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Author Topic: My Overwhelming Sadness For America
Gaia_Child
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posted 14 December 2003 06:21 PM      Profile for Gaia_Child     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I feel such a profound sadness for the United States, and for the other Western countries which have stood so resolutely behind the White House.

I worry that the Bush/Blair unilateralism and privatization piracy risk severe repercussions for Western publics. In terms of an Arab or Muslim backlash that could take a disastrous, even thermonulcear, form.

Much of the Western public, so easily swayed by patriotism, media propaganda and plain narrow-mindedness, cannot seem to see how the Iraqi invasion played in the Arab and Muslim world.

How starting a war based on enormous lies undermines the very credibility of the West. How Bush and Blair couching the war so clearly in terms of "Good" and "Evil", and "God" and "Country" inflames the Islamic believer, and the Arab nationalist.

I am saddened by the continued susceptibility of the Western public to appeals to the White Man's Burden. And by the continued refusal of most Westerners to look as critically on Western-caused atrocities as they do on Islam-caused horrors. By the continuing inability of the Anglo-American Middle to feel discomfort at the insanity of their own societies.

The U.S. could never control Vietnam, because the U.S. refused to identify with the Anger of the Colonized. Israel cannot stop the violence of the Gaza for the same reason.

Any Zionist or carpet-bombing anti-Communist can find rhetorical reasons to dismiss their "enemies" cause. Any Zionist or 1960s anti-Communist could comfort themselves in moral outrage at Tel Aviv suicides and Viet-Cong dirty tricks. But the Moral Certainty of the Empire doesn't quell the Anger of the Other. It only feeds it.

I am afraid about what the future may hold. What strange brew will come from the mix of Western arrogance and Arab anger.

I find the human species very odd, ugly, enormously able to self-deceive and deny.

I feel great embarassment at belonging to this species. This stupid, short-sighted, greedy ape.

Yet, at the same time, I cannot quell my enormous concern for humanity's Fate. I would not feel such overwhelming worry, if at the core, I did not also feel a great measure of Love.


From: Western Canada | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
Krago
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posted 14 December 2003 06:26 PM      Profile for Krago     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Gaia_Child:
I feel great embarassment at belonging to this species.

I agree 100%. I also feel great embarassment at you belonging to this species.


From: The Royal City | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Hinterland
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posted 14 December 2003 07:09 PM      Profile for Hinterland        Edit/Delete Post
Wow, Krago...I mean...wow. Merry Christmas, there.
From: Québec/Ontario | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 14 December 2003 07:09 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
That personal attack was completely unprovoked, unwarranted, and against babble policy.

If you hate babblers so much, don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Dogbert
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posted 14 December 2003 09:19 PM      Profile for Dogbert     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
What's the matter, Krago? The part about people being stupid, greedy apes described you just a little too well?
From: Elbonia | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Rufus Polson
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posted 15 December 2003 02:08 AM      Profile for Rufus Polson     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Gaia Child, I think you're expecting a lot of people. What are we supposed to be, here? Avatars of a perfectly rational supreme deity created in His image, or something?
No. We're just these critters who, like essentially all other critters, are basically obsessed with getting more and making more of ourselves. And we happen to have acquired this cool dodge, this extra cleverness, which lets us do it way bigger time than all the other critters. Yay us, sort of. So here we are, we're these mutants capable of getting more lolly than anything else out there can; it frankly amazes me that we ever show the slightest glimmerings of anything like wisdom, even formed the concept at all. I'm really not surprised that we hardly ever let it guide our collective decision making.

But by the same token, I doubt an intelligent seagull, or crow, or raccoon, or wolverine, or caribou, or tuberculosis bacillus, or what have you, would be doing any better. They all take what they can get, they're all held in balance by other things that take back from them--for that matter, in the case of many, it's a fluctuating balance, where in some years they get numerous and in other years they're pared back.
I was going to say that the difference with us is that we've broken that balance, but I'm not at all sure we have. It's just fluctuating rather wider in the case of humanity; as we erode the world's carrying capacity, we're gonna get pared back eventually. The four horsemen gonna ride. But again, that doesn't necessarily mean we, or the ecosphere, will be wiped out. Just pared back heavily. It'll be a horrible time to live through, I expect. But I also expect there'll be something on the other side.


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Cougyr
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posted 15 December 2003 02:29 AM      Profile for Cougyr     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
My grandfather called our species, "Homo Saps."

Gaia_Child, I understand your concern. I think your fear for the future is justified. However, I no longer feel sadness for America; I'm angry. I have lived half of my life in the US and I have watched it for all of my 62 years. I have come to the conclusion that most Americans refuse to learn about their place in the world; not that they can't , they refuse. To learn would mean that they would have to change and they are not prepared to. It's easier to wave flags.


From: over the mountain | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
flotsom
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posted 15 December 2003 04:17 AM      Profile for flotsom   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Yeah, I'm not sad either. I only use Stars n Stripes brand toilet paper.
From: the flop | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
swallow
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posted 15 December 2003 04:44 PM      Profile for swallow     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Gaia Child, i thought that was a rather lovely meditation. When i look at the decent people that are the American side of my family, waving their little rhetorical flags, i feel the same.

But i also think that being fully human is transcending that streak of self-deception and denial and making a fundamental identification with not only "fellow Americans" but also with "fellow humans." To be fully human is to be fully humanitarian too. (And that's as far as i can go without slipping into religion, so i'll stop.)


From: fast-tracked for excommunication | Registered: May 2002  |  IP: Logged
Gir Draxon
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posted 16 December 2003 12:32 AM      Profile for Gir Draxon     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Bush/Blair unilateralism?? HUH?

USA + UK = bilateral (bi- 2)

USA + UK + AUS + 32 others = multilateral, right?

quote:
Much of the Western public, so easily swayed by patriotism, media propaganda and plain narrow-mindedness, cannot seem to see how the Iraqi invasion played in the Arab and Muslim world.

You may have a point here, but the anti-war movement's hands are not clean. There are BOTH happy and rejoicing Iraqis AND angry and resentful ones. Both "sides" only represent one side- Bush & co. with their rose colored glasses and the anti-war movement with their doom and gloom. The fact is that neither are true, and that both sides are attempting to brainwash a somewhat apathetic populace.

quote:
How starting a war based on enormous lies undermines the very credibility of the West. How Bush and Blair couching the war so clearly in terms of "Good" and "Evil", and "God" and "Country" inflames the Islamic believer, and the Arab nationalist.

What were they supposed to do? Its a WAR. Of course they are going to "inflame" those on the other side.

quote:
I am saddened by the continued susceptibility of the Western public to appeals to the White Man's Burden. And by the continued refusal of most Westerners to look as critically on Western-caused atrocities as they do on Islam-caused horrors. By the continuing inability of the Anglo-American Middle to feel discomfort at the insanity of their own societies.

Is it White Man's Burden, or is it a refusal to look the other way because Hussein in Iraq (allegedly) could never have harmed people in Europe and NA? We do too much looking the other way in my opinion. And don't think that doesn't apply to "allies" of the USA such as Saudi Arabia.


From: Arkham Asylum | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
spatrioter
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posted 16 December 2003 12:38 AM      Profile for spatrioter     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Gir Draxon:
Is it White Man's Burden, or is it a refusal to look the other way because Hussein in Iraq (allegedly) could never have harmed people in Europe and NA?

In what direction were they looking in the 1980s?


From: Trinity-Spadina | Registered: Mar 2002  |  IP: Logged
al-Qa'bong
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posted 16 December 2003 02:04 AM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
What were they supposed to do? Its a WAR. Of course they are going to "inflame" those on the other side.

Some definitions are needed.

What's a war? I'm serious. What part of what the US government and its followers (who seem to behave as one - quite less than the sum of their parts) are doing is conducting "The WAR" and what is something else?

Who is "the other side"?

How can you tell?


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Michelle
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posted 16 December 2003 07:11 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by spatrioter:
In what direction were they looking in the 1980s?

Towards the oil.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Agent 204
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posted 16 December 2003 07:47 AM      Profile for Agent 204   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Rufus Polson:
Gaia Child, I think you're expecting a lot of people. What are we supposed to be, here? Avatars of a perfectly rational supreme deity created in His image, or something?
No. We're just these critters who, like essentially all other critters, are basically obsessed with getting more and making more of ourselves.

I was going to say that the difference with us is that we've broken that balance, but I'm not at all sure we have. It's just fluctuating rather wider in the case of humanity; as we erode the world's carrying capacity, we're gonna get pared back eventually. The four horsemen gonna ride. But again, that doesn't necessarily mean we, or the ecosphere, will be wiped out. Just pared back heavily. It'll be a horrible time to live through, I expect. But I also expect there'll be something on the other side.


This is my view, more or less. I think a lot of progressive people expect too much of humans, and figure that we should magically "do the right thing" because we're smarter. Our intelligence is just another adaptation, and like any other adaptation, it can backfire. It wouldn't be the first time. When microorganisms first developed photosynthesis, around a million years ago, they had an immediate advantage over their competitors, but they unleashed a biological catastrophe that has never been exceeded, before or since, because a byproduct of their adaptation was oxygen, and it poisoned the world. The world recovered from that, and it will recover from us. Whether or not we will is unclear, but like you I have hope.


From: home of the Guess Who | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 16 December 2003 09:06 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Every once in a while, Gaia, I am overwhelmed by feelings very like the vision you've laid out so carefully above. At the moment, I especially share your sense of dread -- I also fear that bad things are about to happen to people who are not bad but just refuse to see from any perspective but their own.

And then, of course, no guarantees that anyone else will be spared either.

We can't go on. We must go on. We go on.

Slight drift -- question to Mike Keenan:

quote:
When microorganisms first developed photosynthesis, around a million years ago, they had an immediate advantage over their competitors, but they unleashed a biological catastrophe that has never been exceeded, before or since, because a byproduct of their adaptation was oxygen, and it poisoned the world.

Just before this happened, what was in the world that was to be poisoned by oxygen?


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Mandos
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posted 16 December 2003 10:23 AM      Profile for Mandos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Anaerobic bacteria. Oxygen is extremely toxic to life, you know. It's just that we aerobes have developed ridiculously complicated ways to defend ourselves against its depredations so we can also reap the massive energy benefits of using it in metabolic reactions. The first step: protecting our DNA with nuclear membranes---ie, becoming eukaryotes. DNA is very vulnerable to oxygen.
From: There, there. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 16 December 2003 03:07 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Anaerobes, incidentally, operate off sulphides, do they not?

Anyway, one thing I have been less than sanguine about is the continued survival of the Anglo-American portion of the continent.

I said in 1997 that "North America is dying". That may have been an overstatement, but since then I think I am probably still correct. The US's continued reliance on military spending, while it frees Canada of the same requirement, nevertheless binds us to a common fate if the US disintegrates in any degree - and certainly, the US economy is feeling the effects of a sustained redirection of government spending into, essentially, unproductive expenditures, since the goods produced and the services rendered have no counterpart in the civilian sector.

A country that once built a highway network under the rubric of allegedly military needs now can no longer adequately maintain those roads.

A country that once set itself the goal of being better than the Soviet Union is now becoming a cracked-mirror image of that other nation.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
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posted 16 December 2003 03:33 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Hi Doc:

"Anyway, one thing I have been less than sanguine about is the continued survival of the Anglo-American portion of the continent."

I know you don't like air travel (it is highly polluting anyway) so you can always visit us in the the Francophone part of the continent if you don't feel like travelling to points far south and the Hispano- and Luso- parts. Hope the railway still runs.


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 16 December 2003 04:26 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I doubt that Quebec will escape the effects either, but your thoughts are appreciated.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
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posted 16 December 2003 04:54 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Doc, I fully agree - especially under Charest, and given the union divisions!

Just reminding you that we are NOT part of anglo-America .


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
arborman
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posted 16 December 2003 06:46 PM      Profile for arborman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I have a similar sensation quite often. I get overwhelmed by the sheer scope and destructiveness of the mistakes that humans are able to make as a species.

For about 5000 years we have been struggling with developing ways to live in large groups, without destroying the carrying capacity of the world around us, and without destroying the groups we are trying to build. I suspect it has gone on for more than 30000 years, but the first 25K or so didn't do as well (at developing larger and more complex societies).

I often fear that we are about to reach the limits of this current social experiment, and see some serious shrinkage and collapse of the international scene, and particularly international economics. I don't think it will be pretty, no civilisational collapse ever has been.

As for what to do about it, I don't know. None of us can change the world alone, we might not be able to change it collectively. I have come to the conclusion that it is beside the point. All we can do is try to contribute to the experiment this time round, and hope that it either works, or at least doesn't make it impossible for any future societal experiments to happen (for humans anyway).

One of my favourite books is called "The Man in the High Castle" by Philp K. Dick. The premise is that the Axis won WWII, and it takes place in Japanese controlled Western USA. While I can't go into the brilliant concepts of colonised/coloniser etc. that the book explores, one of the main issues of the book was essentially how humans remained human within the context of a world that was about to be completely dominated by Nazi ideology and practices. Essentially, there was no hope for the world, but the characters still faced individual moral and ethical decisions and dilemmas. Brilliant novel, and what I took out of it was the basic concept that we have to be as ethical and moral as possible, regardless of the eventual outcome on the global scale.

We might not be able to save the world, or even just keep it going for another 20 years. We might not be able to do anything at all, and someone might push a button or start a chain of events that destroys it for good. That doesn't remove our role in making decisions and performing actions that will contribute, in some way, to finding a way out of the current mess.

A digression, but I sometimes think that one of the biggest weaknesses on the left and in the center is fatigue when faced with massive issues like this. So many of us see the world and world events that are well beyond our control, feel like we can't do anything to change it, and give up, more or less. Move to the burbs, focus on mortgage payments etcetera, and hope it all works out, and that the right wingnuts don't do too much damage while they have control. Part of Western culture's fixation with heroes and quick fixes, rather than thoughtful discussion and gradual development of solutions to complex problems. If we can't fix it all at once, it can't be fixed (eg. poverty).


From: I'm a solipsist - isn't everyone? | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged
Agent 204
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posted 16 December 2003 08:48 PM      Profile for Agent 204   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by arborman:
I often fear that we are about to reach the limits of this current social experiment, and see some serious shrinkage and collapse of the international scene, and particularly international economics. I don't think it will be pretty, no civilisational collapse ever has been.

As for what to do about it, I don't know. None of us can change the world alone, we might not be able to change it collectively. I have come to the conclusion that it is beside the point. All we can do is try to contribute to the experiment this time round, and hope that it either works, or at least doesn't make it impossible for any future societal experiments to happen (for humans anyway).


We can certainly try to contribute to the experiment (indeed we must) but we should also be doing something else. We should do our utmost to prevent collapse, but we should also prepare for the possibility that it will happen. And I don't mean simply stockpiling goods like the survivalists (though that might well have to be part of it) but stockpiling information (hard copies, of course). You mentioned that Phillip K. Dick novel, I've got a recommendation of my own- A Canticle for Liebowitz by Walter Miller. It takes place many centuries after a nuclear war, and centres around a Catholic monestary devoted to the Liebowitz of the title. Liebowitz was a scientist who had stockpiled information to rebuild civilization, but the new civilization that arises heads down a similar path. What strikes me about the novel is that Liebowitz himself was too narrow in his selection- he included (rightly) all the important scientific works that he could, but perhaps part of the problem was that that was all he included. A good Liebowitz wannabe should look at stockpiling other works as well- works of history, philosophy, and politics. In short, we should look at trying to start the next experiment off on a better foot than this one.

[ 16 December 2003: Message edited by: Mike Keenan ]


From: home of the Guess Who | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
arborman
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posted 16 December 2003 11:20 PM      Profile for arborman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I read that book as well.

I think the problem this time out is resources. We are using them all, a civilization that would follow any apocalyptic event would be hamstrung from the start. We've dug up almost all of the easy to reach stuff.

Focusing on keeping this experiment going, but redirecting it to more sustainable and humanist (as opposed to unsustainable and inhuman) is what I try to focus on. We have a lot of amazing things here, and some really awful things. Protect the amazing, work to remove the awful.

It may all be pointless, but everything is, ultimately. Might as well concentrate on making things better. What I did at work today could be irrelevant, it could make a small difference. I can't make a big difference, so I have to accept the small one for now and try to work with enough people to make a big one later.

If it turns out badly that's better than acting surprised when there isn't any gas left for my SUV or food for my kid 20 years from now.


From: I'm a solipsist - isn't everyone? | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged
Cougyr
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posted 17 December 2003 01:20 AM      Profile for Cougyr     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Humans are like any other species. We consume and multiply, consume and multiply, consume and multiply, until we consume all the available resources. Then we starve our population down to size and start over.
From: over the mountain | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
arborman
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posted 17 December 2003 02:01 AM      Profile for arborman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
But unlike other species, we also consome non-foodstuffs. It would be one thing if we multiplied ourselves into a famine, another if we poisin all the water supply while we are at it (thus preventing any more humans from bouncing back)
From: I'm a solipsist - isn't everyone? | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged
hibachi
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posted 17 December 2003 01:59 PM      Profile for hibachi   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I read the Man in the High Castle as well. I don't think the imperialist capitalist steam has run out for Anglo-America yet. Before they go to Apocalypse they will infect some other growing country with the system. The rich will simply transfer their money over there, while still controlling it all. The vast majority of world billionaires are Anglo-American. They will gleefully leave Anglo-America bankrupt in order to preserve their wealth.

India and China are both being set up to be the inheritors of the Anglo-American capitalist model. The 'Apocalypse' will simply be the end of Western domination of the world. A lot of people will be uncomfortable with that. Perhaps they have something to lose.

European countries have got used to the fact that they do not control huge empires any more. The best they can do to make one is to join together. Yet European countries seem to be relatively prosperous while insisting on a high value added and a high labour component. Their cities are modern and not run down, and there is very little evidence of poverty. Perhaps foreign trade is not as important to them as social services. Social services are industries themselves, contributing to GDP. They also contribute to well being. What is wrong with having a prosperous internal economy?


From: Toronto, Ont. | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged
arborman
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posted 17 December 2003 02:04 PM      Profile for arborman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I wonder if we'll see a reversal of centuries of immigration patterns, and have large numbers of North Americans emigrating to Europe. I've considered looking at ways to get an EU passport, just for the freedom of movement it provides (although with each passing year I get more attached to BC).
From: I'm a solipsist - isn't everyone? | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
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posted 17 December 2003 02:31 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Arborman, I'm trying to get an EU passport - I'm much happier when I'm in Europe. However if you are attached to BC, remember you have a lot to lose. Even in Vancouver, you are very close to the mountains and the sea, and despite all the horrific suburban sprawl in your beautiful region - what they did down in the paradise of California is sadder still - you are still not too far from relatively unspoilt nature. A lot of the forests I've been to in Europe are replanted in straight lines and as neat as a well-tended urban park. In the Low Countries there seems to be no "real" nature at all.

Many North Americans would find themselves cramped in prosperous Western European cities - even my friends who have relatively highly-paid professional jobs, such as full-time journalists or full professors, live in relatively small flats. Some have country houses.

This has improved somewhat if you have a portable job and are prepared to live in a smaller town or village, with information technology, but such places tend to be insular, and while polite, reserved towards folks from "away", even if they are from another region of the same country.

I'm a hardcore urbanite, but people who like space and the outdoors could feel very stifled in prosperous European cities.

It is a pleasure to see relatively little evidence of dire poverty, though there is social exclusion in the housing estates of London and the immigrant suburbs of Paris. And there are regions that are as sad as abandoned rust belt towns in North America - in the North of England, Northern France, the former East Germany etc.


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
arborman
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posted 17 December 2003 03:15 PM      Profile for arborman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I agree. To be honest I like much of Eastern Europe more than the west, for some reason.

There is a lot in Vancouver and its environs that I am willing to fight to protect, of course. However, I have family in Greece, and may look that way someday...

Drifting a bit here.


From: I'm a solipsist - isn't everyone? | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged
Gaia_Child
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posted 17 December 2003 03:27 PM      Profile for Gaia_Child     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
First of all, I want to thank everyone for their responses.

I especially appreciated your insights, Rufus. I find it quite ironic, actually. When I read your post, I recalled that only a week before, I had provided a similar analysis to my in-despair friend.

We were discussing why humans cannot respond honestly to debates on major world issues (ie. modify and adapt their belief structures and opinions when faced with contradictory, but true, information.) And, equally important, why people cannot seem to think outside of the intellectual and cultural boxes which they inhabit.

And I replied to my friend, "When confronted with human dysfunction, always remember that we are just big-brained apes. Just baboons who can do calculus. And then most of the contradictions and injustices in human behaviour will seem less perplexing, and hence, emotionally more manageable."

We weren't creatures who evolved to bring abstract and complete Justice and Love. We were creatures who evolved to survive and reproduce.


From: Western Canada | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
hibachi
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posted 17 December 2003 04:10 PM      Profile for hibachi   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I guess I have regressed to baboon status. I have forgotten calculus.
From: Toronto, Ont. | Registered: Jul 2001  |  IP: Logged

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