The Myth of War, The Plague of Nationalism

The following passages are from chapters 1 and 2 of War is the Force That Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges.

Chapter 1: The Myth of War

“The ethnic conflicts and insurgencies of our time, whether between Serbs and Muslims or Hutus and Tutsis, are not relgious wars. They are not clashes between cultures or civilizations, nor are they the result of ancient ethnic hatreds. They are manufactured wars, born out of the collapse of civil societies, perpetrated by fear, greed and paranoia, and the are run by gangsters, who rise up from the bottomw of their own societies and terrorize all, including those they purport to protect.

Often , none of this is apparent form the outside. We are quick to accept the facile and mendacious ideological veneer that is wrapped like a mantle around the shoulders of those who prosecute the war. In part we do this to avoid intervention, to give this kind of slaughter an historical inevitabilty it does not have, but also bbecausethe media and most of the politicians often lack the perspective and analysis to debunk the myths served up by the opposing sides. (p. 20)

Points to differences between “mythic reality” and “sensory reality” (crediting Lawrence Le Shan’s The Psychology of War (p. 21)

Wars that lose their mythic stature for the public, such as Korea and Vietmnam, are doomed to failure, for war is exposed for what it is—organized murder.” (p. 21)

“Nationalist and ethnic conflicts are fratricides that turn on absurdities. They can only be sustained by myth. The arguments and bloody disputes take place over tiny, almost imperceptiblenuances within the society—what Sigmund Freud calls the “narcissism of minor differences.” (p. 32)



“We are humiliated in combat. The lofty words that inspire people to war—duty, honor, glory—swiftly become repugnant and hollow. They are replaced bythe hard, specific images of war, by prosaic names of villages and roads. The abstract rhetoric of patriotism is obliterated, exposed as the empty handmaiden of myth. Fear brings us all back down to earth.” (p. 40)

Chapter 2: The Plague of Nationalism

“Lurking beneath the suface of every society, including ours, is the passionate yearning for a nationalist cause that exalts us, the kind that war alone is ale to deliver. It reduces and at times erases the anxiety of individual consciousness. We abandon individual responsibility for a shared, unquestioned communal enterprise, however morally dubious.’ (p. 45)

“Nationalist myths are largely benign in times of peace. They are stoked by the entertainment industry, in school lessons, stories, and quasi-historical ballads, preached in mosques, or championed in absurd historical dramas that are always wildly popular during the war. They do not pose a major challenge to real historical study or a studied tolerance of others in peacetime. But nationalist myths ignite a collective amnesia in war. They give past generations a nobility and greatness they never possessed. Almost every group, and especially every nation, has such myths. These myths are the kindling nationalists use to light a conflict.” (p. 46)

“Many of those who defy the collective psychosis of the nation are solitary figures once the wars end. Yet these acts of compassion were usually the best antidotes to the myths peddled by nationalists. Those who reached across lines to assist the “enemy” freed themselves from nationalist abstractions that dehumanized others. They were vaccinated against the cult of death that dominates societies in wartime. They reduced their moral universe to caring for another human being. And in this they were able to reject the messianic pretensions that come with the nationalist agenda. By accepting that they could only affct a few lives they also accepted their smalll place in the universe. This daily lesson in humility protected them.” (p. 49)

“The small acts of decency…in wartime ripple outwards like concentric circles. These acts, unrecognized at the time, make it impossible to condemn, legally and morally, an entire people. They serve as reminders that we all have a will of our own, a will that is independent of the state, or the nationalist cause. Most important, once the war is over, these people make it hard to brand an entire nation or an entire people as guilty…
“But these acts also remind us that in wartime most people are unwilling to risk discomfort, censure, or violence to help neighbors. There is a frightening indifference and willful blindness,..[that] turns many into silent accomplices.” (pp. 53-54)

“The nationalist myth often implodes with a startling ferocity. It does so after the lies and absurdities that surround it become too hard to sustain. They collapse under their own weight. The contradictions and torturous refusal to acknowledge the obvious becomes more than a society is able to bear. The collapse is usually followed by a blanket refusal, caused by shame and discomfort, to examine or acknowledge the crimes carried out in the name of nationalist cause.” (pp. 58-59)

“This blanket amnesia is often part of the aftermath of war…While the excesses carried ot in the name of the nationalist cause are forgotten or ignored, the myth of the nation has a disturbing longevity. It lies dormant, festering in the society, nurtured by boy’s adventure stories of heroism in service to the nation, the monuments we erect to the fallen, and carefully scripted remembrances until it slowly slouches back into respectability.” (pp. 60-61)

Excerpts from the Introduction of War is the Force That Gives Us Meaning

Here's a book that should be required reading for everyone, universally. A few years back, I heard several NPR interviews with author, Chris Hedges, and finally got around to reading most of his War is the Force That Gives Us Meaning (New York: Anchor Books, 2003)this summer.

From the introduction:

“The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations and increasingly our airwaves. And war is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble…” (p. 3)

"Many of us, restless and unfulfilled, see no supreme worth in our lives. We want more out of life. And war, at least, gives a sense that we can rise above our smallness and divisiveness…"(p. 7)

"…the eruption of conflict instantly reduces the headache and trivia of daily life. The communal march against an enemy generates a warm, unfamiliar bond with our neighbors, our community, our nation, wiping out unsettling undercurrents of alienation and dislocation.” (p. 9)

“War makes the world understandable, a black and white tableau of them ans us. It suspends thought, especially self-critical thought. All bow before the supreme effort. We are one. Most of us are willing to accept war as long as we can fold it into a higher good, for human beings seek not only happiness but alos meaning. And tragically war is sometimes the most powerful way in human society to achieve meaning.” (p.10)

The ironies of being a soldier, and shadows of Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est”

““The soldier, neglected and even shunned during peacetime, is suddenly held up as the exemplar of our highest ideals, the savior of the state. The soldier is often whom we want to become, although secretly many of us, including most soldiers, know that we can never match the ideal held out before us. And we all become like Nestor in The Illiad, reciting the litany of fallen heroes that went before to spur on a new generation. That the myths are lies, that those who went before us were no more able to match the ideal than we are, is carefully hidden from public view. The tension between those who know combat, and thus know the public lie, and those who propagate the myth, usually ends with the mythmakers working to silence the witnesses of war.” (p. 11)

“In the wars of the twentieth century not less than 62 million have perished, nearly 20 million more than the 43 million military personnel killed.”(p. 13)

“Before conflicts begin, the first people silenced—often with violence—are not the nationalist leaders of the opposing ethnic or religious group, who are useful in that they serve to dump gasoline on the evolving conflict. Those voices within the ethnic group or the nation that question the state’s lust and need for war are targeted. These dissidents are the most dangerous. They give us an alternative language, one that refuses to define the other as “barbarian” or “evil,” one that recognizes the humanity of the enemy, one that does not condone violence as a form of communication. Such voices are rarely heeded. And until we learn once again to speak in our own voice and reject that handed to us by the state in times of war, we flirt with our own destruction.”(pp. 15-16)

An argument that justifies the use of force

“Even as I detest the pestilence that is war that has left millions of dead and maimed across the planet, I, like most reporters in Sarajevo and Kosova, desperately hoped for armed intervention. The poison that is war does not free us from the ethics of responsibility. There are times when we must take this poison—just as a person with cnacer accepts chemotherapy to live. We can not succumb to despair. Force is and I suspect always will be a part of the human condition. There are times when the force wielded by one immoral faction must be countered by a faction that, while never moral, is perhaps less immoral.” (p. 16)

“We must guard against the myth of war and the drug of war that can together, render us as blind and callous as some of those we battle.” (p. 17)

From Max Barry's Company, A Good Comical Read

A couple of weeks ago I picked up Company by Max Barry (New York: Doubleday, 2006) It was good comic relief, frequently leaving me in tears of laughter. Here are a few excerpts:

On the changing relationship between employer and employees:

“There are stories—legends, really—of the “steady job.” Old-timers gather graduates around the flickering light of a computer monitor and tell stories of how the company used to be, back when a job was for life, not just the business cycle. In those days, there were dinners for employees who racked up twenty-five years—don’t laugh, you, yes, twenty-five years!—of service. In those days, a man didn’t change jobs every five minutes. When you walked down the corridors, you recognized everyone you met; hell, you the names of their kids.

The graduates snicker. A steady job! They’ve never heard of such a thing. What they know is the flexible job. It’s what they were raised on in business school; it’s what they experienced, too, as they drove a cash register or stacked shelves between classes. Flexibility is where it’s at, not dull, rigid, monotonous steadiness. Flexible jobs allow employees to share in the company’s ups and downs; well, not so much the ups. But when times get tough, it’s the flexible company that thrives. By comparison, a company with steady jobs hobbles along with a ball and chain. The graduates have read the management textbooks and they know the truth: long-term employees are so last century.

The problem with employees, you see, is everything. You have to pay to hire them and pay to fire them, and, in between, you have to pay them. They need business cards. They need computers. They need ID tags and security clearances and phones and air-conditioning and somewhere to sit. You have to ferry them to off-site team meetings. You have to ferry them back home again. They get pregnant. They injure themselves. They steal. They join religions with firm views on when it’s permissible to work. When they read their e-mail they open every attachment they get, and when they write it they expose the company to enormous legal liabilities. They arrive with no useful skills, and once you’ve trained them, they leave. And don’t expect gratitude! If they’re not taking sick days, they’re requesting compassionate leave. If they’re not gossiping with co-workers, they’re complaining about them. They consider it is their inalienable right to wear body ornamentation that scars customers. They talk about (dear God) unionizing. They want raises. They want management to notice when they are doing a good job. They want to know what’s going to happen in the next corporate reorganization. And lawsuits! The lawsuits! They sue for sexual harassment, for an unsafe workplace, for discrimination in thirty-two different flavors. For—get this—wrongful termination. Wrongful termination! These people are only here because you brought them into the corporate world! Suddenly you’re responsible for them for life?

The truly flexible company—and the textbooks don’t come right and say it, but the graduates can tell that they want to—doesn’t employ people at all. This is the siren song of outsourcing. The seductiveness of the sub-contract. Just try out the words: no employees. Feels good, doesn’t it? Strong. Healthy. Supple. Oh yes, a company without employees would be a wondrous thing. Let the workers suck up a little competitive pressure. Let them get a taste of the free market.

The old-timers’ stories are fairy tales, dreams of a world that no longer exists. They rest on the bizarre assumption that people somehow deserve a job. The graduates know better; they’ve been taught that they don’t.” (pp. 41-3)


On Senior Management:

“You can say this for Senior Management: it knows how to articulate a goal. The strategy may be fuzzy, the execution nonexistent, but Senior Management knows what it wants.” (p. 54)


On Customers:

“Customers are vermin, Mr. Jones. They infect companies with disease.” He says this with complete solemnity. “A company is a system. It is built to perform a relatively small set of actions over and over, as efficiently as possible. The enemy of systems is variation, and customers produce variation. They want special products. They have unique circumstances. They try to place orders with after-sales support and they direct complaints to sales.” (p. 105)


Machiavellian business ethics:

“Do you want the ethics speech? Because we have one. It’s on video, this whole spiel about how we’re improving business efficiency, creating jobs, and building a stronger America. By the time it’s over, you’ll think anyone who doesn’t like what we’re doing is a Communist. We hand them over to our more religious investors. You’re not religious, are you?
“Well, not really—”
“It’s kind of a joke. When someone asks for the ethics tape, we know they’ve already decided to invest. They just want some reassurance so they can feel good about it, too. That’s the thing you learn about values, Jones: they’re what people make up to justify what they did. Did you take business ethics in college?”
“Yes.”
“They teach you people’s behavior is guided by their values, right? That’s a load of crap. When you watch people like we do, you find out it’s the other way around. Look, I believe in what Alpha does, I really do. But do I worry about whether every little thing we do is ethical? NO, because you can rationalize anything as ethical. You talk to a criminal—a tax dodger, a serial killer, a child abuser—and every one of them will justify their actions. They’ll explain to you, totally seriuosly, why they had to do what they did. Why they’re still good people. That’s the thing: when people talk about the importance of ethics, they never include themselves. The day that anyone, anywhere, admits that they personally are unethical, I’ll start taking the whole issue seriously.” (pp. 111-2)


On potential corporate consolidation:

"Throughout the building, work stalls. The wheels of industry crash to a halt and the rumor mill starts turning. Within minutes Zephyr is manufacturing rumors at world-class levels. If rumors could be sold, this kind of productivity would be cause for special announcements and award ceremonies—but they can’t, and even Senior Management knows this. When it realizes what is going on, Senior Management places a conference call to the department heads. All staff are forbidden to speculate about the consolidations, it instructs. They should know better; here Senior management is trying to save everyone’s job, and all they care about is whether they still have a job. Get back to work!

"The department managers could not agree more. Their heads bob up and down, even though this is a phone call. Their voices drip of earnestness. They are behind Senior Management 110 percent. Or more! The bids rise quickly.

"But once they’re off the phone their level of support drops, first to realistic levels, then lower. “Senior management hasn’t decided which departments will be consolidated,” the managers say in response to their staff’s nervous, sweaty questions. “Or maybe they have but they’re not telling. Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t know what the hell they’re doing.” Frightened employees huddle around coffee machines. Rumor production heads underground and flourishes there. The out-trays of laser printers grow thick with updated resumes." (pp. 159-160)

Bashing the Self-Esteem Sychophants

Here's a John Rosemond article I read today in the Buffalo News. He really hits the nail on the head.

Today's parenting vs. yesterday's parenting
Source
7/20/06

One of the great ironies of our time is that today’s parents, with more professional resources at their disposal than ever before, are experiencing more and greater problems in the area of discipline than their grandparents even thought possible. Once upon a not-so-very-long-ago time, children were mischievous. They tried to get away with what they thought they could when adults weren’t looking. All too many of today’s kids are surly, rude, disrespectful, ill-mannered, petulant, and openly defiant.

The nature of the child has not changed in fifty years, so the problem must lie with changes in how parents are going about their job. Indeed, today’s “parenting” bears little resemblance to the child rearing of fifty-plus years ago. Even if one overlooks such things as working moms, day care, and the ubiquity of the single parent family, the differences between then and now are considerable.

In the good old days (and make no mistake about it, while certainly not idyllic, they were far better), parents concentrated their energies on shaping character. They were intent upon raising children who embodied the Three R’s of respect, responsibility, and resourcefulness. Today’s parents, by contrast, seek to raise children who possess high self-esteem, which researchers have found is correlated highly with low tolerance for frustration, low self-control, and a sense of personal entitlement. Be careful what you wish for, eh?

Yesterday’s parents valued good manners. Today’s parents value skills and accomplishments, especially academic. Along with many if not most of my peers, I entered first grade not knowing my ABCs. My first grade teacher taught fifty children. She had far fewer discipline problems than a first grade teacher today who, with an aide, teaches twenty. Furthermore, those fifty kids—none of whom were held back because of late birthdays—exited first grade reading better than today’s first grade grads, many of whom knew their ABC’s before their fourth birthdays.

Yesterday’s parents didn’t much care what grades their kids brought home as long as the grades reflected their children’s best efforts. Mothers didn’t help their children with homework, nor did they challenge teachers who reported misbehavior. If a child misbehaved in school, the teacher’s report was accepted, and the child got into double trouble at home. But then yesterday’s parents understood that one could not be a good enough parent to prevent one’s child from behaving despicably on any given day. Today’s parents seem to think that despicable behavior reflects bad parenting; therefore, today’s kids are incapable of behaving despicably.

In those better days, when you misbehaved, your parents tried to make you feel guilty. Many of today’s parents try to discipline their children without causing guilt, not realizing that the anticipation of guilt is the best preventive of misbehavior, not the anticipation of “negative consequences.” Most people in my generation will testify that knowing you disappointed your parents was the worst consequence of all. But then, we were not on pedestals. The pedestals were occupied by our parents. Needless to say, today’s parents are more concerned about disappointing their kids than their kids are about disappointing them, if they are even concerned at all. It’s that pedestal thing.

The bottom line: You cannot raise children in two entirely different ways and arrive at the same outcome. I sometimes ask parents, “Who would you rather be raising, you or your child?” Eight out of ten answer along these lines: “Oh, that’s a no-brainer, John. Me, of course.”

Unfortunately, that’s not the right answer.

The State Should Devise a New Acronym: SCAM

State...Certification...(Another)...(Money Grab)
At long last, after years of procrastination (10 years after my initial certification) and avoiding the outrageous fee ($88)to take the New York State Content Area Speciality test in Social Studies, I sat for the four freaking hour exam. Ninety multiple choice questions later, (and one should note that there were hardly any questions dealing with global history,) the exam required a "DBQ"-style essay explaining the context of, and comparing the intents of, the Prussian General Code of 1791 with the French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789. Finally, something other than New York, US history, geography and economics. Kind of weird that there were no documents to examine, though, just a few bulleted highlights on each.

The French revolution was easy enough, but I had never heard of the Prussian document. I goggled it earlier today, and had only 5 hits, one of which was the California Content Test for Social Studies...and to my surprise, there was the exact question...boy these testing companies are laughing all the way to the bank...oh, yeah, the test is specially tailored to your state's needs...blah, blah, blah.
And to think my school is swallowing all that pre-fab College Board curriculum hook, line and sinker. I guess there is an upside to the district only implementing 1 or 2 years of a five-year program, before abandoning the program du jour and following the funding for some other curriculum cash cow/panacea.

Eight Fallacies and Principals of Education

Looking at samples of sabbaticals that other educators have taken, I came across an interesting piece from a professor who was exploring pedagogy. Something that many of us spend little time pondering--as we're too preoccupied with our passion, content.
This is from a report filed by Professor Dennis Plies:

On March 27, 1999, I had the pleasure of meeting with Richard for nearly five hours in Los Angeles. He had recently presented his rendition of the heart of the venerable Frances Clark, who died last year. She taught at Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, as head of the piano department since 1955. He applied his thoughts to the first eight lectures he heard her give in a course called Fundamentals of Piano Pedagogy. I will present a distillation of his November 19, 1998 address to the New School for Music Study. Richard titled it, Eight Fallacies of Education/Eight Basic Principles.

"The important thing about basic principles, of course, is that they never change, they never get old, they never go out of date. But, the applications of those principles grow and change every day that we teach, so long as we manage to keep our minds open and for as long as we accept the fact that any problems our students have are our problems, not theirs. I think it is possible to pinpoint each problem that comes up as a violation of a basic principle. Then, after recognizing which basic principle we have broken, we can go the next step and devise a way to teach that gets us back on track. To me, learning how to do that is the definition of teacher training" (1).

"Frances began her first lecture by saying that it takes three things to be a successful teacher. One is knowing WHAT to teach. Another is knowing HOW to teach. The third is knowing WHY we teach. She went on to say that the WHAT and the WHY are pretty simple" (1). You can not learn to teach from a book. "Teaching, like performing, is an art, and in its best form it can¹t be copied. No one can become a good teacher by mimicking another teacher. No one can tell you how to teach. Teaching is personal; every teacher is different. The art of teaching is created out of a study of the people we teach, of how they learn, under what circumstances they learn best" (2).

These are the fallacies and principles that informed Frances Clark¹s teaching:

Fallacy 1: I Tell You, Therefore You Know.

Principle 1: I Tell Myself, Therefore I Know.

"A question that has the answer within the question is not a question, it is simply interactive telling" (2).

Fallacy 2: The Best Way to Present Material Is in a Mass of Fragments.

"All of us remember trying to memorize a list of dates for history examinations--a mass of fragments. We have all taken tons of true-false and multiple choice quizzes--more masses of fragments" (3).

Principle 2: The Best Way to Present Material Is From the Context of the Whole.

"Our job when we teach anything new is to decide what the context of the whole is, and then to create situations in which students can practice the whole rather than the fragments, to allow the whole to tell them the fragments. When we find that students are having problems with little details, we have probably committed this fallacy" (4).

Fallacy 3: We Assume That the Fragment Is the Same to the Student As It Is To Us.

"To teach is to communicate. There are several levels to making communication work. Sometimes it is simply necessary to be careful with the words we use" (5).

Principle 3: It Is the Teacher¹s Job to Make the Fragment the Same to the Student As It Is To the Teacher.

Fallacy 4: It Is More Important to Measure Than It Is To Teach.

"Much of our education system, including music teaching, proves that we believe the following: It is more important to measure than it is to teach.

The usual routine is simple: Teacher assigns, Student studies, Student recites, Teacher grades--measures.

Think for a moment about college jury examinations. A performance major spends a semester practicing a particular set of repertoire. The teacher shapes each piece into what all hope will be a stunning performance come jury time.

The teacher assigns, the student practices, the student plays, the jury measures.

But what has the jury measured? The student¹s ability to recite what the teacher has coached, or the student¹s ability to teach himself or herself without help from the teacher?

Alter the scenario: At the beginning of the semester, the student is assigned a Beethoven Sonata that the teacher intends to mold into a perfect performance--always a very worthy goal. But at the same time, the student is assigned a 2nd Beethoven Sonata and told: this one is your project alone. At the end of the semester, the jury will hear both sonatas. Your grade--your measurement--will be based on how well you apply what the teacher teaches you to the sonata you are learning without help. The jury wants to know what you are able to teach yourself.

That jury is saying it is more important to teach than to measure--that it is important to measure what students teach themselves.

And just think how different this performance teacher will go about teaching. It will suddenly make a difference between what students can do by simply being told and what students understand well enough to tell themselves, what they can apply to a new situation. (6-7)

Principle 4: It Is Important That Students Learn to Measure Themselves.

[A side note: While at North Seattle Community College, interviewing Tom Drummond, one who teaches Early Childhood Education and also applies concepts to faculty-wide development, he personalized an example for me. His rhetorical question was, "Dennis, of whose benefit is it that your triplets, when played, are truly accurately placed in time--the professor or the student?" I saw it more fully than I had ever seen it before. Assessment is for the student.]

Fallacy 5: The Teacher Furnishes the Motivation.

Principle 5: Students Furnish Their Own Motivation.

"Our job is to understand the motivation that already exists in each student and then find ways to expand it beyond where it already is. Our job is not to replace his motivation with our own" (8).

Fallacy 6: The Answer Is More Important Than the Process by Which It Is Reached.

"Think of the algebra assignment which the teacher grades by checking for correct answers. The student who has no idea of how to solve the problem but has gotten the correct answer with help from someone at home will get an A. Students who understand the process and do their own work, but make mistakes in some small part of the addition or subtraction, get wrong answers and fail. The math teacher who does not go further, does not make sure who understands the process, believes, that the answer is more important than the process by which it is reached.

For piano teachers, the recital performance is the equivalent of the correct answer. We tend to judge a piano teacher by how his or her students play on recitals, juries, contests, auditions, etc. At the same time, we really know that many of those performances do not represent what students understand, only what the teacher could somehow get the students to do" (8).

Principle 6: The Process by Which an Answer Is Reached Is More Important Than the Answer Itself.

"The opposite of this fallacy is, of course, The process by which an answer is reached is more important than the answer itself. The cause is more important than the result. Only understanding leads to more learning. It is understanding that makes students ready to supply their own answers" (8).

Fallacy 7: Working On Tasks Devoid of Purpose Is Good Discipline.

"Tasks for which the student sees no purpose make sense only to students who simply want to please the teacher."

"Or we produce a submissive person, one who just does what he¹s told--and then forgets just as quickly" (9).

Principle 7: Working On Tasks With a Purpose Is Good Discipline.

Fallacy 8: Education Is Preparation for Life.

"Much of what goes on in all our educational programs suggests that we believe that the purpose of education is to prepare students for the cold, cruel world. Education that seeks to prepare people for something in the future, without providing opportunities for using that preparation as part of the learning process, produces two kinds of people:

One group is just champing at the bit to get out of school and start living. They¹ve never tried what they¹ve been prepared for, but they are convinced that they are prepared enough--let me loose on the world, I¹m ready. They may even believe that they know more than their professors--otherwise why aren¹t they out there living in the real world instead of sticking around these fusty halls of learning.

The other group is made up of those who try to find ways to stay in school forever, afraid to get out there and start living. They may even know that their preparation stopped short of actually doing anything useful, but as long as they can find more courses to take, more degrees to earn, more repertoire to learn, more research to pursue, they can avoid taking responsibility for their own lives--they can remain in a state of preparation forever" (11).

Principle 8: Real Education Is Life Itself.

How has this sabbatical experience changed me? What difference has it made? Several initial thoughts come to mind. Permission to think in a convoluted, confluential manner is one glorious effect. General confidence is another. Some freedom from shyness has occurred. How could I possibly have the courage to ask professors I had not met to allow me into their classroom and into their mind? But through these many experiences I grew and I gained a wider purview of the world and how it works in general. By isolating the area of teaching in higher education, I was afforded the privilege to focus. Through watching how systems worked in many institutions, I am quicker at perceiving systems at work in other organizations. I learned about warmth of personality, of great teachers extending themselves to all people around them. That trait will always catch my attention in whatever situation.

The joy of focusing was paramount, the protected space of time during which it was thoroughly legal to edit from my life. While the edited matter would otherwise be healthy, nevertheless it served as a distraction, for it paled in light of my essence. I learned again, the power of knowing who I am and what the pith of my personal/professional mission statement comprises. I need now to continually remind myself of who I am and what motivates me. Based on that knowledge and applying such wisdom, I find greater joy when excluding what otherwise are fine activities but not warranted in the scheme of my ontological locus.

Having determined who I am, then being who I am and living into that, has become priceless insight. I have known that I am gifted in teaching. I know that teaching is ultimately energizing, as students grapple with content and their being. I know that I wish to serve a community where learning is valued everywhere, not limited to the classroom or professor¹s office. I want to be a part of a learning community where everyone cares for everyone¹s learning, which includes each person¹s being. I am convinced that helping students grow in knowledge, acquiring skills, and developing their talent conjoined with seeking and finding truth is life-giving to me. I expect that a subsequent expression will occur as a result of students moving toward the truth, for the truth makes one free indeed, free to serve others. So I agree: Real Education Is Life Itself.

Foer's How Soccer Explains the World

Having slogged through nearly all sixy-four games of Germany 2006 World Cup, I've had little on my mind except soccer. What a perfect opportunity to pick up Franklin Foer's How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005.

I enjoyed it, and think it would be an interesting read for most soccer fans. It is filled with many anecdotes and histories of "supporters" and clubs. But as for the grandiose title suggesting insights on globalization, there's not much there. I'd stick to Thomas Friedman's books for that fare.

Here's one interesting passage I found regarding globalization:

“In response to the rise of corporate power, there’s a natural inclination to believe that self-interest hadn’t always ruled the market. Soccer writers in England often portray the old club owners as far more beneficent, public-minded citizens doing good for their old working-class friends. But this is nostalgia for a social market that never existed. Before the nineties, there was so little money in the game that owners let their stadiums decay into reprehensible safety traps. In effect, owners treated their fans as if their lives were expendable. Their negligence resulted in a complete breakdown, the broken –windows theory of social decay in microcosm. Fans began to think of life as expendable, too. They would beat the crap out of one another each weekend. To be sorrowful about the disappearance of this old culture requires grossly sentimentalizing the traditions and atmosphere that have passed. Indeed, this is an important characteristic of the globalization debate: the tendency toward glorifying all things indigenous, even when they deserve to be left in the past." (pp. 98-9)

Another passage that helps to explain how American soccer fans differ from their counterparts, and in part, why soccer isn't as popular in the United States:

“In every other part of the world, soccer sociology varies little: it is the province of the working class. Sure, there might be aristocrats, like Gianni Agnelli, who take an interest, and instances like Barca, where the game transcendently grips the community. But these cases are rare. The United States is even rarer. It inverts the class structure of the game. Here, aside from Latino immigrants, the professional classes follow the game most avidly and the working class couldn’t give a toss about it. Surveys done by the sporting goods manufacturers, consistently show that children of middle class and affluent families play the game disproportionately. Half the nation’s soccer participants come from households earning over $50,000. That is, they come from the solid middle class and above.” (pp. 238-9)