9/6/2002, Drusha L. Mayhue wrote to toeslist: > This article is indeed the best thing I have read in a very long time. It may be the best thing I've ever read. > The article is kind of deflating in a way. On the other hand it validates what most of us have ascertained through our research and studies. Dear Drusha & toeslist, I'm glad folks on the list found the Matrix material useful. It's been my most successful article, published first in Whole Earth, then New Dawn and dozens of smaller periodicals, journals, and websites. > Someone on the list said the following: "Our state structured culture began to radically change in the 60s from exploitative to reciprocal." I disagree. There was an effort to change them but it never happened. Especially after reading this "Matrix" article. I agree with you... the 60s was in many ways a flash in the pan. But the rebellion was of a special character, and in that sense was an important precursor. It _wasn't about class conflict, it _wasn't about party politics, and it _wasn't about reform. It was about a new way of thinking about values, society, the protestant work ethic, and community. It was about 'changed minds' in the sense Daniel Quinn uses the term. When Nixon was forced out, and we got the Freedom of Information Act and all that, it really did seem that things had changed. I can understand Brian clinging to that feeling of achievement. But by the time Reagan was through, the whole thing had been fatally undermined - as an effective social force. --- Nan Hildreth wrote: > Brian, I agree. > One out of four Americans are building a new culture and thus helping folks escape the Matrix, says the demographer. http://www.culturalcreatives.org/questionnaire.html > The work is to help us recognize each other and validate each other. Help us come together to co-create and tell each other we're ok, it's the rest of the world that's nuts. This work (by Paul Ray) featured heavily in Korten's "The Post-Corporate World". I suggest that there are two fundamental problems with Ray's line of thinking - one tactical and one strategic. Tactically, he is extrapolating a trend without considering the overall political context. It should abundantly clear in the midst of Bush's War on Freedom that cultural trends are not something that elites are going to leave unmolested. All that 9-11 coverage we've been watching is designed not only to encourage a revenge war spirit, but also to build an atavistic patriotism, a basically fascist kind of nationalism. Cultural Creatives are on the defensive and are likely to remain so - within the current political context. Keep in mind that the political climate in which Nazism arose was also characterized by very strong and radical leftist parties. Elites have many ways of manipulating trends and conflicts. Strategically, Ray is suggesting a divisive approach to politics. One group overpowering others through numbers. You echo that when you say "it's the rest of the world that's nuts". 'Heartlanders' and 'Modernists' are _not nuts. We all know some of them... they are in our families and they are our neighbors. They have perhaps fallen prey to bad information, or perhaps they are restricted by fears that Cultural Creatives don't share. But they are real people with sincere values and they must be part of any new world that we might wish to create. Building alliances to overpower such people is a wrong strategy. It is playing into the game of divide-and-conquer, and that is a game we will never win. More important, it is not a game that we should want to win. It represents the same old Taker mentality. We need to be doing the opposite of 'divide and conquer'. We need to learn how to build community across those kinds of divisions. --- Janet Eaton write: > I agree with Drusha - about the profound insights in RKM's article. Janet, nice to hear from you. A lot has happened since I met you back in '98 with Jan. Permit me to comment on some of the items you forwarded... > "...the improvement of people's lives and the ultimate defeat of the system will only be achieved through mass struggle... which is occurring in numerous communities throughout the world, in the creative fight for basic human dignity and earth democracy." True, but we must keep in mind that peoples and communities have been struggling desperately against imperialism ever since 1492... and they have not been winning (despite pseudo latter-day 'independence'). > * Self-Determination - As global capitalism renders economically invisible more and more communities, the potential for a global web of community-based resistance and renewal is strengthening. Yes! This is a very good point. The universal nature of exploitation under globalization _does create the potential for an unprecedented kind of global solidarity-from-below, or community-from-below. This is our point of leverage, our fulcrum with which to 'move the world'. > Vlais goes on to say...It is up to each of us, both as individuals and communities, to understand our particular struggles free of ideological and political fundamentalisms. Once deeply rooted in our own contexts and struggles, we can act in solidarity with others and discover the commonalities based in lived experience as opposed to blanket ideologies. Yes, but how? We need to learn _how to understand our struggles 'free of ideological and political fundamentalisms'. And we need to learn how to do that collectively as communities. It seems easy on a self-selected email list but that is not a real world community. --- Drusha wrote: > I think the exploitive relationships will continue to last because those of us on this list are such a small group of people. We have not yet begun the job of reaching out to enough other people to get a critical mass (we don't need a majority, just a critical mass) to affect change. The right wing think tanks have done too good a job in planting their views in the minds of the majority of people. We have a long haul to begin the process of countering the right wing think tanks. Too many people have been brainwashed. You fall into a trap here. You are assuming that we need to change people's views on a massive (critical mass) scale in order to bring about change. The implication is that we need to shift people's ideologies from acceptance-of-the-matrix to something closer to the view of Cultural Creatives. The problem is that we cannot succeed at this task. The media is too powerful and the elite's means of manipulating events are too powerful. Until we accept that fact we spend our energies in vain. The Matrix article, for example, reached a certain number of people and had a certain effect. But it counts only in the small decimal points of demographics. It was more a preaching to the choir, and intentionally so, rather than an attempt to change minds on a massive scale. Vlais points to a more viable path with "commonalities based in lived experience as opposed to blanket ideologies" --- Brian wrote: > The tottering old imperialist empire, of course, is doing its best to maintain its exploitative relationship with the world, but I'm sure you can see the writing on the wall - it ain't gonna last much longer. If we manage to create a new world, then afterwards it may appear to have been inevitable. You, at least, will be able to say you predicted it on the basis of anthropological determinism. But I don't think such observations, now, are of much help in bringing about transformation. We need to act as if the world depends on our own initiative, our non-deterministic free action, our collective creativity, our will. best regards to all, rkm
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