From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Wed Feb 19 2003 - 01:30:28 MST
estropico@virgilio.it:
>Very interesting analysis from Mick Hume at the excellent Spiked-Online:
>http://www.spiked-online.co.uk/Articles/00000006DC61.htm
(from the article)
>"In an age of political passivity, why were so many moved to march on this
>issue? It seems unlikely to be solely out of concern for the Iraqi people.
[Š]
> "The two biggest factors motivating Saturday's marchers were the growing
> atmosphere of mistrust towards government institutions, and the pervasive
> culture of fear and risk aversion."
I think that writer presents a narrow and odd view, Fabio. The shadow
sides of humans encompass many aspects of ourselves, not only fear, although
fear is a very large driver. Those shadow parts of us are stories that
ultimately provide us with the most energy because they are the
denied parts of ourselves, the most unknown. The shadow parts are also
the darkness that we cannot escape and is the most difficult to
contact because we abhor and disdain those parts. When one can openly
admit that those parts exist, or even that they _might_ exist, then a
door is opened. The control it has over you might not be as great, but
it is a large source of energy and knowledge nonetheless to use to
channel and transform in other parts of your life. You see there is a
positive side to the shadow.
One of my favorite books and writers (Deena Metzger: _Writing for your
Life_) talks about one way to tap into the shadow. She says:
"Imagine that a mad person is someone who has a story to tell that
cannot be told, that each one of us has a story inside of us that we
have not been able to tell, that there is a mad or maddened person
inside each of us. Find this voice. Write whatever comes to mind.
Begin with whatever odd words come up from this voice, which you may
never have contacted before. Go down into the dark place to find this
creature, the one with the denied vision, the one who has been
inarticulate for so long. This mad voice must be heard. Let the
creature speak."
Back to that article about the marches. I'm not sure that the
unconscious fear is one reason for the large turnout but I do believe
that fear is one of the main reasons (unconsciously or consciously)
that a large number of people want governments to help them run their
lives. It's too overwhelming and frightening for many to think that each
of us can know how to make the right decisions to live a good life, so one
turns that task over to a larger entity, not thinking carefully enough
if that entity is any smarter than each of us are. I think that if a
government disappeared miraculously tomorrow, people would quickly put
another one in its place because the fear of how to run our own lives
can be too large.
The governments of today are thriving on this fear- it has the same
feedback loop in place that Anders talked about some days ago with the
media. To some extent, the governments' existence and power are the
result of people's own fears. Then the very structure of the
government can easily amplify those fears, and so we have the paranoia
multiplying exponentially.
People who have lived under totalitarian and paranoid governments know
what it is like and should be able to tell others who have not lived
under such a government what is the end result. Is that happening? I am
not sure, but I don't think so. There are a lot of closed ears now to
hear it, and there are a lot of people who simply forgot their own
history.
Amara
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "Every exit is an entry somewhere else." --Tom Stoppard
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