Search results for: hearts minds

“Changing Hearts and Minds”


Yesterday’s irony – intentional or otherwise – becomes today’s platitude. How is it that this one still has legs? How do we simply “forget” this phrase’s origins? When asked why the US military was bombing the shit out of Vietnam, the response, probably penned by a sweaty, beady eyed CIA operative, was “To change heartsContinue reading ““Changing Hearts and Minds””

Political Failure, a Clarification


There’s a critical piece missing from the last post. That is, what does political failure entail? If we look at it from within the assumptions of “the game,” the conclusion that what is needed and inevitable is a grand failure will be misunderstood. Saying that any one leader, any one party should fail, is justContinue reading “Political Failure, a Clarification”

Fighting Injustice/Confronting Abuse, part II


The first part of this essay dealt with setting the stage, in a way, finding our home position. Let’s take that groundwork and begin to look at what’s hinted at in the second half of the title, Confronting Abuse. In our stressed, fight or flight states we jump right past the significant aspect of confrontationContinue reading “Fighting Injustice/Confronting Abuse, part II”

Between Knowing and Understanding


Is there a space between knowing and understanding? Not if we equate understanding with the power to control. “We understand.” That was the last message tapped out on the cold steel of the pressure hull of the submarine S-4 off Wood End. * He’d never heard them speak, just had secondhand accounts, by way ofContinue reading “Between Knowing and Understanding”

Stories


There is a world of difference between a map and a story. The power of the reductivist world-view resides in the ruthless insistence that everything can be boiled down and that signs are equivalent to reality. Whatever doesn’t fit is thrown away as an externality or dismissed in disgust as chaotic. The rush to efficiency is not to be slowed because of any “messy” “complications.”

Clearing the Mind


As the ramp-up to the Dark Mountain Festival gains momentum and these ideas find outlets in wider circles so many people don’t know what to make of this view. They seem to equate the active work of plumbing the depths of our actual situation, stripping away shallow assumptions and hazy pseudo-mythologies that cocoon us within an acceptance of the status quo, as the only possible alternative to some deeply dystopian “end of the world.” They equate this action with “doing nothing” while valuing “doing something,” even as they can find no evidence that whatever their particular “something” is will help. It’s not working.