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RE: [microsound] RE: [personal] Re: [microsound] war



Dagmar, if I could kindly interject here...

>I know what you mean.  But often I wonder whether protest can cope with
>the power of images and subliminal influences.  Frankly I no longer
>think so.  Images and arguments work on two different levels.  No
matter
>how much I TALK and DISCUSS  the power of images is stronger.

Not everyone has the opportunity to see for themselves.  I have a
feeling war is caused by the fact that people don't travel enough in
general.  Image is all one who is unable to leave at will has to work
with, and it cuts both ways.  Our "foes" in this war are as culpable in
this as we are.  Their leaders should show a better image of us as we
should of them.

>I do have a choice?  If I would wear a shador here, I would be
>considered a lunatic, an anomaly or a religious fanatic of some sect. 
>No one can opt out of the culture in which s/he was born.  And I don't
>want to really.  All I wanted to say is: I hate this complacency and
>self-righteousness to assume that we in the West live in the best of
all
>worlds or to assume that all cultural changes are "progress".

Why hate it?  Do you think other people don't have this same
self-righteous attitude about how well they live?  I met people in
Kazakhstan who acted as if Almaty was paradise, and that the world
should live as they do in their beloved capital.  I had a giggle, but I
saw their point.  Where Western intellectuals bemoan their situation,
going through some sort of unhealthy guilt trip over their wealth, there
are others in the world who have a healthy love of country or even their
home city.  We have progress in the West, in a technological way.  Other
places don't, but have intangibles that we don't find here (pace of life
being one of my favorites).  I suppose neither is better than the other.
My gripe throughout all of this has really been that no one enjoys what
they have.  The grass is always greener on the other side.

By the by, why not wear a head covering?  Christian women still do in
some Churches around the world.  I have no idea if you believe in the
tenants of an organized religion, but I suppose wearing a scarf should
satisfy your want to cover yourself without looking freakish to your
local community.

>I had a long conversation with my turkish neighbour a few days ago.
She
>said, German women think they are so much freer than we are.  But all I
>see is that their burden grows every day.  They have to be a man and a
>woman at the same time: they have to be pretty, young, earn good money,
>"be a man in their job", have a good education, a good job, children,
do
>their households, care for their partners, etc.  While the men in this
>country are no longer men; they are eternal boys without assuming the
>responsibilities of a man (nor a woman).  I had to swallow hard, but I
>knew what she meant.

Your neighbor speaks the truth.  Men have been emasculated in the West,
it seems.  So in touch with their inner feelings.  That's not how men
have behaved since the beginning of time, and now women are feeling the
brunt of it.  I think women should work, only because it's become too
financially difficult for most people to survive on one paycheck.  Plus
new blood in the workplace can offer new ideas (as well as new
challenges).  What I never could understand, though, is why beauty is
picked on so much.  Women don't have to be pretty; they are lulled into
bizarre behavior (like developing themselves into Barbie clones) to a
point, but if a woman is that shallow that she has to match the
unrealistic proportions of a piece of plastic, then she deserves her
fate.  But beauty shouldn't be seen as an object of scorn.

>And to come back to the thread of war and democracy.  It is a very
>hopeful sight to watch how many people protest in those countries whose
>governments are officially pro US-Iraq war.  But still their
governments
>do what they please -- look to Spain, Greece and Italy.

The government is elected to do a job, not to respond to the whims of
the people.  But the people have a right to protest their point to
influence their government.  It is what sets us as western folk apart
from the rest of the world.

Good points as usual,

Rudy

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