Replying to LO28961 --
Dear Organlearners,
Barry Mallis <theorgtrainer@earthlink.net> writes:
>You wrote about your encounter with a therapist friend
>who supported your feelings that more individuals felt...
>
>> ... pulled down into the dark depths of dispair by a
>>scheming fellow human.
>
>Just this morning I was listening to a radio program about
>the image of the U.S. in the eyes of non-citizens overseas.
>While our group has trodden this path a bit, I want to add
>that I in light of your question above, At, I think I'm feeling
>pessimistic, at best.
Greetings dear Barry,
Thank you for your reply, bringing in a facet which I think is important.
I have changed the topic from "Etymology, and Russian" to the present
one. In my previous response i mentioned how an increasing number of
people (especially since 2002) here in South Africa feel like a float on
water in turmoil. They get tossed in all directions without having any
say in it. This is the symptom which i want to name the Float Syndrome.
When talking to them, the most serious cause appear to be other humans
who disrupted their lives completely without the slightest consideration
for them. The reasons for such disruptions are from many fronts like the
political (affirmative action), economical (money making schemes) and
social (forced eviction).
This Float Syndrome was manifested very strongly in the early nineties
when a white electorate (apartheid) had to make way for an inclusive
electorate in which black people had an overwhelming majority. They began
to set right the injustices done during apartheid to them. Thus the Float
Syndrome had to be expected when people lose control over their destiny.
But i think that the recurrance of the Float Syndrome recently has far
less to do with South Africa's internal affairs as in the early nineties.
It has more to do with external affairs which induces the insequrity in
our internal affairs. It is quite astounding to see how even seemingly
firm political alliances get stressed very much and some even break up.
The same happens in our economy.
There is saying that when the US sneezes the rest of the world gets the
flu. Thus it might be that the 9-11 events as well as the subsequent
demise of applauded corportions like Enron and WorldCom gave our country
its recent bout of flu. It might also be that the long bull market in US
stocks sooner or later had to become a bear market -- the 9-11 events and
the aftermath merely triggering it.
But i have the gut feeling that something far more critical is involved
than the US economy merely adjusting itself in the usual cyclic manner.
That is why i asked for fellow learners (hopefully from every country to
which this list gets mailed) to tell whether they also noted an increase
in the Float Syndrome -- people feeling how they get tossed an all
directions by immense forces of which they are ignorant to.
I think that you also have that gut feeling, questioning it by:
>Could it be, as we peel off the calendar pages of the
>new millennium, that humankind has entered into the
>first stages of a physical overpopulation crisis, and that
>the manifestations are not physical -- not an expression
>of homo sapiens per square kilometer -- but rather in
>many other, relatively intangible realms? For instance:
Even stronger is my gut feeling that the time is coming closer which will
put the significance of the LO (Learning Organisation) to test. Is it
possible for someone within a LO to have the Float Syndrome? Is one of
the tasks in any LO not that its members should help each other to become
aware of the forces which will toss them in all directions? Futhermore,
is that task not to learn how to lessen the tossing of such forces?
>The vast majority of humans on the planet live in
>conditions quite different from the vast majority of
>Americans. And today a significant proportion of those
>living differently than many Americans have filtered and
>unfiltered access to images of how Americans
>purportedly live their lives. What some of these people
>perceive does not help homo sapiens' future.
Dear Barry, the general idea here in South Africa which people (who never
visited the US) have of the US is that it is a country of milk and honey.
They get this idea from a variety of information sources like news
bulletins, TV shows, movies, advertisements, financial reports and even
research reports. It is almost as if there is a conspiracy or a seduction
in the US to tell the rest of the world (or at least South Africans) just
how much the US is a land of milk and honey.
On the other hand, I frequently meet people who have worked for a year or
more in the US in places more than ivory towers. Most of them discovered
with a shock that the US is not a country of milk and honey. What they
experienced self and what they interpreted from information sources
differed very much. The scale of immodest, jealous, incompetant, malice,
retributive and similar destructive behaviours made them happy to be back
in South Africa.
Dear Barry and fellow US learners, please accept that this is not written
in a judgemental spirit. I have articulated it to show just how great the
difference is between what South Africans are informed about the US and
what some of them have learned self there. I did it because it may be the
sign of an era ending. Something similar happened here in South Africa
during the last dozen or so years of apartheid. The eyes of many South
Africans who went overseas to work in other countries for a year or more,
became opened to the immense destructive behaviour here through the lack
of such behaviour in those countries. I am reminded very much of those
people when you write:
>And the vast preponderance of Americans have never
>traveled over the seas, have absolutely no tangible
>comprehension -- beyond pictures on a TV which
>can be shut off -- of how these others live. I'm not
>speaking about the people reading these words at
>this moment.
But you end with the following:
>So, in a few words, the global malaise has its roots
>in a despair and hopelessness which ranges from the
>overt to something which until very recently could
>have been deemed asymptomatic global behavior.
Somehow it touches upon my problem. It is the following. Has the global
malaise been brought about by what may possibly be a US malaise or is the
global malaise the result of something much more omnious to which the US
is now also falling ill? If it is the former, then when the maladies in
US society had been corrected, the global malaise will also pass over.
But if it is the latter, then people all over globe itself are in for
vast tribulations. Then not a minority of people in a country will have
the Float Syndrome, but billions of them all over the world in every
country.
I think we need more sureness how much the Float Syndrome occurs all over
the world. My reason is the following. People have the Float Syndrome as
a result of destructive behaviour which shut them out from any further
participation in society and its benefits. Thus when they are called up
to participate en masse in a campaign which is destructive itself to end
this shutting out, the vast majority will support the campaign. Since
they have had little experience of constructive behaviour before their
demise and nothing during it, they have little, if any, knowledge to
oppose such a destructive campaign. They will simply opt for defending
themselves with offences against any offender who seems to have been
responsible for shutting them out.
I hesistate to do it, but i must spell out more directly what i have in
mind. The more the Float Syndrome occurs in a country, the easier it
becomes for the leaders of that country to convince its people(s) to go
into war as the very campaign needed, picking another country as its
perceived enemy. The more the countries in which this happens, the more
that war will develop into a continental or even a global war. A third
World War may thus be much closer than we may expect. With all the
weapons of mass destruction already in circulation at this stage, the
ghastly outcomes of such a World War is difficult to even contemplate.
It is necessary to oppose the "war talkers", but is not enough since they
have people with the Float Syndrome to count upon for support. Whoever
wants to oppose the "war talkers" because of having the tacit knowing
(gut feeling) to do it, will also have to learn more what makes actions
constructive rather than destructive. It means that they will have to
learn how to articulate their tacit knowing and what will be needed to
articulate that tacit knowing. Only then will they be able to suggest far
better alternatives than the "war talkers". To convince the silent
majority and especially those with the Float Syndrome, they will have to
extend their learning to include these people too.
Even if I could have done it, I would not want to force you fellow
learners into such learning, but i think that we ought to rush with it.
>Warm regards to all during a beautiful mid-summer
>day which, no matter what, fills my heart.
The same here from South Africa. We have inland a sunny, winter's day,
full of promises that spring is close by.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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