A weblog with random thoughts and reflections on society and ecology.
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Friday, July 18, 2003
Cultural Patterns
I read "Lord of the Rings" as a teenager, and enjoyed it at the time. Now, I find it difficult to relate to the main premise of the story: The battle between "good" and "evil". It is a premise that seems to be at the core of what is unhealthy about our culture. It is the George W. Bush view of the world: The battle against good and evil. Sacrificing oneself for the sake of the higher truth... It is also the view of all caught up in a blindly dualistic view of the world - identifying people with abstract notions of good and evil, right and wrong. Some are "evil"/"bad" and "deserve" to be eliminated. Others are "good" and heroic.
The alternative is to recognize in ourselves what we see in others (shared humanity), and realize that the world is always more than and different from our perceptions of it. Our ideas of the world is just that - our ideas.
23:04
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