another peel of the onion

[kenoli Oleari]

Julie -- So here are some thoughts I had today and earlier that are
brought up by your note.

1)  Why have Americans been so out of touch and un-empathetic with
the experience of the rest of the world?  I am amazed at the abject
surprise of people at the WTC events.  I read about such things even
in the mainstream press almost daily.  What keeps people in the US
from seeing these things and empathizing with the people effected by
them?  I'm not sure it is all explained by the poor media in this
country, though I know it has its affect.  Right now the media is
having the effect of pretending like there is very little sentiment
against going to war.  Do people not see these things going on in the
rest of the world because of the way that privilege blinds itself to
the plight of others who are oppressed by that privilege?  I think
the work we do in Open Space supports greater experience of empathy
and a deeper capacity to hear diverse perspectives.  It also
demonstrated that diverse perspectives can be held successfully in a
productive container.

2)  Why is it so easy to get so many people riled up about war and
willing to spend huge amounts of money and resources on war, when we
never see this kind of unity or excitement about creating a peaceful,
egalitarian or environmentally respected world?  One possible answer
I thought up to this last question is that possibly people don't have
a sense of how to do the latter, while war seems simple, you get guns
and go kill the bad guys.  If this is true, perhaps the most powerful
thing we can do is to spread knowledge of instruments like Open Space
that provide powerful tools for supporting a non-adversarial culture.
Maybe if people felt like they knew how to do peace, they would get
excited about it.

Kenoli
--
Kenoli Oleari, Horizons of Change, http://www.horizonsofchange.com
1801 Fairview Street, Berkeley, CA  94703   Voice Phone: 510-601-8217,
Fax: 510-595-8369, Email: kenoli at igc.org (or click on: mailto://kenoli@igc.org)

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