Friday, August 17, 2012

The clarity of washed stones applied to the news


In a world of multiplying discord, my lack of historical knowledge compounds my own confusion. Now, mystery is a wonderful thing. Digging for meaning within clouds of mystery is something to relish. (Like the never-ending mystery, What is the Divine?) But confusion is different from mystery.

As I keep exploring what it means on a daily basis to be cleaner than washed stones I realize that avoiding news of the world’s conflicts because I don’t understand them only makes my mind jumbled, making me even more uneasy.

I’m a woman in my fifties. It’s late to build a foundation of historical knowledge in order to gain understanding. But it’s my obligation as a member of the human enterprise to bring my own personal being to bear upon the circumstances I can affect. And by affect, I include understand, because where else would I want to start?

All the talk about global this and global that is primarily about corporate business, right? But what about being global in the sense of understanding?

So the other day I was digging into the basis of the conflicts in Africa. Why not start small? But seriously, I found something helpful. I read that one of the sources of ongoing conflict in regions such as the DRC is the trans-Atlantic slave trade of the 16th-19th centuries. As we know, one tribe would kidnap members of another tribe and sell them to traders. Tribe One reaped financial rewards that built their economy. But Tribe Two, the victim of the kidnappings, not only lost members of their community, they also did not reap any benefits of the trade. Not to oversimplify things, but apparently much of the ongoing brutal fighting in Africa to this day began in deep and understandable resentment over that betrayal and the painful economic imbalance of resources that resulted. (Dr. David Livingstone was an early proponent of the view that the fragile economies of Africa were harmed by the slave trade, and he worked to abolish it.)

Susan Sontag, in her book of essays on photography observed that when we see a photograph taken somewhere in the world (think of the famous Pulitzer-prize winning photograph of the naked girl running down a road in South Vietnam after a napalm attack), we think we understand. I keep this in mind, always, when I read the news. So when I say I want to “understand,” what I mean is, I want to listen and learn.

32 comments:

  1. So much of the news we watch on TV or read in the paper is so horribly slanted by the bias of the paper/TV station/nationality of the aforementioned. I feel guilty if I don't keep up with the news....then read the whole NY Times and am utterly overwhelmed....So very very much that is wrong in the world, but perhaps we should focus on small kindnesses.
    I'm rambling. Sorry!

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    1. I completely agree that keeping up is daunting, reports are biased, and it is nearly impossible to stay abreast of everything. I go in fits and starts on it all, and my interest in certain areas outweighs others. A lot has always happened in the world, but now we have access to more information than anyone can consume (though some seem to be better at it than I).

      I do wish that in our daily lives, before judging persons, groups or nations, we would first seek understanding.

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  2. i have to admit that i pay very little attention to the news. i do think we have a responsibility to be aware, at least, and to try to understand -- but i often find myself caught between this responsibility and the certainty that the real story of what is going on in the world is not accessible through any of the "news sources" (which seem bent on the sensational and the trivial, almost as a purposeful distraction from anything that might matter for longer than one news cycle)

    your effort to understand the sources of conflict in africa seems very important. surely this is the only real hope for the problems of the world -- seeking to clarify and address the genesis of the illness, rather than merely offering bandaids for the symptoms, as politicians do ...

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    1. James (welcome), it is truly troublesome, trying to discern the truth, and which sources are reliable. I believe that much of what we hear about our American government, for example, is far, far from reality, and neither Reps or Dems are "on the right side." Yet if I turn to critical sources that seem reliably honest about facts (such as Noam Chomsky) I find myself painfully alone when friends and family talk about these topics. I think this is the only answer though. We have to find voices that seem reliable and true, and follow as best we can the issues that matter to us.

      But bottom line, we must think for ourselves. That's really what this writing space is about. I need to think and process what is happening around me through this being of myself. Thanks for participating.

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    2. yes, i love noam chomsky, such a courageous and clear-sighted force. and one measure of american close-mindedness is the way he is sidelined and silenced. he can hardly get a hearing on npr any more. what a contrast it is to look at eastern europe and see counterparts of a real intellectual like chomsky (and even poets, for god's sakes!!) serving in government ...

      and, yes, we must think for ourselves!! this is hard to do in the states. mass media is a machine created, very evidently, to prevent independent thinking, never to encourage it. i've been spending much time in canada this year, and i find that many people here have a clearer understanding of US politics than i do ...

      if i may offer this, from four years ago ... i don't know that i would agree any longer with everything i say in this post ... i was a lot older four years ago than i am now :-)

      http://klagewelt.blogspot.ca/2009/01/small-treatise-on-original-sin.html

      .

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    3. Thanks for the link, James. I agree with much of what you wrote myself. And yes, we are growing younger and smaller aren't we. I love that.

      It' so true that folks in other countries, Canada included, understand our politics better than we do. I have been humbled by this many a time in conversations in Paris and Dublin primarily, and on my previous blog.

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  3. Stripping down to basics, researching, listening and learning, trying to understand from an objective platform of unprejudiced openness. This sounds to me a good place to start.

    The slave trade, colonialism, exploitation, forceful and self-interested domination of one group over another — source of so many of the world's conflicts.

    BTW, I don't think it's ever too late to try and "build a foundation of historical knowledge". I'm trying to do so myself, as I feel the same lamentable gaps as you.

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    1. Thanks, Robert. You reassure me that late is still good, and as we've discussed before, sometimes the latter discoveries are sweeter for the greater consciousness.

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  4. I often find myself thinking that on the sphere that is the earth, every moment of a day is happening simultaneously and in some places the most unimaginably wonderful things are happening and in others stuff worse our worst nightmares are happening and in most places loads of stuff in between.

    I share JO's cynicism about "news sources". For example, when an issue needs to be discussed on air, the radio station decide the terms of the discussion by their choice of interviewees. It is quite easy to create the illusion of a two-sided debate when what one is actually hearing is two slightly differing views from one side of a debate. The result is not something one can readily learn from.

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  5. All of which may be true but leaves one with the problem: what can one do?

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    1. I love your reminder that there is a wide spectrum of experience, and we need to hear more about good news! Being a glass half full positive kind of person, I tend to always see the good stuff and not get bogged down in the bad news. And this is one reason I feel obliged to pay attention to the difficult things.

      Please see my response to James. I guess one facet of reality that is very hard is that much of what affects me cannot be controlled by me. We all deal with that in a spectrum of responses, from utter apathy, to radical activism. I am somewhere in between, but have been closer to the former, to my regret and even shame.

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  6. This is a nice piece, Ruth. I wish more people would listen and try to understand – what happened in the past and what is happening now, which will bring what happens tomorrow – we are all part of the whole. Unfortunately many people here listen to news – which is more like propaganda than news – on Fox News (yes it is the number one news station in the US.) It is very important for our planet to listen and understand what we are all doing - or we will be doomed – we cannot be uninvolved.

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    1. Sometimes I wonder who is saying Fox News is the number one news station, but that is just my sincere wish that it not be true. Working at a university in the Midwest, I tend to hear a more liberal take. I certainly do not like being represented by that majority, here or elsewhere in the world. By the way, I view you as one of the best informed people I know.

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  7. Knowing what happened in the past gives us the context to understand what happens now. We have so little information available to us through the media, as Vagabonde says above, and so little time to find reliable sources ourselves. What we have left is our own curiosity. Like you, I had been so busy with my life, my work and family, that I found little time to read outside of my immediate interests.

    Never too late!

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    1. And we can't help but pick and choose what we pay attention to. It is not humanly possible to stay abreast of everything, and even doing so, know that we know anything absolutely true. So we each have to seek for something of a balance that we can live with, although sometimes I feel guilty for seeking peace within, when I know that so many struggle with so much outward strife.

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  8. If only everyone would take this approach!

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  9. I think(if my own experience is anything to go by, and what else have I really got?) that in our fifties we are rather abruptly beset by hungers, things we haven't had time for, or exposure to, that make us feel we are starved, we need answers, we need to, mostly *understand* before it's too late. Everyone's way of trying to feed themselves is individual, but I strongly feel you're never too old to be a seeker, to look at the past, to be responsible about your knowledge base, and realize the truth is infinitely multi-faceted, all relative to the speaker of the moment, and the more facets you can identify, the better base you have for your own beliefs and decisions.

    Thanks for pointing out the historical basis of some of the conflicts in Africa. I, at the age you're speaking of, started reading about the Mid East--I can't say I learned any answers to the questions of *how* change could come there, but learning some of the *whys* was very satisfying--and it is indeed, all about history.

    So nice to have you out here again, Ruth.

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  10. Thank you, Hedge. It's great to be back here talking with you. I love what you say about our fifties and hungers! We begin feeding the inside, I think.

    Your comment about study of the Mid East reminds me of something I heard a journalist say, maybe you've heard it. He said if a Western journalist goes to the Middle East for a week, he comes back and writes a book. If he goes there for a month, he comes back and writes an article. If he goes and lives in the Middle East for a year, he comes back and has nothing to say.

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    1. Great quote and I totally agree, like Sufi poetry, the Middle East will make you humble, and realize how incredibly young our civilization's history is here.

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  11. First - I love your new space!!!!

    And then - to the more important topic of understanding global history - I'm right there with you. I avoid - because I'm missing the foundation..the centuries of history that's behind today's news. I - too - have often wished to understand. You're inspiring me to dig a little deeper and really learn.

    Thank-you (and welcome back....)!

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    1. Thanks, Marcie! Here's to digging and paring.

      And thank you for your encouragement to think differently about coming back to writing in a public space.

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    2. Hey - isn't that the beauty of this all?? That we learn and grow from one another...:-)

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    3. Excellent point supporting blogging!

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  12. ruth, it is a strange relationship, isn't it; to grow into a valuable life we must understand what is outside of us and inside of us. to grow into a valuable life we must do the work and make the changes inside of us, but always there is a gear inside of us that leans and wants to enact change upon the world, start a fundamental revolution in the way the world approaches life, (ha! we small and inconsequential beings initiate a fundamental revolution in the way the world approaches life?!) but always always always it is only in ourselves that we can enact the change. it can be a dangerous equation during which nothing results because we get pinched by the knowledge that one person can not change the world. but it can be an equation of freedom and hope, as well, knowing that if we do careful and real work in ourselves, we might, by some dumb luck, make progress toward our own valuable lives and perhaps, through the fallout of touching one another, enact a whisper of change upon the world.

    in this way (and in many other ways) what you are doing here is important work, ruth. i mean this. i read this new site and i am elated that you are sharing. more so, i am elated that you are living a thoughtful life.

    it all begins here. here. now.

    i am swelling for love for you.

    and now i ask myself, and have been asking myself, over and over again, how do i enact change in myself? and i try and i try and it is a painfully slow progress, but i try and i try and i try. and i must hold in my hand too, this painful knowledge, that i will die and this work is only for the work, not for the result. and yet and still i must try.

    xo
    erin

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    1. Thank you for this condensation of your well examined life. I don't mean that you have perfected yourself or have set yourself up to sound like you have. I mean that what you wrote is a result of that daily trying I know you do. I think it is our only hope of not being utterly depressed, to believe that if we change the world in our own head, our living will be different, and this is bound to have an effect on the world around us. But it is vastly important to recognize that as our goal: changing ourselves.

      I feel your love, in the deep place I also swell with love for you.

      I smile at your question, How do I change myself? because I am given opportunity every day to work on something I react to in a way I don't like. I will always, always have work to do. It starts with changing my belief about something or someone, and then acting on that new belief. I think we can change the synapses in our brains like that! It is, it is s l o w work. And humbling.

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  13. A very interesting post, Ruth, and I have also enjoyed the commentary. Personally, I find myself retreating somewhat from "the news," to the extent it is reported by corporate organizations that are more interested in entertaining the public than informing them of what they need to know. Like you, of course, I need to understand the world in which I live, so that my life can have some meaningful impact. Increasingly, however, I feel that true understanding can never come from hearing the same old songs from the same people in the same country. We need a larger perspective, one that gives equal weight to other voices, especially the voices of other countries and cultures, and especially the voices of the oppressed everywhere. Yes, yes, to Noam Chomsky and others who fearless tell the truth about who we are as a people. The problem here is one of courage, I think. Most people lack the courage to tell us the truth, especially when the truth comes with a price. That's what we need, however, and we should lift up those who speak truth to power, whoever they are, wherever they are.

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    1. I take heart, George, in the belief that as we have more and more access to information, more people will recognize the inadequate and false messages of mainline media and seek those distant and sidelined voices of truth. (I started a Twitter account when Iranians began tweeting the revolution). Maybe that is a naive hope, but I believe the alternate media themselves are affecting the face of mainline media in significant ways.

      I realize that I must take courage (yes, it takes courage!) and speak up whenever I have opportunity, to question when I hear someone repeating (mindlessly?) what is churned out for our consumption. I find that I have less courage to do that with people who tend to think like I do, with a liberal bias, than with those who have more conservative views. But I know that it's because of others who have planted a seed of doubt through their own courage to speak out, that I have dug deeper myself.

      I am at risk of sounding very lofty in practice. But I am a novice, with the will to work and think hard. I am buoyed by friends like you, both through your example, and your encouragement.

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  14. I saw Vagabonde”s reference to Fox News. I don’t have it among my channels, but have seen some extracts now and then. From a European point of view, I think there are reasons to get frightened when you see how they develop matters. This of course brings me to the observation how we can be lead or mislead, by biased information. Of course you can say that we are “warned”. If we e.g. read a communist or a right wing newspaper, we would normally know that the information must be read with a “filter”. But in many cases we may today have the right to believe that the information we get should be neutral, true. However, it’s always dependent on it “creator” who can him- or herself have been mislead, may miss part of the information … or may wish to put a special angle to e.g. make it more spectacular. … and even spacewise it may not be possible to give a complete picture. When it comes to e.g. TV, the choice of images can also be far from neutral and has a great impact of what we perceive.

    However, today, you may say that we have so many sources and that information is available to “everybody” (although unfortunately not in all regimes, countries).

    This is a great difference with a century or more ago, when information was often limited to a certain “elite”. Those days it was easier to keep people in ignorance or to tell them “anything”. … not mentioning censorship by Church, by Authorities…

    What is certain is that we today have less excuse to say that “we didn’t know”.

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    1. A hearty agreement with all you've written, Peter! I am constantly amazed that people can just say something, with no need to support it with any evidence whatsoever, or with a bit of truth that is counterbalanced with evidence to support a different reality altogether.

      Sadly, it is easy to become lazy in my own search for the truth, especially when I am overly cynical, and I feel it won't make any difference if I know or don't know. But I think once a person has started down the road to think for themselves and find understanding, without lapping up what is said as if it is true, it is harder to go back.

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  15. A certain musican i love tells us to "use your voice"

    Does it matter if you use your voice small , like helping a local charity or to using your voice big, like helping a third world country. In these past few years i have learned to use my voice and listen as well. News can be overwelming but we need to listen and be open minded. You can make a difference, for even the smallest act is far more greater received then nothing at all.

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    1. I receive your comment as a blessing. I believe the intent, in the energy of open generosity, accomplishes something very important, and there is no distinction of big or small.

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All responses are welcome.