Unequal Unhealthy

Inequality seems to make a society dysfunctional across a wide range of outcomes. Among the richest twenty or thirty countries the USA, the UK, and Portugal seem to be the least healthy and the most unequal. Japan and the Scandinavian countries have the most healthy people and the most equal.

Most of the important health and social problems of the rich world are more common in the more unequal societies. The difference between more and less equal societies are large. Problems are often three to ten times as common in the more unequal countries. The problems are common to the whole spectrum of the people in those societies. The problems apply to the whole population.

Content Affirmations

~ I am ready to learn to identify important workers in my field of interest here.

~ I am ready to learn to give information about how the society is organized today.

~ I am ready to learn to identify, name, and locate in time and space the culture of interest here.

~ I am ready to learn to describe the environment they occupy today.

~ I am ready to learn to adequately describe the culture of interest here.

~ I am ready to learn to tell a bit about their diet today.

~ I am ready to learn to write out a bit of the nature of my interest in the culture now.

~ I am ready to learn to mention some of their distinguishing artifacts today.

~ I am ready to learn to briefly tell today what attracted me to the topic.

~ I am ready to learn to consider their interactions and contacts today.

~ I am ready to learn to briefly consider their spiritual, intellectual, and artistic values today.

~ I am ready to learn to briefly treat their  defining traits today.

~ I am ready to tell right here and right now what about the topic held my interest.

~ I am ready to learn to quote important workers in the field today.

~ I am ready to learn to say this year from where and from whom I have obtained my facts and dates.

~ I am ready to learn to accentuate the main facts today.

~ I am willing to devise a useful conclusion today.

~ I am ready to learn this season to give some of the earliest history of the topic.

Notes On Dialogue

To keep our culture healthy we have to share the consciousness we actually have. In sharing our consciousness we discover that we share feelings of frustration and contradictory assumptions. In order to share our consciousnesses we may have to stick with our mutual anger and be angry together. We look at it all together and come to have a common consciousness. When we stick with the hate we may feel we may create a powerfully useful bond among us. A common consciousness is not bliss but, in its creation we may develop useful participation and satisfying fellowship.


We want to avoid physical damage but, anger and panic are not reasons to stop dialogue. When we can stay with our unreasoning anger and panic, we may find in it a strongly creative energy.


In the kind of consciousness sharing we have been speaking of we are practicing ways of preserving and strengthening our society and culture.


It begins by sharing opinions and continues by learning certain dialogue techniques.


David Bohm has shared some valuable opinions and experience in his work On Dialogue.

Starve or be Eaten

Most of us Earthlings still depend on rule by less than 2% of our number. Such tiny oligarchic rule can work in certain times of abundance and calm. In most times it does not work very at all,  well except for the very small ruling class. Times of change or scarcity call for more participation. Even in times in times of abundance that 2%  oligarchy relies on the support of armed power to keep them where they are. That 2% takes wealth from most of us, to arm some of us, to keep the rest of us consuming and serving.

Few, even of the 2%, plan this arrangement. Of course, there are those who do. However, mostly it is the result of our being too lazy to educate ourselves, or organize ourselves to participate.

In times of want or great and rapid change 2% cannot rule. If they cannot rule well enough, they do not rule well enough. The middle does not hold and society moves towards chaos. Sometimes it rushes or falls to chaos.. You know what a governor is, right? It is the mechanism which keeps the engine from stalling or from speeding up in such a way as to causes it to fly apart.

I believe that we need and active 20% or more of us to govern ourselves well enough. To secure a practicing ruling group of 20% it is probably necessary for 50% of us to be well trained to govern.

What happens to kingdoms, empires, nations? Why do even our public schools still teach the lessons of history? Why have the ruling classes of  Persia, Rome, China, England, France, Japan taken such pains to use their best schools to teach their sons to rule? Why did the king secure the the best tutors to prepare his heir to rule. Institutions of higher learning in most nations, kingdoms, and empires were not used to teach workers, merchants, or servants. The purpose of those institutions was, and is, to teach rule and governance.

If you would be well governed, if you would have the good of our culture survive and thrive you will help your sons and daughters learn to rule and govern. Those who would rather not see much of the best of our technology and culture dead and buried or slowly withering have much to do. You can begin to teach children to identify and use the tools of governance in about the 2nd grade. You can help them to continue learning the skills of governance as long as those offspring of yours will let you. If they do not learn to cooperate to govern well they may find that thinks like medicine, health care, schooling, and shelter from the storm may be beyond the reach of their children. Much of the good things of life will be out of their reach. Rights and justice will not be their.

In the end, those who do not govern because they have not learned to govern will starve or be eaten.

There is lively satisfaction in self rule.

Dialogue is Important

What are you willing to say about dialogue or about communication in general? Are you willing to suggest definitions for either? Below are thoughts which come to my mind as I consider dialogue today. Questions are thoughts too aren't they?

Shared meaning is the cement that holds society together. Consider meanings. What is the meaning of meaning? What is the meaning of society? What is the state of our mutual understanding of meaning?
Do we agree on what holds meaning for us? How do we share meaning? What are the better ways of sharing meaning? What is the nature of our society?

Have you ever seen members of a group become frustrated as they try to share meaning? Does sharing meaning frighten you? Are you afraid that your assumptions may be revealed and challenged? Others are. They seek a leader or a protector. They may just walk away.

What if a group is so democratic that it has no leader? If the group is very democratic there may be a great deal of equality felt among its members. I seem to be less fearful among those who respect me as an equal. What is the source of equality?

Talk, communication, dialogue seems a principle way of sharing meaning. Democracy seems to be a step toward open speech.

I think that the practice of dialogue skills can support democracy and the sharing of meaning. I believe that I am still willing to accept some frustration in my life in order to support the sharing of meaning through dialogue. There is a reason for dialogue. It is what helps us to to be an us. It is important.

We benefit by keeping in mind how important dialogue is. If we don't, we begin to think and say: What's the point? This is too much trouble, Let's give it up. It's not getting us anywhere.

Dialogue is as important as important as earning money. Without a healthy society money loses its value. Shared meaning holds society together. Dialogue is an effective way to share meaning.

Dialogue is important.

Helm

We are guided, directed, steered through life in various ways. We are not rudderless. You and I have considerable responsibility for our ways.

There are ways in which we are in a boat together. Those ways seem worth talking about. With whom would you have a word about our ways. We have responsibility for the working of our boat. A certain amount of cooperation seems sensible.

Direction is important. The source of direction is important. It's important for our own boat and for the ship of state. Who steers the ship of state? "The ship of state" is a metaphor for what? What is a meta for?

We know what a body is. We recognize a body of water. My dictionary describes a body as 'an organized physical substance.' In a body material is made whole and single. Many bodies benefit from intelligent direction. We are part of the body that comprises the ship of state. Who shall be at the helm of that ship?

The Detroit riots of 1967 hold some lessons for the UK | UK news | guardian.co.uk

The Detroit riots of 1967 hold some lessons for the UK | UK news | guardian.co.uk

To learn from your history it helps to understand it.

Here are some interesting reminders.

How do citizens feel about the state of the Nation?

The Best Posts

Others probably haven't found the best post. Posts others are finding the most interesting include:

Right Now:
"Here Now Today"

Most recent 24 hours:
"More Mound Builder Notes"
"Hopewell People Continued"
"Robert Reich: Investing in America"

Most recent 7 days:
"Zorro" hope they didn't feel cheated
"Around the Place"
"More of History"

Most recent 30 days:
"Tohono O'odham"
"Lenga d'oc"
"Medicinenet"
"Nude"

I don't know why, but the following are among the all time popular posts:
"Direct Line Genealogy"
"1912 Lawrence Textile Strike"
"Populist Texan"

The Federal Republic of Germany

Could the mother of the Father Land be Prussia? Were Ancestors to 'Mother Prussia' on the Baltic Sea before Slav or Celt saw that sea? If Prussia was mother to Germany, could the father have been the Holy Roman Empire? I need these family affairs explained to me.

What do I think I know about Germans? They:
~ sometimes read my posts;
~ politically many support a Green Party platform;
~ celebrate their culture;
~ are interested in business, like designing and selling BMWs;
~ usually think Austrians are just fine;
~ are considered hard and able workers; they may have invented the protestant work ethic; for that matter, they may have invented Protestantism;
~ contributed much of the blood, genes, education, and science that lead to the development of the United States;
~ nurtured some of the most brilliant and productive Jews of the last couple of centuries. There is more to that story;
~ have one of the world's greatest educational systems and want to make it better;
~ take care of each other better than Americans do;
~ are interested in science and engineering, and have a love of the life sciences;
~ are learning to deal with immigrants and refuges;
~ are interested in classical music and the performing arts, including dance and film;
~ like elbowroom as much as Nordic peoples;
~ describe their government as a federal parliamentary republic, among other ways;
~ have the largest economy in the European Union;
~ gave us kindergarten;
~ are the source of Saxons, Franks, Frisians, Alimani, and Thuingii;
~ have had recent international relations interests in the European Union and the U.N. as well as in China, France, U.S., Greece, and Iran;
~ are often more citizens of the world then is the average American;
~ can drink beer, play soccer, and enjoy pop music.

Survival Talk Continued

Communication experts have also talked about 'overall meaning.' I'm pretty sure they aren't talking about work clothes. These guys are not always easy to understand. If you had been there you would know what I mean.  I am pretty sure that are suggesting that it is important to get all our cards on the table, so to speak. Cards up where everyone can look them over. You can check out each man's hand and all of the hands. This isn't poker. It's a way to see what we are talking about. In this game the object is not only to see and understand what the other guy ha been dealt, but to also look over all the cards dealt and to come to a greater understanding  of the overall game.

All, or a lot, of our meanings, past and present, are out there together. We look at them. We look them over. We let them be there and try to apprehend them, to get a handle on them.

Putting our cards on the table and looking at them together help us to have significantly  more coherent meaning in the group, among the players. We give ourselves a chance for a new kind of culture, a conscious culture. A culture we are aware of. I believe that such a culture is necessary for this society to work. It may be the kind of active, conscious culture which allows our society to survive.

An Approach to Assumptions Related to Society

Consider assumptions.

In trying to understand the other man's point of view I have found it useful to take into account my own assumptions as well as his. Often a pertinent assumption is unknown to me. Yes, it happens. The unknown assumption may be mine or his. An assumption may be locked in a part of the mind not easily accessed.
There are probably assumptions in his mind that have never entered mine.

We humans form societies. Often we do so unconsciously. However, there may come a time we will want to form a society consciously. A society is our way of working and living together. A society uses rules, laws, institutions, etc. Rules, laws, institutions are based on assumptions we hold. We may get or assume the rules etc. by thinking and agreeing that we are going to have them, and then we do it. Backing up our thinking, agreeing and doing is culture. Culture is shared meaning, shared assumptions. Much of that sharing is done through communication. Talk is an important form of communication. You have noticed that some persons seem better at talk than others. There are levels of communication skill. There is a set of communications skills that some have called dialogue. It turns out that these dialogue skills are particularly useful for bringing assumptions to light.

As a dramatic example, let's say that a diverse set of people desire to set up a government. I order to do so they will find it useful to agree to a common meaning for the kind of government they want. They are likel to need to agree on what a good government is or on what is the right sort of government for them. Different cultures will produce different governments. If they don't agree they will have a political struggle. If their politics don't work, they may have a civil war.

Disagreeable may arise do to their ignorance of each others assumptions. Dialogue that brings assumptions to light could prevent bloodshed.

Society is based on shared meanings. Shared meanings constitute the culture. Culture may be built or strengthen with education and communication. There is a wide choice of education and communication methods and styles. Not all of the are of equal effectiveness. To make a good and effective society we must learn to share coherent meaning well enough.

Today our larger society seems to have an incoherent meanings. Too often, what the other man is saying seems impossible to understand. This lack of understanding, it seems to me, is worth talking about.

Important talk, difficult talk, may be made easier by using dialogue skills that help us better understand each others assumptions.