We may be the best of friends, but it appears that we are too often also our worst enemies.
It seems to me that we may not be to blame, but that we are responsible.
Some of my rethinking of our situation follows below. If this work seems to lack some organization it may be because it reflects the state of my thought. However, it is my intention to be both honest and thoughtful. This is how I see it just now.
We can come to understand what it means to "aim high" and that which it means to aim high enough.
I believe that we are capable and that together we can do enough well enough. I believe that we can better understand the nature of our language. We may be more aware of the importance of our words. We can help one another to improve our understanding the value of our words and our language.
At the risk of sounding too academic I say that the quality of our understanding of the nature of culture in general and of our own culture in particular can be very useful to us.
We can learn and help one-another to learn.
We can come to better understand each other's meanings.
Much of of that which we can do, we can do by ourselves, but it is often better done together.
Much of our important learning depends on our words. This can be a problem because what a word means to one person often has a somewhat different meaning to another. For example, when one person calls another a "liberal" she may mean that person wastes money, while when he calls a person that he may mean that the person called liberal is happy to let other people be as they are. Others may use the word in very different ways. So, it can be useful to find out what an another sees as the meaning of our word. That seems to suggest that we may benefit by talking we mean and listening carefully to what the other means.
For example, when I hear the the term "illegal immigrants" I may think of criminals. Another hearing the term may think of your great grandparents.
As another example, when I hear the word "organized" used to describe people, I may think of a group empowering itself. Another may think of crime. Even the word "power" suggests or implies different things to different people at different times in different places. Maybe we need to talk a bit more about the other guy's meanings or to listen a bit more to his understandings.
In governance and all of life we may benefit by practicing to think for our selves. We could also benefit by learning to think together and probably would.
It is not difficult to see that words can be problematic. "Government" for some, means those other guys who are referred to as them. They seem to forget that even they themselves often practice government in governing the details of their personal lives. Some others forget that "republic" implies that we are responsible for our governance and others forget that "democracy" implies that we are the government.
By our talk, listening and speaking, we can help one another and each other to be less confused or mistaken by our words and perhaps to be more illuminated by them.
Some say that "information is power.'' Some say that information is more beneficial when it is contemplated to better reveal its meaning and so that we may better understand its value.
We can begin much just by the practice of giving ourselves good information. By that practice we give ourselves a good chance to gain more power to act in beneficial ways.
Most of us agree that education is important, but do not keep aware that we are each responsible for our learning and that our learning results in our ongoing education. Many have believed that we are each responsible for our learning and education, but that it is OK to receive some help.
Some say that the bliss of ignorance may lead us toward sickness and death. Some say that it may also lead to slavery and madness!
I believe that we are each responsible for our own education. I believe that we are helped by our natural curiosity and urge to develop and grow. Some of us are helped by our God and our friends. Many of us believe that it is to help our children, our youth, and each other to learn the useful, the good, and the beautiful.
All that we learn and know comes from the past. What you learned yesterday is history. We are very much our history. How to build a house is history. Your favorite song is history. Our culture is history. Some say all that is remembered from the past is history. All that we have learned is history. History is important. A lot of history is still in books. Some of our history has been made into stories.
We know very little of the future. However, from what we learn from our memory of past experience we can make some help guess about the future. Our understanding of our past has helped develop useful beliefs. With awareness and contemplation we can improve our understandings.
We know that what we know of songs and love comes from the past and from our contemplation of our memories of the past. Our good ideas come from the past. It's good to remember that our bad ideas come mostly from the past. Our culture is from the past. That which we remember and and contemplate of the past is our history. Our history plus experience we do not remember nor contemplated is our culture. All that we know is history.
As we know most of our history is in our books. Your reading of some of those books can be a source of power for you. You can learn to judge the value, usefulness, and truthfulness those books. That's good because a significant number of them have been written by liars and manipulators. Others have been poorly translated or interpreted.
Still our reading can lead to our doing well. We can learn to bake an apple pie from a cookbook. It's all history.
For most of the history of the USA we have been responsible for the schooling of our children and youth and doing completing that responsibility at a local level. For the last several generations many of us in many school districts have not been carrying out that responsibility very well. We have not adapted well.
We have not understood our responsibility well for generations. We had very good reasons for neglecting our duties, but that ignorance and neglect was not good for us. I must add that there remained some good schooling and some good advances in methods, but they didn't get shared widely enough
Soon after the schooling began in the USA, we formed schoolboards with parents and other interested citizens. Those schoolboadrs were formed in local districts close to home. For good reasons after a time many parents and others did not show up to keep them running well. In the beginning, we decided together what was to be taught and how it was to be learned. The story of US education is long and somewhat convoluted. Still I can say that local interest and cash fell short in many school districts especially in larger cities. School officials and other citizens sought help at the county and state level and finally at the federal level. They got help. That help had strings attached. Finally this help from afar often did little to help students or teachers.
To this day many school districts suffer from ignorance of governance by local citizens.
Government in republics is up to we the people. Seems we need to learn more about governance. Governance in republics with some intention of being democracy is not just our responsibility it must be us ourselves who govern.We have not learned to be a democratic republic and we seem nearly unable to maintain a republic. I think this calls for some talking over. I think we need to listen to one another a lot and begin to decide what it is we are ready do. We could forget this experiment or even forget bring a we. I think our situation is worth a lot more dialogue and some coherent activity.
I think that very many of us are capable of useful co-opperation. We can practice that co-opperation at a local level and a bit beyond right now.
Many agree that truth is important. It seems that honesty is an important part of truth. We can be honest and intend to tell the truth. Some, have call a propagation of a falsehood a source of insanity. I believe that enough of us can be honest enough to be a capable we.
We can help each other to move towards reality, honesty, and truth and be better off for doing so. Does it help to say that truth is true no matter who believes it? Truth seems more of orientation than destination.
We can learn the nature of social responsibility, how to recognize appropriate facts, how to co-operate to better effect. Let's consider how we shall do so.
Today there are many parents whose parents went to schools not actively supported by their parents. In what condition are the schools of the children of those parents? We can learn and we have a lot to learn.
We are not to blame, but if we are not responsible for our governance, who is?
It seems that we have not practiced enough self governance for too many decades. When we are not responsible for our governance, who is? Nobody? Someone really nice?
As us, we can do it, we can govern us.
It will take some dialogue practice to make us a good enough us.
Thanks for reading.
rcs