The Social Side of the Diversity Problem
I get a sense sense that the primary means by which we are to adjust to realities like exclusion is by changing ourselves, say by therapy or some other means.
While I do not fault this, having had my own issues and needs that required serious work, I am utterly convinced that only by sweeping and pervasive social change will we be able even to put a dent in the horrendous realities that exist under our noses every day, from noxious traffic, to audible waves of self-reference, to bullying culture and interaction, to the binary proclivities of our mindless media.
Attention to society will alert any sociologist to the fact that our inherited definitions of gemeinschaft and gesselschaft (community and society) diminish in relevance, the more the advancing forces of globalization create global sprawl. The prospect is a world in which society is more and more the colander our experience strains through and community is just a word for what we rarely or never had.
We all need to find a place where we experiences a measure of comfort. For more and more, that is private space or else space where we lose ourselves in the mass.
To move toward a solution, we must start with that goading song from South Pacific —”You Have to Be Taught” (to hate and fear).
The ironically named Great Society has been for many, on all sides of our social spectrum, a cruel joke, a basis for maintaining the binary, either-or, structures that have been here forever, dividing by economy, race, status and gender, not to mention brute power.
A truly great society would unite the precious pool of everyone we might wish to gather into a community. We would choose our communities. They would all adhere to minimal standards of decency and opportunity. Stratification would be a synonym for the past.
A light is going on as we speak.
In this century, we will move, we are already on our way, to democratic revolution that expresses itself locally in the reconstruction of voluntary communities.
That is the substance of what I am posting here under the keyword The Visionary. The ultimate expression of this will, in my sense of it, be cyber-communities of up to 10,000, embracing values of tolerance, democracy and helpfulness and living without cars or weapons in walkable areas.
If we can have malls, we can have cyber-communities.
These will have their own characters and will not appeal to all. But they will recognize that unless we change socially we will achieve only high therapy bills for those who can afford to pay them.
Unfortunately, I do not think even the world of TED is able to grasp the seismic implications of what we will need if we are to avoid being forced into repeating a past that has not served us well. But that can change.
