Let me begin with a small, self-serving fanfare. I spent some quality time with the great Marshall McLuhan in 1968; and I live only a few blocks from where Hillary Clinton grew up about that same time. So what...? So this....!
McLuhan got it right when he predicted modern communications would transform billions of us into a massive "global village." Instead of space and time continuing to divide us, we would once again become like the primitive villagers who could instantly see and talk and share with one another. Hillary later added that to raise a child still requires a whole village, only now the village is a 24/7 electronic phenomenon.
But here's where they both went wrong.
Well, not wrong, but incomplete. With all their foresight, they still couldn't quite foresee what this new village would do to its inhabitants. Instead of us once again becoming collectively engaged in the same life-affirming village experiences, ironically we've often become more insular than involved. Day after day our little hand held screens bombard our sensorium with data and details too vast to really absorb; and night after night our larger screens hold us transfixed with news events from around the globe too horrific to comprehend.
Western humanity now has at its command more information and finger-touch power than any previous 50 generations put together. And yet we are often just as paralyzed with confusion and fear as were the primitive villagers of old. Still mystified and threatened by whatever out there looks different than us.
And so it is that what was meant to make us free -- our wondrous 24/7 communication technologies -- often have enslaved us. The voices and faces and data streaming out from our screens act like some enormous tribal witch doctor, directing us what to think, what to believe, and how to act. Think about it. Aren't most of our decisions influenced by the last news report or cabal pundit or speech we just heard? We like to feel we make our own decisions, but tally up how many of OUR decisions were really THEIR opinions.
One advantage the old villages had over ours. At least back then there was some down-time between village events during which to reflect. In today's 24/7 electronic village -- no such luck. No such luxury. No such lantern. So be careful what you last listen to or read. Including this...!
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
DEATH OF AN HONORED OLD ADAGE
Over time, people gather up and honor the little wisdoms of life. We call them everything from platitudes to adages. One of the more respected adages is: "Don't judge another person until you've walked in their shoes."
On first impression, makes good sense. After some thought, though, could be seen in a very different light. It's not the people in the shoes that count so much as the shoes themselves. Every society considers certain shoes -- certain public roles in life -- as both special and enviable. Perhaps what we're really saying then is: given a chance, I'd very much like to walk in those shoes...!
Which president wouldn't like to stand in the admired shoes of a Jefferson, Jackson or Lincoln? Which Hollywood starlet with blond hair wouldn't aspire to be another Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe or Meg Ryan? Which quarterback wouldn't love to be another player-celebrity like Joe Namath or which pitcher would refuse to stand in the honored shoes of a Greg Maddox?
Here's the point.
When you turn this adage on its head, it's as much about wow as wisdom. Privately we all indulge in fantasies about being someone else, especially someone with fame and fortune. It's in the flawed nature of our species to be always on the hunt for something we haven't got. As Aesop reminds us in the tale of the dog with the meat. Chewing on a big hunk of steak, the dog stopped to look at himself reflected in the water. But when he saw a dog with what looked like a bigger slab of beef, he leaped in for the kill. Only to lose what he already had.
This yen to walk in someone else's shoes, bigger and better than our own, is at work everyday. Everywhere. Everyone. Sat -- it may even help explain why so far 76 people have filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for president in 2012. Seventy of them totally unknown, but anxious to change all that. Perhaps they haven't read the Mayan calendar which predicts the end of the world on December 21, 2012. Or maybe they wouldn't mind, just so long as they're in a bigger pair of shoes at the time...
On first impression, makes good sense. After some thought, though, could be seen in a very different light. It's not the people in the shoes that count so much as the shoes themselves. Every society considers certain shoes -- certain public roles in life -- as both special and enviable. Perhaps what we're really saying then is: given a chance, I'd very much like to walk in those shoes...!
Which president wouldn't like to stand in the admired shoes of a Jefferson, Jackson or Lincoln? Which Hollywood starlet with blond hair wouldn't aspire to be another Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe or Meg Ryan? Which quarterback wouldn't love to be another player-celebrity like Joe Namath or which pitcher would refuse to stand in the honored shoes of a Greg Maddox?
Here's the point.
When you turn this adage on its head, it's as much about wow as wisdom. Privately we all indulge in fantasies about being someone else, especially someone with fame and fortune. It's in the flawed nature of our species to be always on the hunt for something we haven't got. As Aesop reminds us in the tale of the dog with the meat. Chewing on a big hunk of steak, the dog stopped to look at himself reflected in the water. But when he saw a dog with what looked like a bigger slab of beef, he leaped in for the kill. Only to lose what he already had.
This yen to walk in someone else's shoes, bigger and better than our own, is at work everyday. Everywhere. Everyone. Sat -- it may even help explain why so far 76 people have filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for president in 2012. Seventy of them totally unknown, but anxious to change all that. Perhaps they haven't read the Mayan calendar which predicts the end of the world on December 21, 2012. Or maybe they wouldn't mind, just so long as they're in a bigger pair of shoes at the time...
Saturday, January 29, 2011
PILATE'S QUESTION TO JESUS & THE OSCARS
The Bible reports Pilate asked Jesus: "What is truth?" People have been asking ever since...
Our courts speak of "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Lovers claim it, liers manipulate it, historians often decide for themselves. Such as those who did the research for THE KING'S SPEECH, a movie predicted for an Oscar.
But now here's where this truth thing gets sticky. Anglophiles are cheering the film. A few Anglophobes are questioning it. They rightly say the resigning Edward was a Nazi sympathizer. However, they go on to say so really was the entire Royal Family (itself of German descent). Even the British Lion -- Churchill -- is reported to have sided with Edward until it became politically inexpedient.
Life often shows us the truth that is best, is the truth that serves us best. Perhaps counted among such truths are the legends of everyone from Marco Polo and Columbus to Washington and Lincoln; from the likes of saints to Santa. And yet -- in the name of truth -- some historians have resurrected each only to revile them. With hidden faults, failures, affairs and pretensions. Now, just before the Oscars, it's Churchill and the Royal Family.
When old enough to have heard such indictments time and time again, the senses are dulled to them. However, what of the children? What of the young, unformed minds we are always talking about? How does truth best serve them? Delivered raw and bawdy? Or packaged with a few lies and lace?
Historians may find those questions easy. Parents, teachers and clergy will not. For it is their challenge to raise the young with at least as much hope as history. Better yet, hope emerging from that history! FDR and Reagen were good at that. So were my unflinching parents. Now lets see how Oscar handles it.
Our courts speak of "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Lovers claim it, liers manipulate it, historians often decide for themselves. Such as those who did the research for THE KING'S SPEECH, a movie predicted for an Oscar.
But now here's where this truth thing gets sticky. Anglophiles are cheering the film. A few Anglophobes are questioning it. They rightly say the resigning Edward was a Nazi sympathizer. However, they go on to say so really was the entire Royal Family (itself of German descent). Even the British Lion -- Churchill -- is reported to have sided with Edward until it became politically inexpedient.
Life often shows us the truth that is best, is the truth that serves us best. Perhaps counted among such truths are the legends of everyone from Marco Polo and Columbus to Washington and Lincoln; from the likes of saints to Santa. And yet -- in the name of truth -- some historians have resurrected each only to revile them. With hidden faults, failures, affairs and pretensions. Now, just before the Oscars, it's Churchill and the Royal Family.
When old enough to have heard such indictments time and time again, the senses are dulled to them. However, what of the children? What of the young, unformed minds we are always talking about? How does truth best serve them? Delivered raw and bawdy? Or packaged with a few lies and lace?
Historians may find those questions easy. Parents, teachers and clergy will not. For it is their challenge to raise the young with at least as much hope as history. Better yet, hope emerging from that history! FDR and Reagen were good at that. So were my unflinching parents. Now lets see how Oscar handles it.
Friday, January 28, 2011
OUR TIPPED SCALES OF JUSTICE
In the unlikely event we need examples of how the scales of justice get badly tipped, here are some recent numbers from ForeignPolicy.com: "The world's four richest citizens -- Carlos Slim, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Mukesh Ambani -- now control more wealth than all of the world's 57 poorest nations."
If research had been this precise in the past, history would surely have shown the same tipped scales in ancient Egypt, Persia, China, Greece, Rome, right into the 20th C. It would have also shown that along with these few (on the heavy side of the scales) there would be the usual many (on the light side):
* There have always been the poor among us. Over the centuries, by the impoverished billions. Why this tragic state of affairs is often debated; rarely resolved. These teeming masses are forever pressing their faces against the candy store windows of the world. The few rich assuage the many poor in various forms. From ancient Rome's bread & circuses to modern America's welfare programs. But like Scrooge's Cratchit family, they never quite go away. And so the periodic uprisings, as in today's Middle East, which threaten and often succeed in toppling the few
* There will also always be the minorities among us. Different in different lands. Perhaps Armenians or Hindus or Coptics. In the US, usually African American and Hispanic. Once when national borders were sealed, the status remained fairly quo. Not anymore. Old Europe experiences waves of new citizens from abroad; and now the US faces a 2050 population 50% non-white. And so it is that we either integrate or disintegrate
* There will always be the wounded. Tens of millions in every land who exist wounded in either body or mind, with a pain that frequently becomes violence. The handicapped, the rejected, the ghettoed, the imprisoned. Often deprived of the what the few feast on, these many find various ways of trying to re-tip the scales. If not in the courts, then in the darkened city side-streets where most of us dare not venture
Sure, we all brush our teeth and comb our hair the same way. But after that -- well, out in the world where our peers don't often read the bold egalitarianism of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson -- we all takes sides on the scales. Those with the most, intend to keep it; those with the least, intend to change that. Now if "Justice" would just take off her blindfold, she might lose that serene look.
Every rich man and power broker in the world has already. What they do about what they see is each generation's biggest question...
If research had been this precise in the past, history would surely have shown the same tipped scales in ancient Egypt, Persia, China, Greece, Rome, right into the 20th C. It would have also shown that along with these few (on the heavy side of the scales) there would be the usual many (on the light side):
* There have always been the poor among us. Over the centuries, by the impoverished billions. Why this tragic state of affairs is often debated; rarely resolved. These teeming masses are forever pressing their faces against the candy store windows of the world. The few rich assuage the many poor in various forms. From ancient Rome's bread & circuses to modern America's welfare programs. But like Scrooge's Cratchit family, they never quite go away. And so the periodic uprisings, as in today's Middle East, which threaten and often succeed in toppling the few
* There will also always be the minorities among us. Different in different lands. Perhaps Armenians or Hindus or Coptics. In the US, usually African American and Hispanic. Once when national borders were sealed, the status remained fairly quo. Not anymore. Old Europe experiences waves of new citizens from abroad; and now the US faces a 2050 population 50% non-white. And so it is that we either integrate or disintegrate
* There will always be the wounded. Tens of millions in every land who exist wounded in either body or mind, with a pain that frequently becomes violence. The handicapped, the rejected, the ghettoed, the imprisoned. Often deprived of the what the few feast on, these many find various ways of trying to re-tip the scales. If not in the courts, then in the darkened city side-streets where most of us dare not venture
Sure, we all brush our teeth and comb our hair the same way. But after that -- well, out in the world where our peers don't often read the bold egalitarianism of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson -- we all takes sides on the scales. Those with the most, intend to keep it; those with the least, intend to change that. Now if "Justice" would just take off her blindfold, she might lose that serene look.
Every rich man and power broker in the world has already. What they do about what they see is each generation's biggest question...
Thursday, January 27, 2011
IT'S IN THE ATTIC
There's an attic in everyone's life. Some cobwebby place where important things get stored. Often to be forgotten. But meant never to be lost.
My attic is now where I can no longer reach. It sits in the dusty silence of that great red brick bungalow now owned by someone I don't even know. The home in which my family and I grew up together so many long years past. Living, loving, crying, and of course enshrining prized items up there we knew we would forever honor.
Everything you can think of, smile over, or cry at. Christmas wrappings...photo albums...gloves and scarves for the next winter, bathing suits and picnic baskets for the next summer...sentimental toys we never wanted to give up... needlework gems from Grandma and that scarred cornet from Grandpa...extra batteries we planned to use ...cherished autograph books our classmates signed and who we knew we would always remember...sheet music and LP records we intended never to give up...special toys and radio premiums (especially that 1939 Jack Armstrong hike-o-meter)...oh, and thick scrap books (like the WWII newspaper clippings liturgically cut and pasted from 1941 to the day the boys finally came marching home in 1945).
Our attic was not simply a storage room. More like a museum. A sacred palace where sacred moments were sealed, to be unwrapped only when and how the gathered family chose. As a kid you often visited the shadowy cathedral, but you never tarried long. After all, there would be time enough.
Only that time doesn't always come.
Children grow up and move away. Parents die. Neighbors change. The empty bungalow is sold. To whom, why, when and how is not yours to know. Only that whenever you drive past its aging face, you can almost hear it weep for you. You think of that great dark attic. What have they done with it? Why did you all forget about it? Yes, a quick post-funeral cleaning, but how come no one ever thought about together unsealing its gifts as reverently as we sealed them?
Too late. Too long ago. Too many relics gone with the wind. Somehow, though, the memory can fondle each lost treasure. And the heart, well, it can see each one again in all its living splendor. Like a family, a community and a nation needs to keep remembering and honoring who, why and how it got here.
My attic is now where I can no longer reach. It sits in the dusty silence of that great red brick bungalow now owned by someone I don't even know. The home in which my family and I grew up together so many long years past. Living, loving, crying, and of course enshrining prized items up there we knew we would forever honor.
Everything you can think of, smile over, or cry at. Christmas wrappings...photo albums...gloves and scarves for the next winter, bathing suits and picnic baskets for the next summer...sentimental toys we never wanted to give up... needlework gems from Grandma and that scarred cornet from Grandpa...extra batteries we planned to use ...cherished autograph books our classmates signed and who we knew we would always remember...sheet music and LP records we intended never to give up...special toys and radio premiums (especially that 1939 Jack Armstrong hike-o-meter)...oh, and thick scrap books (like the WWII newspaper clippings liturgically cut and pasted from 1941 to the day the boys finally came marching home in 1945).
Our attic was not simply a storage room. More like a museum. A sacred palace where sacred moments were sealed, to be unwrapped only when and how the gathered family chose. As a kid you often visited the shadowy cathedral, but you never tarried long. After all, there would be time enough.
Only that time doesn't always come.
Children grow up and move away. Parents die. Neighbors change. The empty bungalow is sold. To whom, why, when and how is not yours to know. Only that whenever you drive past its aging face, you can almost hear it weep for you. You think of that great dark attic. What have they done with it? Why did you all forget about it? Yes, a quick post-funeral cleaning, but how come no one ever thought about together unsealing its gifts as reverently as we sealed them?
Too late. Too long ago. Too many relics gone with the wind. Somehow, though, the memory can fondle each lost treasure. And the heart, well, it can see each one again in all its living splendor. Like a family, a community and a nation needs to keep remembering and honoring who, why and how it got here.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
THE FLEET TO THE FUTURE
President Obama, our candidates for mayor, all political leaders speak the same call -- we must win the future. And they're right, because after all we're going to spend the rest of our lives there. But where exactly do we best find and follow that future?
Well, some numbers for you. Right here in Chicago, riding their very own fleet-to-the-future. In 2011 this fleet of yellow school buses transported more than 5 million inquiring students to the Lincoln Park and Brookfield Zoos, 3 million to the Field Museum and Museum of Science & Industry, 2 million to the Shedd Aquarium, and another 1 1/2 million to the Art Institute.
None of those kids can vote nor hold office. But very soon now they will. The challenge for any futurist is to energize their minds -- both in and out of the classroom -- to seek higher goals and better ways. Right now, presidents and mayors depend on you and me, a population of minds already shaped (or mishaped). However, it's on these as yet unshaped minds that our future will soon enough depend (remember how young Gates and Zuckerberg were when they changed our world).
Nothing new about looking to our children for our future. Standard political rhetoric. But what's new this time is the time-line.Shorter and tougher than ever.And dozens of other nations are on the very same hunt with their kids
So the next time you see one of this fleet-to-the-future driving by, give 'em a wave. Better yet, a salute. Because you see, all those yelping little bodies in there are on their way to tomorrow.To help them on their ride -- really our ride too! -- we need to support them big time.
By the way we nourish them at home...send them our best teachers at school...and back those political leaders with the finest fast-track visions for our wavering educational system.
Well, some numbers for you. Right here in Chicago, riding their very own fleet-to-the-future. In 2011 this fleet of yellow school buses transported more than 5 million inquiring students to the Lincoln Park and Brookfield Zoos, 3 million to the Field Museum and Museum of Science & Industry, 2 million to the Shedd Aquarium, and another 1 1/2 million to the Art Institute.
None of those kids can vote nor hold office. But very soon now they will. The challenge for any futurist is to energize their minds -- both in and out of the classroom -- to seek higher goals and better ways. Right now, presidents and mayors depend on you and me, a population of minds already shaped (or mishaped). However, it's on these as yet unshaped minds that our future will soon enough depend (remember how young Gates and Zuckerberg were when they changed our world).
Nothing new about looking to our children for our future. Standard political rhetoric. But what's new this time is the time-line.Shorter and tougher than ever.And dozens of other nations are on the very same hunt with their kids
So the next time you see one of this fleet-to-the-future driving by, give 'em a wave. Better yet, a salute. Because you see, all those yelping little bodies in there are on their way to tomorrow.To help them on their ride -- really our ride too! -- we need to support them big time.
By the way we nourish them at home...send them our best teachers at school...and back those political leaders with the finest fast-track visions for our wavering educational system.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
THERE ARE FIGURES & THEN THERE ARE FEELINGSS
Chicagoans woke up this morning to learn that thus far this has been the 28th snowiest year on record. The kind of figure that statisticians love. But what about the rest of us...?
It would be anti-intellectual to dismiss the role of stats and facts in our age of science. But would it be anti-intuitive to suggest that we -- even as advanced and modern as we are -- live, love and leap more from feelings than from figures? Surely not even evolutionists would deny us our emotions.
So it's settled then. Modern humanity relies increasingly on the empirical data of the day, but at the same time is allowed room for its many and complex emotions.
How best to conflate the two? How best to cognitively saddle our bronco emotions? Well, that's what psychologists and psychiatrists are for, right? But wait...what about composers!
Most people will grant that even the greatest intellects can be swept off their feet and their game by great composers. [The New York Times just completed a study of the world's 10 greatest, starting with Bach to Bartok]. Most people would also include the popular song writers. You know, the tin pan alley and Broadway crowd who don't write for Carnegie Hall, but for lovers. Make your own top ten list, but surely it will include song writers like Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Rogers & Hammerstein, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan.
Want to pinpoint exactly how important such song writers are in our lives? Fill in the blanks below with the name of the song that first rushes to your mind [check that, your heart] >>
* They were playing ______ the night of my prom
* They were playing ______ my first year of college
* They were playing ______ the year I met you
* They were playing ______ at my last music concert
* They were playing ______ when the news broke in with that terrible tragedy
Remembering this is the 28th snowiest year in Chicago history is interesting. Remembering the music when that special someone/something happened is virtually instant. Is it still permitted to say: "Music is the language of heaven inside our hearts."
It would be anti-intellectual to dismiss the role of stats and facts in our age of science. But would it be anti-intuitive to suggest that we -- even as advanced and modern as we are -- live, love and leap more from feelings than from figures? Surely not even evolutionists would deny us our emotions.
So it's settled then. Modern humanity relies increasingly on the empirical data of the day, but at the same time is allowed room for its many and complex emotions.
How best to conflate the two? How best to cognitively saddle our bronco emotions? Well, that's what psychologists and psychiatrists are for, right? But wait...what about composers!
Most people will grant that even the greatest intellects can be swept off their feet and their game by great composers. [The New York Times just completed a study of the world's 10 greatest, starting with Bach to Bartok]. Most people would also include the popular song writers. You know, the tin pan alley and Broadway crowd who don't write for Carnegie Hall, but for lovers. Make your own top ten list, but surely it will include song writers like Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Rogers & Hammerstein, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan.
Want to pinpoint exactly how important such song writers are in our lives? Fill in the blanks below with the name of the song that first rushes to your mind [check that, your heart] >>
* They were playing ______ the night of my prom
* They were playing ______ my first year of college
* They were playing ______ the year I met you
* They were playing ______ at my last music concert
* They were playing ______ when the news broke in with that terrible tragedy
Remembering this is the 28th snowiest year in Chicago history is interesting. Remembering the music when that special someone/something happened is virtually instant. Is it still permitted to say: "Music is the language of heaven inside our hearts."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)