Your thoughts are delightful and, everywhere that I go, I find some individuals only too willing to foster a better way to interrelate — a way that is more greatly altruistic, ethical and fair. This is heartening. All the same, we have a long way to go in terms of revamping damaging (exploitive, corrupt, etc.) economic and governmental practices and policies…

Please consider attending Garda’s conference. Issues like this will be covered and plans for widespread implementation could arise from the various discussions. Here are two links associated with the event:
http://www.wpaconference.org and http://www.worldproutassembly.org.

In addition, you might find the texts at these sites of interest: http://www.russellmeans.com/speech.html, http://countercurrents.org/agrwaal120108.htm and here. In part, they point out the degree to which we MUST change and the reasons are quite clear.

I enjoyed reading your article, and i contemplated all the points you brought up throughout. I especially enjoyed your experiences with photographing people, their reaction to your interest in them was wonder and obvious joy, and it is heartening to know that there are still spiritually wealthy people that live on our planet, with no regard for material wealth and selfish intent, it reminds me of a quote i once heard that i recite to myself every day ” it is only after we have lost everything that we are free to do anything ” and free to love as if we had nothing at all to lose. I think if everyone was to concentrate every day on truly being present in every moment of their lives, we could do nothing but love each other and live in real harmony and understanding. much peace.

Weighing the benefits and the deficits of advancements « Gro… Weighing the benefits and the deficits of advancements …. These comments from Emily Spence and others are wonderful and, I believe, they have to grow in …growthmadness.org/2007/10/01/weighing-the-benefi…

Additionally, you might like this following piece. Joel raises some points that correspond well with yours!

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/547137/false_gods_create_false_hope.html

When people rally behind false change agents something worse than being disappointed and having their hopes killed happens: the national energy for real change is wasted. In the end, false change agents protect the status quo political establishment.

Joel S. Hirschhorn
http://www.delusionaldemocracy.com
http://www.foavc.org

Everyone wants change. There is not a single human being alive who supports the “status quo”. The rich don’t want the “status quo”, they want to be richer. They want whatever change will bring them additional wealth and power. Most other people want change that brings them additional happiness, which includes wealth in some cases.

It’s not a fight about change vs. the status quo, it’s a fight to control the nature of the change that is inevitable. “Evolution” isn’t some choice, it’s a certainty.

Milton Friedman, for example, wanted change. And he got it. Hitler wanted change. The CEO of Exxon wants change. Sam Walton wants change.

I appreciate you thoughts and comments. EVERY single one has merti and furthers understanding for each of us. As such, it is considerate.

Lloyd, I will definitely check again and thanks again to all for taking the time to share.

Thank you for the very helpful quote from I.F. Stone!

How about the following as the first stage toward your goal:

“Gandhi’s Seven Deadly Sins
Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism, considered these traits to be the most spiritually perilous to humanity.

Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice “

Personally, I don’t think that change and happiness are mutually exclusive. On an individual basis and in social systems, all progress is based on change. For example, a child, first, learns to crawl and, eventually, develops the musculature and skills to walk, run, skip, dance, leap, etc. In the same vein, humans would still be living in trees and caves, instead of in skyscrapers and other buildings, without change. Evolution, itself, would not happen without it.

All of this in mind, the problem becomes one in which we have to seriously consider to what are we to change to become. How are we to change the world and how are we to change, ourselves? What is the most beneficial course to take with each area of alteration?

Over time, it becomes increasingly clear to me that some of the directions that humankind is taking are downright wrong and dangerous. To get a good overview of some of these perilous sorts, please feel free to check out these web sites: postcarbon.org, growthmadness.org and dieoff.org!

In closing, thanks for sharing your reflections, Leroy. They are wonderful to consider!

I have a vibrant image of people smiling underneath a bridge. I have the concept of what it means to be a family clarified. This article has also added depth to what I think it means to be happy. Thank you for that.

Still, I’m not sure if the tension between being happy and making change can be resolved. On the one hand, there are poor people, who, having ‘figured it out,’ are supposedly uncomfortable but happy. They probably say something to the effect of, ‘look, here we are. What’s there to figure out? [let's just be happy]‘” The point is, making change really is based on results, and so you say, ‘let’s have fun when we protest,’ and I say, “But you can’t have fun.” You respond, “Why not?” I say, “Why?”

Why make change? Certainly I want change. But I also want to have fun.

Please excuse me if I’m not being clear. What I’m trying to say, is that the fun you can have while protesting is a self-righteous one. I find protests slightly revolting in this aspect. Perhaps I can protest in my own way, but why? The only reason is so that I can make change. And so goes a great battle between two respectable causes: “Let’s make the world a better place” and “Let’s be happy.”

Let me say it one more time: I currently believe the way you choose to live can be for justice or for happiness, but not both. If you choose to be just happy, then justice is secondary. If you choose to be justice, then happiness is secondary. I’m not sure if I’m right though.

I leave it unresolved for now.

[PDF]Cultural Relativism and Universal Rights in Isla… torical bias. Over the past decade I have written. about my own reluctance—derived from. my training in cultural relativism—to …

Thomas H. Johnson - Cultural Relativism: Interpretations of … Cultural relativism is part of our training as social scientists as well as …. Of course, bias could enter any of the areas of research done by …

[PDF]Cross-Cultural Research: An Introduction for Stu… Thanks are due to my students in Anthropology 174AW, World Cultural Comparisons, … privileged frame of reference for interpretation cannot be justified.

A Brief History of Cognitive Anthropology Moreover, it has significantly changed the face of cultural anthropology, …. around the analyst’s imposition of his own cultural bias on a society.

Rashomon effect - Wikipedia
The Rashomon effect is the effect of the subjectivity of perception on recollection, by which observers of an event are able to produce substantially.

[PDF] The Rashomon Effect. Combining Positivist and Interpretivist Approaches ….. Roth, Mehta / THE RASHOMON EFFECT.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology: Contrast effects… a Department of Social Psychology, Free University Amsterdam, … The presence of a salient comparative context during stereotype formation has been shown.

Ethnic Stereotyping and Identification in a Multicultural Context: …. Social identifications: A social psychology of intergroup relations and group.

[PDF]Manipulating stereotype rating tasks: understand… e€ects produced by varying the context in which stereotype judgements were ….. entiation in a dynamic intergroup setting’, Journal of Social Psychology.

PDF]The fundamental context categories in understand… their varying relevance. The context is determined by the features of the physical environment, by the. features of the social world, and by the features of . . .

Faculty of Social Sciences - Social and Cultural Psychology … When do we communicate stereotypes? Influence of the social context on the … reactions when confronted with virtual others with varying ethnicity.

[PDF]. PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN. van Rijswijk, Ellemers / CONTEXT EFFECTS. Context Effects on the Application of Stereotype.

ANU - School of Psychology - John Turner My research interests are in social psychology and have covered a number of topics … J. C. (1995) Context-dependent variation in social stereotyping 3

Culture Bound Syndromes Explanation of the Cause and Connect… I intend to demonstrate the cause of Culture Bound Syndromes. …… although possible artifacts such as ascertainment bias must be considered.

[PDF]Culture-Bound Syndromes forceful critique of the ethnocentric bias inherent in such a position, Ritten-. baugh [21] provides a four-part definition of culture-bound syndrome that …content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowPDF&… - Similar pages

I neither have time, nor inclination, to nitpick over every point with you. It seems that perhaps you missed the point due to employment of a small frame of reference based in a fixed curtailed social context — the one with which you are personally familiar in daily discourse. Instead one has to look at intentions and prevalent customs in the particular associated (assessed) society for interpretation in such actions.

While there are universals in culture regarding behaviors, expressions of motives vary from social group to social group and, thereby, form different meanings. Perhaps these following sites will help you to grasp an overview in this matter a little more firmly and from a more complex, as well as broader, hermeneutic filter. (However, you really don’t need me to get these sites for you on the internet. When you have a question concerning some topic of interest relative to this essay or any other, you can do the research, yourself, to obtain satisfactory verifications.)

From: “(1984). Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 53:100-106, The Psychoanalysis of Culture: By C. R. Badcock. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980. 264 pp.. Review by: Howard F. Stein

“For the past half-century, cultural relativism has reigned as anthropology’s virtually undisputed ideology and inviolate mythology. Originally an intellectual antidote to the pseudo-biologism of European nationalism, the putative cure merits discussion as at least a semantic and epistemological disorder. The heuristic strategy of examining a way of life on its own terms has been superseded by a doctrinaire insistence that this is the only methodologically legitimate—and moral—way to conduct an analysis of culture.

“Not only do cultures differ, but there are no universal standards by which cultures are to be compared. Each group must be approached ideographically, as though the science of man were an aesthetic exercise. Cultural relativists repudiate and rebuke the evolutionism of anthropology’s founders as a rationalization for colonialism, imperialism, and racism. The secular, urbanized, industrialized West is viewed as far from the pinnacle of h…”

One last thought as an aside: If you like stereotyping and/or denigrating people from other societies, it is entirely your right. However, it might behoove you to have access to other perspectives rather than to look at issues from myopic, monomaniacal lens. In this vein, why not check out Gardy’s (worldproutassembly.org), Binu’s (countercurrents.org), Tom’s (informationclearinghouse.info/) and Ramzy’s (palestinechronicle.com) sites? Why — it could do you a world of good and here’s a good start point. In addition, our problem, I suspect, is one of disparate weltanschauung. (If you don’t know the term or about hermeneutics, please feel free to check them out, too, if you wish.) Yet and as mentioned above, I have neither the time, nor inclination, to explain more and debate with you. So, write whatever further retort or other sort of commentary that you may wish. You’re, though, on your own now to shift your views or happily maintain them as is.

Just skipping along the article, for amusement, I stumbled across the above nugget. So, the host force-feeding the guest, against the latter’s will or protestations, that’s a sign of love, civilization, happiness, hospitality? That is preferable — in Emily’s world, than the host and the guests exhibiting a little mutual respect, restraint and not invading each other’s personal space? And the Middle East (Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Iran, extreme wahabism, extreme judaism, extreme mullahs, punishing rape victims, etc. ) is the epitome of love and happiness?

Like I said, I didn’t need to read the rest of the article to know something like this was coming — the opening sentences set the tone in the New Math (2+2=37) kind of way.

Emily, I suggest a crash course in Reality 101 and Abstinence from Psychedelic Drugs 101.

But thank you for providing such smashing entertainment.

‘During “hibernation”, the bear may only eat once a week, or if it is very cold he will not eat for a month.’ From: Bear Country USA
Gestation:, About 7 months. No. of Young:, 1-5 cubs a year. … During “hibernation”, the bear may only eat once a week, or if it is very cold he will not …

Why some animals eat their offspring - LiveScience- msnbc.co…
Eating your offspring may sound unthinkable, but animals from fish to birds are … sheds light on the factors that may drive some parents to eat their young.

FOXNews.com - Why Some Animals Eat Their Young - Science New…
Why Some Animals Eat Their Young, Study finds that eating offspring boosts survival chances of … New cuddly polar bear grabbing the spotlight in Germany …

Zoo fears as polar bear eats cubs - CNN.com
Nuremberg City Zoo’s other polar bear ate its own two offspring earlier … Polar Bear Vera has been separated from her cub amid fears she would eat it. …

Outrage as Polar bear mother eats starving cubs at German zoo that refused to hand rear … Zookeepers believe she gave birth to two, possibly three, cubs. …

Polar bear cub removed after mum eats two siblings
A POLAR bear cub has been separated from its disturbed mother at a German zoo … as polar bears to eat their young if the cubs are sick or refuse to feed. …

Zookeepers to raise rescued polar bear cub - AOL Video
A German zoo is under fire for letting a mother polar bear eat its cub. … the cub, believed to be female, feeding her rich milk every two or three hours. …

Emily, you apparently don’t know the most basic fact that I thought every five year old does: the bears hibernate in the winter (look up in the dictionary: H-I-B-E-R-N-A-T-E). They don’t hunt or “capture prey”. They don’t eat. They definitely don’t eat their young, because ‘they’re hungry’ — because they are not even half concscious. When finally awake in the spring, they fiercely protect their young — the mothers do.

So, this — the very beginning of your article, was a fantasy — complete with all the details so artfully and so matter-of-factly supplied as to which young the mother will eat first and why; it was conjured up by you not knowing even the most basic thing about what you’re writing about. So typical of extremists, either on the left or the right. Just invent “the facts”, fill in the “details” from fiction, the rabble (who never had proper schooling anyway) will never know the difference, after all it’s written here in such authoritative tone, black on white.

I didn’t read the rest, there’re probably a million logical holes you can drive a truck through, based on this inauspicious beginning.