Across Boundaries

In David Brook’s editorial: “Culture matters. So do aspirations for dignity”, he talks about a book by Samuel Huntington called The Clash of Civilizations? It was written in the early 90’s and said that there was, basically, no hope of avoiding the clash of cultures with the Arab world because our aspirations were so different.

Brooks’ theme is that the quest for dignity is inherent in all human beings.

I always like it when I see the word “spiritual” in the context of an editorial and he uses it here. Brooks, after saying that Huntington argued that people in Arab lands didn’t hunger for pluralism and democracy, explained, “It now appears as though they were simply living in circumstances that did not allow those spiritual hungers to come to the surface.”

Liberty is a spiritual hunger.

Like many of us with the freedom to pursue spiritual qualities, I spend a great deal of time focused on liberating myself from the tyranny of my own thoughts. These thoughts, too, are at least partially dictated by culture. Our fears, frustrations, and expectations may be different across cultures but when we confront them face-to-face, or begin to see the glimmer of a chance for change, the inspiration and hopefulness is similar across boundaries.

Brooks speaks here as well, of having many authentic selves. “It now appears that people in these nations, like people in all nations, have multiple authentic selves. In some circumstances, one set of identities manifest itself, but when those circumstances change, other equally authentic identities and desires get activated.”

Brooks is so kind and nonjudgmental here. He’s not calling former ways of being false, only seeing that circumstances activate equally authentic identities and desires. It reminds me of the practices in A Course of Love that I’ve been writing about in my pubjournal blog. They’ve been reminding me of that. The first belief/practice is in accomplishment. One of the things it says, appropriate to this context, is that you weren’t “wrong” before. You were always accomplished. You’re accomplished right now – even as you struggle and as surely when you’re having new authentic identities and desires activated – and even when they begin with your thoughts.

(David Brooks’ column appeared in my Sunday St. Paul Pioneer Press (3-6-2011, 10B) courtesy of The New York Times.)

Zeitgeist and the Human Whole

Counter-cultural movements have been called “a social manifestation of zeitgeist.”

Zeitgeist is an originally German expression that means “the spirit of the age.” In the Netherlands zeitgeist literally refers to the mind of the time. If there is a word for the heart of a time, I do not know it, although movements like the Romantic Movement of the 18th and early 19th century or the Existentialists might have captured it. Or how about the Renaissance?

I left out one mention of counter-culture written by a student talking about both rap music/culture and Jesus. It was several years old but I liked it.

I don’t generally do internet searches. I’m a daily paper reader. My local paper, The St. Paul Pioneer Press, has seen better days. There was once a religion or faith columnist (it’s been gone so long I don’t remember the exact title of the column but I remember fondly the columnist, Clark Morphew, now deceased). There still is a book columnist/reviewer, Mary Ann Grossman, although the book page (seen only on Sunday) has shrunk from two pages to one and she appears less and less. And there’s a relatively new guy named Dominic P. Papatola who writes on “Culture in Context,” mainly as a reviewer of theater and the arts.

I like columnists with voices with which I get familiar and who have views I begin to trust as being their own. And I like editorialists, especially Leonard Pitts who appears in my paper often courtesy of “The Miami Herald.” I tend to like embodied information and insights.

Dominic wrote recently on the techno culture, saying “Anyone who has communicated via e-mail or test message has suffered from the occasional outbreak of misconstritus. You know the syndrome: The words you type and send into the ether somehow take on a different meaning, or gravity or tone somewhere on the way from your outbox to your recipient’s inbox. The message you intended to be a wry joke comes off as a caustic put-down…. A brief acknowledgment of a message is taken as a curt brush-off. Light becomes heavy. Light becomes dark. And then, you spend a good part of the day undoing damage you never intended to inflict in the first place.” He concludes, “For all the efficient ways our virtual new world of social media links us, it leaves out some important things.” (From the St. Paul Pioneer Press, 3E, Sunday, 9/6/09) Being a theater critic he invites his readers to view live performances even if it’s not “real life” or a “substitute for the lessons learned in the face-to-face interactions we all need to master for the less digital- friendly moments of our lives.” See Twitter.com/papatola

You get something like “culture” on your brain and pretty soon you see it pop up. It came before me next on the following Wednesday in a SPPP reprint of an editorial by David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times. The headline, “Where policy meets culture” drew me. He spoke of the demise of the magazine The Public Interest and the birth of National Affairs. He cites an article by Leon R. Kass that he says nicely summarizes the spirit of the magazine – “the fierce desire to see the human whole, to be aware of people as spiritual beings and not economic units or cogs in a technocratic policy machine.” Brooks then says, “In a world of fever swamp politics and arid, overly specialized expertise, National Affairs arrives at just the right time.”

Specialization is an interesting word choice and a possible culprit in the inability of a movement that has no feet to launch.

Beginning this foray into blogging, I visited a bunch of spiritual sites. I looked in a lot of categories: spirituality (general), self-realization (choose your Eastern teacher), self-awareness (not much). Christianity seems to have a big following. There’s Women’s Spirituality, and Spirituality book clubs. All of which would be fine if there were cross-over topics, but I didn’t see many.

You’ve got to know where to look is one answer to the problem that comes to mind, but I’ve got to ask:

Where do you see the human whole?

My answer so far, and it’s really kind of heartening, is that you see it in individual people who simply share who they are in places like blogs, as well as in the occasional editorial and column where the person isn’t hiding their views or themselves. “Ramblings of the Bearded One” which was highlighted here as a blog of note, kimayres.blogspot.com, is one such view of a whole human being. What else is there?