Recovering from Knowledge
Ms. Haiku
Washington DC Posts: 7,278
Knowledge is good, don't get me wrong. I remember the first time I realized that domestic violence was not caused by the length of the victim's skirt, or that she wasn't home when her husband said she had to be home, but rather by the perpetrator's choice to hurt another person. It was knowledge so sharp it was like a knife slice in skin. After hearing stories and stories like that during my work in the social services, there came a time when I had to recover from it. I had to remove myself from the jobs I did, and try to find semblance of happiness in a city in what for years had been pockets of violent secrets. Out of that recovery I didn't lose sight of the knowledge - that domestic violence, child abuse, and other family violences are choices, but I found the tools needed to ground my perspective if my faith in human nature fell sharply.
I'm reading a book, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress by Howard Zinn, and I'm starting to feel a cautious red flag. I feel an anger, and the people I want to argue with our my family. Why? They didn't force me to buy this book, they don't force me to spill my views. However, I know their views from bits and pieces, and I disagree with it. I disagreed with it before I read the book, I just have written word to back up my arguments.
I agree with Howard Zinn, and can understand why he is respected in his field, and I plan on reading more of his books. I haven't read, A People's History for the very reason I discribed above. I listened to a chapter on Vietnam and it ripped me to shreds. I was sobbing, and I had no one to talk to about it. Who really cared? They would care that I was unhappy, but not necessarily why. Maybe someone in my family did, and I just didn't know it, but there is a fine line I have to tread. I want the knowledge, and I believe Zinn's truth, and the truth of others like him. However, given who surrounds me, if I don't become the diplomatic person I respect in others they could lose respect for my opinions just based on my presentation.
I'm sure it goes both way no matter the political view/social standpoint etc. The time-centered process of integrating knowledge to the point that an opinion is relayed with strength, truth, empathy, and grace.
I'm reading a book, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress by Howard Zinn, and I'm starting to feel a cautious red flag. I feel an anger, and the people I want to argue with our my family. Why? They didn't force me to buy this book, they don't force me to spill my views. However, I know their views from bits and pieces, and I disagree with it. I disagreed with it before I read the book, I just have written word to back up my arguments.
I agree with Howard Zinn, and can understand why he is respected in his field, and I plan on reading more of his books. I haven't read, A People's History for the very reason I discribed above. I listened to a chapter on Vietnam and it ripped me to shreds. I was sobbing, and I had no one to talk to about it. Who really cared? They would care that I was unhappy, but not necessarily why. Maybe someone in my family did, and I just didn't know it, but there is a fine line I have to tread. I want the knowledge, and I believe Zinn's truth, and the truth of others like him. However, given who surrounds me, if I don't become the diplomatic person I respect in others they could lose respect for my opinions just based on my presentation.
I'm sure it goes both way no matter the political view/social standpoint etc. The time-centered process of integrating knowledge to the point that an opinion is relayed with strength, truth, empathy, and grace.
There is no such thing as leftover pizza. There is now pizza and later pizza. - anonymous
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
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I hope you get this message but your not home...I will be there in just a minute or so...
I want to go but I want to go with you.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. -MT
I've had enough, said enough, felt enough. I'm fine, still in it.
Your comments about anger and presentation are very sound. Often it is easy to let the passion about what we believe in pervade the message we are trying to send. Being a naturally emotional person, I am highly guilty of this.
Good discussion!
A truly liberal person is conservative when necessary.
Pro-life by choice.
it certainly is. and when we come to the realisation that we know nothing that's when we truly become wise.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
http://www.camden28.org/
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
Every government has done things in the name of greed. That's the nature of government. Group thinking never has a positive outcome and this is backed by scientific testing. Government is the epitome of group think but Zinn expects a different behavior. Why???? Oh yeah, I forgot for moment that he works in a vacuum where reality does not come into play.
I'm at work so I can't go into the specifics of a chapter, and I wouldn't want to drag myself through hi sbook again in order to give specifics. I think it's great to try to get as many of the sides of the story as possible but Zinn outdoes Moore at times at idealizing situations that are from from ideal in reality.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
I'm a really big Zinn Fan, too. But most of the conservatives here can't stand him.
I started this thread last week just in case you may have missed it...some pretty good clips of Zinn speaking against the concept of war.
http://forums.pearljam.com/showthread.php?t=252028
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
what exactly makes you think it's a piece of shit?
I'm always intrigued by people like you and how you can just sit and dismiss books and writers like that.
The economy has polarized to the point where the wealthiest 10% now own 85% of the nation’s wealth. Never before have the bottom 90% been so highly indebted, so dependent on the wealthy.
People like me are just as justified to say sit and dismiss books and writers as people like you are to praise and laud them. It's just opinion.
Let's hope you've enjoyed every book, music, movie ever put out or you'd quickly become a person like me.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
For instance, I've seen a few threads in Porch where we as a fanbase are compared to sheep. That's ridiculous. If a fan happens to agree with a position the band holds, it is that fan's responsibility to have the knowledge to back that opinion. That fan also has the ownership of that opinion. It can not be attributed to the band, or society at large.
Can we suppose that when someone expresses an opinion he/she is doing it because he/she has completed the process in evaluating data, and coming to a conclusion? Would it be arrogant of us to suggest that someone did not complete the process to form an opinion when an opinion is written?
The risk I took was calculated, but man, am I bad at math - The Mincing Mockingbird
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
"Historical revisionism is the attempt to change commonly held ideas about the past. In its legitimate form ... it is the reexamination of historical facts, with an eye towards updating historical narratives with newly discovered, more accurate, or less biased information, acknowledging that history of an event, as it has been traditionally told, may not be entirely accurate. -Wikipedia
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
Where Zinn and other like him loses me is when he brings today's morals to the table and uses them to pass judgement on yesterday's actions. That's unacceptable in my books.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
As our awareness expands and our current insights allows us to have a more comprehensive, accurate or more realistic understanding of past events, even if it means upsetting the applecart of "traditional knowledge" the only responsible and ethical thing to do is to update our understanding. History is considered to be factual, and yet the "facts" are tied together by "narrative", which is about the person constructing a perspective out of the facts. Time and distance can offer much perspective and objectivity, and when this is the case, great! History is not an objective absolute but is dependent on the teller's view. If "A People's History..." has only brought to the light this concept, shaking us out of the illusory concept of history-as-true, even if it's contributed nothing else, imo, it's brilliant.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
If Zinn did a biography of your life he might possibly sum it up as "angelica would just shit herself and then cry until someone changed her". That may be one way to look at your life and focusing on your first year of life. But to pass judgement on you based on this behavior without contextualizing it by saying this is normal for the everyone's first year of life is to not only do a dis-service to you but to every reader. It's a very intential form of dishonesty on his part.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
I will gladly address what Zinn actually does and is therefore accountable for, and at the same time I have no interest in discussing an imaginary "staw-man-Zinn".
It looks like your Zinn straw-man (complete with imagined dishonest intent) is creating your opinion. I'm not seeing where it's based on anything. Which is not to say it is not...however, there is no point in debating opinion and perception. That point carries over to Zinn as well--he's as entitled to weave together a view as any historian.
http://www.myspace.com/illuminatta
Rhinocerous Surprise '08!!!
Awesome post!
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
how dare Zinn think that in the past history of the US that things such as genocide, oppression and slavery were anything other than reprehensible? not that he comes right out and say that they were; he doesn't have to by telling a side of the story that is never found in tradional US history books. it's disturbing that you find that those things were somehow at any point in time morally acceptable.
angels share laughter
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You absolutely have to judge past events with todays morals, that's how we learn from experience...especially when past events are constantly being brought up in an attempt to justify the actions of today.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
Exactly! They were always wrong and it's time we stopped glorifying them and admit our mistakes in our history books.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde
well said cate-ster.
we can learn many things on this earth/in this life.
we know zero/squat compared to all eternity/infinity in all universes.
is this true or just something silly i just made up?
"Hear me, my chiefs!
I am tired; my heart is
sick and sad. From where
the sun stands I will fight
no more forever."
Chief Joseph - Nez Perce
Zinn can't get over the fact that a lot of what happened was morally acceptable then. Irreprehensible now but just fine and dandy then. The moral of the day was Indians were noble savages. That's right, savages. The noble part is just a big a myth as the savage part. Those were the morals of the day. Zinn just excludes facts that he does not like. He has an agenda and he's not about to let the truth get in the way.
He's much better when he's commenting on current events. At least then the morals he's using as a reference point actually exist while the events are taking place.
He gives a contemporary take on history while telling you it's just history. You can accept that behavior as above board, I don't. My opinion on that behavior is every bit as valid as yours.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
Is it socially acceptable to shit yourself?
Is killing someone okay?
No matter what your answers are I can spin it afterwards to make you look bad. This is what Zinn does. You approve this as a method of writing "historical" books, I don't.
when it hits you, you feel to pain.
So brutalize me with music.”
~ Bob Marley
the moral of the day that Indians were savages according to who? the wealthy land-owners? the US government and military acting under government orders? that would do anything including genocide and forcing them onto reservations in order to seize their land? one has to wonder if if the average citizen of the US thought that these actions were morally acceptable?
you've been watching a few too many John Wayne westerns if you think that the answer is yes...afterall those westerns are telling the story of the cowboys that were being paid by whom? that's right, it was the wealthy land-owning ranchers.
angels share laughter
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