyone housing of a reasonable quality, food for the
family, access to education, and access to health services. These
things should be provided as rights whether people work or not.
People should not be demeaned or stigmatized if they have to access
them.
To achieve such a world,
certain values and ethics would have to be in place. Very
important would be valuing work as a contribution to society and a
corresponding work ethic, instilled from childhood. Another would
be valuing human life and a recognition that we are our brother's and
sister's keepers. And, of course, the world would have to be
affordable.
I don't know if such a
world is possible, and it may be that people are too self-interested or
cynical to buy into it if it were possible. I know lots of
self-interested and cynical people and very few who put altruism and the
value of their fellow man to the forefront. By viewing my own
behavior, I'm not sure of where I personally fit in all of this.
If it were to come about, it would probably have to be imposed from the
top, and I wonder if any government would have the courage to do it
without resorting to smoke and mirrors, trying to convince people that
they were getting something while giving them very little.
Anyhow, that is where I'd
like to see things go, whether or not they ever do get
there.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, September 06,
2003 4:22 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework]
Workloads
Ed,
Are you advocating "From each according
to his/her abilities to each according to his/her needs?"
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, September 06,
2003 4:11 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework]
Workloads
UNIFEM, the United Nation's Development Fund for Women lays out
the road to
progress in greater detail:
*
Women's share of seats in legislative bodies should reach
50%
* The ratio between girls' and boys'
school enrollment rates should be
one to
one
* Average female weekly earnings as
percentage of male weekly earnings
should equal
100%
* Women's share of paid employment in the
non-agricultural sector
should be expanded
* Men and women should spend an equal number of hours on unpaid
housework
Political power, education, type of work all these
factors have an
influence on women's economic power....
Gail, I don't like
this. It strikes me as the tryanny of absolute equality.
What if, as may be possible, all of the women were geniuses and all
of the men morons? Or, can you think of the difficulty and
fallout of a husband and wife keeping tabs on each other to ensure
that they did an equal amount of house work? "No, no,
dammit! I cooked dinner yesterday! It's your
turn!" What I would most like to see is equal access to
education, to careers, to the income hierarchy, and everything else
that people do outside the home.
When it comes to inside
the home, partners have to work it out themselves. He likes
cooking; she doesn't. Or she likes cooking; she doesn't.
Or however the household goes. What would seem most important in
the home is the kids. Neither male nor female should feel they
are restricted from becoming what they want to because of their
sex.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, September 07,
2003 12:15 PM
Subject: [Futurework]
Workloads
Speaking of work and and
trade, here is an item
posted this AM to another list.
I'd be interested in comments.
Do you think these are reasonable objectives for the World Bank
and UN? Do you see around you or in your own life evidence of
their accomplishment?
The fourth objective of
UNIFEM gives me some trouble, at least until the third and
fifth are advanced -- otherwise it seems to me that we get wage
distortions that affect international trade, possibly reducing
rather than enhancing the general welfare. Wage inequities
produced by "discrimination per se" carry a continuing odour
of slavery? Nor, I think, is the problem confined to women
but is conspicuous there and links with other issues,
e.g. caring for children, health, population,
etc.
What think you? How is the issue
developing in your own surroundings?
Gail
This Friday's NOW with Bill Moyers focused on how women are
faring in the
global economy, with Vandana Shiva explaining in
a live interview how
globalization increases women's workloads.
For those who missed the show,
the NOW site on pbs.org
http://www.pbs.org/now/
is worth a visit.
cheers, Penney
Sample:
Rich World,
Poor Women: Women and Work
There is an old saying that you
can judge a society by the way it treats
its women. In the last
several decades many world organizations have signed
on to that
belief making improvements in the status of women among
their
highest priorities. The World Bank's Millennium
Development Goals put it
broadly: "Goal Number 3: Promote
gender equality and empower women."
UNIFEM, the United Nation's
Development Fund for Women lays out the road to
progress in
greater detail:
* Women's share of seats in
legislative bodies should reach 50%
* The
ratio between girls' and boys' school enrollment rates should
be
one to one
* Average female weekly
earnings as percentage of male weekly earnings
should equal
100%
* Women's share of paid employment in
the non-agricultural sector
should be
expanded
* Men and women should spend an
equal number of hours on unpaid housework
Political power,
education, type of work all these factors have an
influence on
women's economic power....
