My hope for the future

Are all Republicans Stupid? Or maybe it's the Democrats?

Why can't they see the world from the same eyes that I do?

Much of the country is divided into cultural factions. The cable television political experts call us the "reds" and the "blues". It looks like a war zone. How did we get into these factions? The map makes me feel very sad and manipulated.

One possible answer to this lies in a lack of "context". A dictionary definition of context would be: The part of a text or statement that surrounds a particular word or passage and determines its meaning. In example, we hear passionate arguments about abortion, without the possible context of building a better community by totaling loving our children and therefore correspondingly building a social structure those children can flourish in. Or we vote to lower taxes without really understanding how taxes spent wisely can benefit our lives. In essence we have all become wandering-issue morons. The political parties try to satisfy our need for context by giving us slogans like "family values" without ever defining what that means. The media giants love it. Context is much harder to explain in a 30 second advertisement than one dimensional wandering-issues.

It seems to me that true change must come from rediscovering context within our lives. One significant context in which to test issues might be interconnectiveness. Our biologists, physicists and mystics have long known that we are all interconnected. Quantum physicists¹ talk about the relationship between mass and energy and how the various atomic particles relate to each other. Biologists talk about the relationship between all living things within a system, like a forest. And mystics of every religion universally refer to the most central importance of being in right relationship with each other and with our common source. The "Golden Rule" as example is found in every religion of the world and it is an absolute statement about being in right relationship. Interconnectivity is understood by studying relationships.

We would have a greater chance of survival as a species if we could meet together to discuss context instead of arguing issues. One way to begin this is by taking the time to hear someone¹s personal story that you disagree with. Try it, you might find that you agree on more than you think. This is my hope for the future.

Victor Bremson

November 24, 2002