Paper-Doll responds

"we're not encouraged to see the similarities we have with others. Do you have any idea why?"

Human universals are relative, really, to Western and European societies. Humans for the most part are not encouraged to see the similarities, because we are dissimilar.
Even in the diversity campaigns of the Colleges and Universities these days only stress the differences between people. They stress being accepting (tolerance has become a bad word in this environment), but accepting of differences. There is never a focus on similarities.
Similarities are passed over. These are seen as things everyone has and therefore not focused on.
Take a wall with all white stone and one bright green one. The only stone in the wall you'll notice is the one with the difference.
That is about all I can do for you regarding that question.

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"You sound quite poisoned about these things. What is your evidence? (if we are to be ‘rational’, evidence is needed for statements, would you agree?)"

http://www.ersarts.com/cgi-bin/pikie/ersarts/ersarts.py?WhatAreWeTryingT...

Try here for an idea of the people I am talking about. Note this part: "We were all asleep and now we are awake. We were scattered and now we have connected. We were divided, but he, the Great Uniter, has started to unite us.

But is it all just a surface phenomena? Is there substance to the movement that Mr. Bush has re-energized? Does it have stamina? Will we stay connected and united?

Can the Movement survive..."?

WASP is a fictional organization (in both cases). I was using it to explain race and class difference.

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"Whoa. Perhaps that is why rationality so largely remains so alienated; i.e. in its dogmatic assumptions of Who is Rational and Who Never Is."

In the cycle of life, one runs into the same kind of obstacles over and over again. It is the rational who can overcome certain kinds (the biggest and [in my opinion] most important kinds) of obstacles. These are only overcome after many failures. Enough of these are conquered and then you might have a moment of self-actualization.
Thinking for yourself is the first stop to all of this. And all are capable of this. There is no Who Never Is, all are Always-Already capable of this, but Always not starting in this state.

"What manner of rationality are you speaking of?"
We, I should say, are more rational than in the ages past. (Although some even more ancient writings are just as rational, but these ideas were lost and not accesable to the vast majority for a long time. This is not the debate though).
However, the salem witch trials would never happen again.
Invalid arguments such as---Lazy farmers have no cows. Hard working farmers do have cows. Give the lazy farmers cows and they'll become hard working farmers.---will not pass the scruitiny of any high school if not middle school student.
But amongst all this rationality, we have media driven societies. It is also called advertising. It creates irrational ideas about the need for material wealth and beauty. However, all in all I'd say rational thinking is at an all time high, but true thinking for oneself is not happening. New obstacles have formed (a lot due to this media of materialism) and thus, though more rational in thought, true thinking does not prevail. In fact, we should use two words for rational thought. Rational: for reasoning and we'll use Logos for thinking for oneself. They are very distinct things. Unfortunatly I don't have more time to elaborate.

"Really, I think people who buy into the "cut and dry" thinking you seem to be doing here is a way to shoot ourselves in the foot, and not listen to the wisdom of kids, who know the value of approaching the *inside of the book* rather than outside appearances."

How is this cut and dry? This is revolutionary thought. What is it you are trying to say about the intelligence of people? Are you with Marx/Althusser and the idea where you have repression of people and thus a class system based upon production of stuff?

"people are made to be and appear stupid."

People are made to think they are smart and know lots of stuff when they really don't. This is where we have rational thought yet no overcoming of the obstacles that inhibit free-thinking and therefore few achiving Logos and/or moments of self-actualization.
People are made to think they have a choice. People are made to think they are in control when really other factors outside of the self are affecting and pulling and twisitng at their psyche. The "I" is not only affected by the "it" in this situation* but various other things such as media, the educational system, religion, and the drive to suceede and/or gain material wealth, also shape the “I�?.

What is the wisdom that the kids are saying? Amongst all these fake ideals and fake happinesses are they not impressed with the new plastic toy and the new episode of the latest Disney Channel show? Do they reject these things for what they really are, useless and most often propoganda?
Are kids asking for an asertion of value or does the new class hampster walk in and make everything all better right at the critical moment? (see Barthleme's "The School")

I don't know what you have against the concept and reality that people are stupid. I believe people have an ability to supercede these mental and material confines, but it takes more than just being able to reason on the basic levels. There exists levels of coersion which work at our psyches to keep us from achieving a higher status of spiritual/mental status/capacity.

* "I" = Ego
"It" = Id

[paper-doll]

phree spirit responds back:

I think you are missing the distinction between two worlds of seeing. One world is organized and subordinated to rigid beliefs about how to do things, the other is quite informal, such as the friendships GLs make with each other and girls.

In that vein, we see the game of "diversity" as posited by politicals engaged in something that is not readily seen. I am not promoting such games as those. I am promoting the idea of the power of informality, the power of individuals who escape from the confines and self-limitations of politics and rigid belief systems; and the promotion of escaping such artificial boundaries as they are perpetuated by interests not wanted to be seen.

While it is true that we are "dissimilar" on the face of things (and not yet turned into automatons), we need not remain contained by such truths. Obviously, most people, in daily life, do not remain, yet, so completely surrounded with such self-defeating beliefs (as you seem to orient yourself to), being much more inclined, intuitively, to making friends (etc.) with whomever fancies them.

Yes, those who seek to organize us in formal ways, reflecting the callousness and so-called "objectivity" of their trainings, perpetuate surface phenomenon. And only the institutionally "well educated" seem to see the world through such confining lenses.

The idea of who is noted as "able" to "conquer" challenges is another topic that has been greatly mystified. One group stands at one end of the spectrum, assuming they have a monopoly on what "works" and what is "success"; another flows with things around them, gets judged in attacking ways (by the other group, which often tries to impose its perpetual will, it's way of seeing on the other spectrum), and often believes it is floundering pitifully.

When in reality, many of these "unsuccessful" types are already living beyond the worst of the hells created by those perpetuating muddled thinking (paraded, as always, as Sanity of the Highest Order). Take the "unemployed" or marginalized. Unable to buy the junkfood they "want" and participate in the hollow spectacle hyped-up all around them, they often create meaningful alternatives--while still beating themselves up inside their heads for being "poor" or naughty in such ways.

They simply do not know their power. And have been systematically cut off from such power. I am simplifying, in order to avoid a very very long post (and because i want to get to other things tonight), but i suspect you can fathom the gist of this.

I find your assumption about the idea that society (re: "we") is more "rational" today than the past to be patently absurd. But of course you're talking in generalities...Of course, we're led to believe that this age is "more rational"; fits the propaganda of this age. Could anything be suggested otherwise?

Our awareness of past eras is not full, or even nearly so; society continues to only see the social through ideologically-challenged lenses little changed from the times when "we" viewed blacks as "subhuman", Indians as "savages", and women as "children".

As for the Salem Witch Trials never happening again? Where, you mean in Salem, MA? (Are you aware that there were never burnings there? That in the u.s., according to the Witch Museum of Salem, there were only lynchings?) As for other places, another patently absurd assumption, given the witch hysteria going on in several modern "2nd world" societies, such as several Asian nations and in India (where whole families have been burned alive in semi-recent years--1990s due to witch hysteria).

But alas, you are talking about Witch Trials. So, you are talking about Witches, then? Not, for example, Girl-lovers on trial in a witch-hunt atmosphere?

On "media driven societies" this is true, yet I see you getting bogged down in the popularized view rather than the analyzed view. Media in themselves, such as this forum, are not the "bad" thing. It is the way those media are structured--emitting and reflecting military-type objectives and deceit--which perpetuate war and other stupidities. (War against us, war against ANY group reduced to prejudiced ways of seeing)

Yes, thinking for oneself is not happening, as you share. But I do not see it solely based on materialism or advertising. Again, a popularized view based on superficial/symptomatic evidence gathering. If these truths were only about profits, then CNN and the NY Times would be selling porn on the side, including the worst sides of child porn. All for "profit" interests. But this is not so, as you can see from this simple argument. So there are forces at work which dive deeper, and today's "rational" do not seem to "think for themselves" enough!

I'm not "with" the euro-centric way of perpetuating stupidity and alienation, no. I want meaningful evolution from these enfortressed views, which, notably, have been forcibly (via all manner of tricks) passed on from generation to generation. I look back at the history (not herstory) of revolution, and I see various groups vying for the "right" to perpetuate terrorism in myriad forms, sustaining hierarchies and the kind of dumbing down that John Taylor Gatto has brought up concerning schooling.

To me, and growing numbers of others with principled praxis, the revolutionary "program" is continuance of the dark ages of medival europe.

Finally, your ageism and poisonous assumptions about kids move me to say where is the MAA in you? Do you even identify as such? To so quickly judge the ways of the people called children smacks to me as the "normal" and "rational" groanup chauvanistic attitude I hear everywhere beyond the reaches of MAA input!

Your Freudian view (re: Id/Ego,etc) reminds me of the pedagogical MAA who has been so propagandized by his society that he does not any longer see the ancient spirit of the 'child' as anything more than trite or "cute" sentimentality to be exploited so to "fill" an emptiness that their preferred "success" cannot fill.

If you feel i am in error, perhaps this would be a good time to have a better understanding. (tho i cannot say for sure if i will be able to get back to you any time soon)

To conclude, what I have against people judged (in quite outsider ways) to be "stupid" is that those who see themselves as so "smart" and "better" expose their own stupidity by not being able to understand something outside of their experience. And this translates to keeping oppressed peoples and motions for sanity bogged down in the same old tarpits of impossibility where war is viewed as the "only way" to proceed!

Hogwash!