Re: Decline in Civic Association
Eva, don't be a bore. There is plenty of research in the works of Geertz, Edward Hall ect. that proves that we are radically different once we get beyond the "we are all the same once we take off our clothes" stage. You should consider the French attitude towards world musics. Up until the French shamed us all, we were saying there is only music and we have it. Now we know there are many and that all expression is site/time specific. The chances are that it is the same for scientific expression as well. Are the arts and anthropology really that far ahead of the sciences? REH P.S. you never answered my post about the reverse cultures of the New World in our relationship to gender and ownership. Eva Durant wrote: Well, I was teaching a wonderful black dramatic soprano today and her answer to this particular question was that there was something in the Caucasian gene that didn't allow for serious long term cooperation.The statement sounds racist but somehow you all seem to be coming up with the same answer except you include her culture in your cynicism. REH Homo sapiens is one species. The gene variation between "white" and "black" individuals may be less than between "same colour" people. What a load of nonsense. I haven't heard of any cultures having a particularily peaceful past. We'll only get peace and cooperation when we discontinue the class-system and everyone has the same access to wealth. health, power, education, creativity, etc., not the least arm control. (Jay's "gamekeeping" would just continue the old tradition of violent power-struggle.) Eva
Re: Decline in Civic Association
Sorry, I am totally lost, I cannot connect your response to what was discussed. Eva Eva, don't be a bore. There is plenty of research in the works of Geertz, Edward Hall ect. that proves that we are radically different once we get beyond the "we are all the same once we take off our clothes" stage. You should consider the French attitude towards world musics. Up until the French shamed us all, we were saying there is only music and we have it. Now we know there are many and that all expression is site/time specific. The chances are that it is the same for scientific expression as well. Are the arts and anthropology really that far ahead of the sciences? REH P.S. you never answered my post about the reverse cultures of the New World in our relationship to gender and ownership. Eva Durant wrote: Well, I was teaching a wonderful black dramatic soprano today and her answer to this particular question was that there was something in the Caucasian gene that didn't allow for serious long term cooperation.The statement sounds racist but somehow you all seem to be coming up with the same answer except you include her culture in your cynicism. REH Homo sapiens is one species. The gene variation between "white" and "black" individuals may be less than between "same colour" people. What a load of nonsense. I haven't heard of any cultures having a particularily peaceful past. We'll only get peace and cooperation when we discontinue the class-system and everyone has the same access to wealth. health, power, education, creativity, etc., not the least arm control. (Jay's "gamekeeping" would just continue the old tradition of violent power-struggle.) Eva
Re: Decline in Civic Association
Well, I was teaching a wonderful black dramatic soprano today and her answer to this particular question was that there was something in the Caucasian gene that didn't allow for serious long term cooperation.The statement sounds racist but somehow you all seem to be coming up with the same answer except you include her culture in your cynicism. REH Jay Hanson wrote: From: Hugh McGuire [EMAIL PROTECTED] teh following is an article in today's Christian Science Monitor. It describes how people are not participating in community organizations any longer. Robert Putnam of Harvard thinks it is because people prefer their television sets and computers to actual human interaction. I think it is because people are afraid of interacting with other people. The politics, the conformity, cliqueishness, and the fear of rejection all combine to influence our profound isolation from each other. You missed the obvious answer: cynicism. Why should people donate time and money to hold their community together so some asshole CEO can buy himself another Lear Jet? Seen in this light, "participating in community organizations" looks like another form of corporate welfare. Jay -- www.dieoff.com
Re: Decline in Civic Association
Well, I was teaching a wonderful black dramatic soprano today and her answer to this particular question was that there was something in the Caucasian gene that didn't allow for serious long term cooperation.The statement sounds racist but somehow you all seem to be coming up with the same answer except you include her culture in your cynicism. REH Homo sapiens is one species. The gene variation between "white" and "black" individuals may be less than between "same colour" people. What a load of nonsense. I haven't heard of any cultures having a particularily peaceful past. We'll only get peace and cooperation when we discontinue the class-system and everyone has the same access to wealth. health, power, education, creativity, etc., not the least arm control. (Jay's "gamekeeping" would just continue the old tradition of violent power-struggle.) Eva
Re: Decline in Civic Association
Jay Hanson: You missed the obvious answer: cynicism. Why should people donate time and money to hold their community together so some asshole CEO can buy himself another Lear Jet? Seen in this light, "participating in community organizations" looks like another form of corporate welfare. Perhaps. But I do some volunteer work, and when I'm doing it I focus on the problem at hand and not on the CEO and his Lear Jet. Ed Weick
Decline in Civic Association
teh following is an article in today's Christian Science Monitor. It describes how people are not participating in community organizations any longer. Robert Putnam of Harvard thinks it is because people prefer their television sets and computers to actual human interaction. I think it is because people are afraid of interacting with other people. The politics, the conformity, cliqueishness, and the fear of rejection all combine to influence our profound isolation from each other. I don't think there is any issue that is more important to our economic and political-economic future than this. We ignore history to our peril, and, today, we are even ignoring our economic history. The more socially isolated we become, the less we care about our neighbors, and the more we can tolerate violence, abuse, and social and economic degeneration, as long as it occurrs to others. When it occurrs to ourselves, then we have no one to blame but ourselves, and ourshame will exacerbate our isolation. In my view, this is all encouraged by our economic and political elite on both the "Right" and "Left." We no longer even have extended families today as a unit of social organization. I think that if we look at the history of the American "South" between the Civil War and World War II, we will see our future. Hugh McGuire Elks and Lions (Clubs) may go way of the dodo Copyright © 1998 Nando.net Copyright © 1998 The Christian Science Monitor LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (August 24, 1998 11:25 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -- Brian Clark, an advertising executive, followed in his dad's footsteps and joined the Lions Club when he returned to Little Rock two years ago. But this father-and-son pair is becoming a rarity. In the 1990s, civic and fraternal organizations - from the Elks to the Moose - have seen membership plummet. At the Little Rock Sertoma Club, for instance, only seven members usually attend the weekly Wednesday luncheon. Ten years ago, members filled a room that seats close to 50 people. "Most (of these groups) have been around for nearly 100 years. ... They've run into trouble because of a lot of social change," says Robert Putnam, professor of government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. "People would rather be alone in front of a television set than out with a group." Since the 1970s, Americans have altered the way they spend free time. Instead of going to bridge clubs and supper parties, they watch TV, go to the gym, surf the Web, or simply relax alone. Families move around more and break apart more, too. For organizations like the Lions, which raises money for a number of charities including the blind, to continue, the next generation must sign up. But those in Generation X simply don't seem to have any urge to unite with their fellow man. "In the past, people felt a need for organized thought," says Chris Counts, a local actor. "There was a sense of power in unity. Now, I think, we have an era where individuality is the calling. ... The only united groups seem to have a negative public image like the IRA or skinheads and even most political parties." Personally, he adds, "I'd rather be at home on my computer." Putnam is writing a book on the future of civic organizations and the country's need for community. He points to several changing aspects of American society that parallel the decline in what he calls "animal clubs." For instance, dinner parties, once a social staple, have declined 60 percent in the last 20 years. Neighbors no longer visit each other. That interaction has declined between 20 to 25 percent, according to Putnam. Playing cards doesn't even hold appeal anymore. Statistics show that in the past 15 years card playing has dropped 60 percent. At this rate, no one will play cards in this country by 2013. Social and civic groups began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a way for people to connect with each other in the midst of change. Urbanization, immigration, and mechanization rapidly changed life after the Civil War. As the start of the 21st century looms, the country is once again suffering disconnection. People, though, are no longer joiners. They prefer to do a volunteer project for a day and go home. Many would rather just sign a check than do any labor. Long-term commitments don't fit well in fast-paced lifestyles. Jim Stanley, an Arkansas lawyer, has seen this apathy often. In September, he will become president of the North Little Rock Sertoma Club, an organization that helps the hearing and speech impaired. He has tried several recruitment methods to try to lure people, especially younger members. "People seem detached from joining organizations," says Stanley, who has been involved in several civic groups. "It's this attitude about me, me, me. It seems the pride of being in these kind of groups is gone. Even corporations have a different philosophy than they did years ago." Once
Re: Decline in Civic Association
Hi! Jay, Cynicism "is" fear. It is one manifestation of or response to fear. I think we are losing something that possibly we may never have had in the first place, a commitment to the soil of this country. I once lived in the Arab section of Brooklyn, New York. The owner of my building was from Yehmen. We became good friends and we invited each other for dinner. One day he was talking about doing business in the U.S. He said that the U.S. was just a place to do business, but when you have made your money, then you go home. I don't know if he ever returned to Yehmen -- I doubt it-- but never felt that this adopted country was home for him. I think that, as we are encouraged to become more and more isolated from each other, we will become innured to increasingly higher levels of violence, social inequality, and political domination by a small political-economic elite. The value of individualism that is being screemed at us by the political Right is essentially a justification of the legitimacy of the political-economic elite. We are in an even more McLuanesque world today than when McLuan was alive, and we don't recognize how our lives have been changed. We accept globalism as inevitable, the non-education of our children as something over which we have no control, the control of the national media over the agenda of issues with which people are concerned. What is the consequence for people who lose emotional bonds with their community? Ray Harrell has discussed this with respect to Native American cultures. It was said to me once by someone that the only thing that holds us together as a people is The Constitution. The one thing that has always characterized the uniqueness of the American culture is our attachments to civic organizations of all kinds. What is disappearing is our essence as Americans. Jay, it is you who use that quote from Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor about people's acquiescence to slavery as long as they feel fed. We are being encouraged to accept illusion as reality, and by the time people wake up to what has happened to them, there will be nothing they can do to reclaim what they lost, and I suspect they will not know what it is they lost. Corporate feudalism is advancing rapidly with all it concomitant violence and terror. Hugh McGuire Hugh McGuire Jay Hanson wrote: From: Hugh McGuire [EMAIL PROTECTED] The following is an article in today's Christian Science Monitor. It describes how people are not participating in community organizations any longer. Robert Putnam of Harvard thinks it is because people prefer their television sets and computers to actual human interaction. I think it is because people are afraid of interacting with other people. The politics, the conformity, cliqueishness, and the fear of rejection all combine to influence our profound isolation from each other. You missed the obvious answer: cynicism. Why should people donate time and money to hold their community together so some asshole CEO can buy himself another Lear Jet? Seen in this light, "participating in community organizations" looks like another form of corporate welfare. Jay -- www.dieoff.com
