[Oe List ...] conversation on white trash racism

[Frank Knutson via OE]

I’m finding that the GOD lecture to be helpful.  When I look at one small slice of a happening, I get a warped view of things—either upwardness or downwardness in the cycle of things.

Taking the history-long view provides some perspective and mystery.  All will pass.

 


The world is perfect.  It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
   ~~  Joseph Campbell
❤ Frank       

> On Sep 27, 2017, at 10:38 AM, W. J. via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
> 
> John, I liked that you wrote "hoards" instead of "hordes". Right on target with your homonym! Or malapropism. And very appropriate, given the context. It takes a spark of genius to (mis)use a word that makes us think twice.
> You're being malaprophetic.
> Marshall
> 
> 
> On Wednesday, September 27, 2017 11:42 AM, John Epps via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> Thanks for your thoughtful provocation of this dialogue, Marshall. As has often been the case you pose difficult and profound issues. I apologize if my initial response seemed to trivialize the genuine concern (“those folks give white trash a bad name”), but sometimes a bit of humor buys time for more thoughtful consideration. Here’s the current result of that, and thanks again for initiating the conversation.
> 
> I was reminded of the occasion in Malaysia when, en route to facilitating a conference of 35 CEOs from a holding company, I discovered our rental car had 3 tires and the spare tire stolen. Later lamenting to a friend, I said, “What kind of person would do such a thing?” His answer that stopped me was, “A desperate person.”
> 
> So perhaps the apparent hatred coming from your neighbors – and, as you say – from many others, is an expression of desperation, and the question becomes, “For what?” Any attempt to address the situation cannot be direct or rational. These people and the hoards like them care about something that is being taken away. Clearly much is – jobs, status, and influence being among the major items. And it’s not minorities, immigrants, or government that’s doing it: those are only scapegoats. Technology and globalization are the more likely “culprits,” but they’re more difficult to blame. A thorough and sensitive analysis of this tendency towards prejudice is in William Cash’s classic The Mind of the South, (New York: Random House, 1941).  
> 
> So what to do? Obviously, I don’t know. But there is a classic sociological principle that goes “Groups attacked from the outside tend to unify themselves.” That seems to be what the administration is trying to do in making N. Korea into a (real) threat, and villainizing immigrants. Another more helpful principle is that people of the widest possible diversity can work together effectively on a goal to which all aspire. That’s the one thing that our society seems to be lacking, and which POTUS tried to supply with his (empty) slogan.
> Maybe our facilitation colleagues can help contribute to the development of a vision to which we can aspire.
> 
> Thanks again for initiating this conversation.
> 
> John Epps
> 
> On Wed, Sep 27, 2017 at 8:23 AM, Ken Fisher via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Friends,
> 
> Both through recent experiences and 'our daily Rohr', I’d like to share with you my wording of a current secular ‘pater noster'.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Compassionate cosmos...
> In which we live,
> and with whom we find our meaning,
> Grace us with your presence.
> Support our freedom to be love as we are loved.
> Trusting in your never-ending hospitality,
> So be it.
> 
> 
> And, as I have already shared, I love this poem by Hafiz.
> 
> The sun never says to the earth, “You owe me.
> 
> Look what happens with a love like that.
> 
> It lights the whole sky.
> 
> 
> 
> Feeling the warmth of the sun (the immediate sustainer of our habitat) and wanting to ‘be sun too’,
> 
> Ken
>  
> 
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