The Evils of A Single Story

About: chimamanda ngozi adichie: the danger of a single story

 
 

she has really put her finger on it ... first time i heard the term “a single story” ... a great term indeed thumbs up
 

When we reject the single story, when we realize that there was never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise.

chimamanda ngozi adichie

Tags

  1. ted talk
  2. biases
  3. single story
  4. media
  5. literature
  6. stories

Comments


Mark de LA says
seth 2014-03-05 08:37:31 17141
source: mark
I have said before in the midst of the diversity meme one should be aware of and reach up to the level of human & understand others.
... Yes you have many times.

Diversity is not a meme, it is a fact of our human existence.  I claim it is part of our strength.

People say memes to work to increase or decrease diversity.

I think that working to decrease diversity, is generally not a good idea (see respect for otherness).   On the other hand, diversity tends to increase quite naturally, me thinks, that is not something that i personally should work against. 

Understanding some human behavior as a "human generality" is certainly something that we humans do ... and sometimes we do it carefully and to good use.   Sometimes we do not even disrespect the freedom of otherness in the process ... for that freedom itself is not a small part of our very generality. 

The elephant in the room here is that my very project is an attempt to gestalt in a perceptual manner the generality we both call "human".  I am having a hard time making this gestalt perceptual ... beyond the usual common knowledge we call "human".  But one thing i know i cannot do, to get to its essence, is to downplay the freedom of our diversity and white wash that all into a lump of human sameness.
Diversity is all about the division between things & in your case people. Your story about diversity only exaggerates such. Hence your quest to turn around & go for human generality or humanity (probably not the same) is a windmill yet to be vanquished. I hold humanity more in the context that RS does as the highest aspiration of the human race & evolution on the Earth & beyond.  While the steps along the way are interesting - they are just steps - not to be confused with stopping points or end points.


Seth says
source: mark
I have said before in the midst of the diversity meme one should be aware of and reach up to the level of human & understand others.
... Yes you have many times.

Diversity is not a meme, it is a fact of our human existence.  I claim it is part of our strength.

People say memes to work to increase or decrease diversity.

I think that working to decrease diversity, is generally not a good idea (see respect for otherness).   On the other hand, diversity tends to increase quite naturally, me thinks, that is not something that i personally should work against. 

Understanding some human behavior as a "human generality" is certainly something that we humans do ... and sometimes we do it carefully and to good use.   Sometimes we do not even disrespect the freedom of otherness in the process ... for that freedom itself is not a small part of our very generality. 

The elephant in the room here is that my very project is an attempt to gestalt in a perceptual manner the generality we both call "human".  I am having a hard time making this gestalt perceptual ... beyond the usual common knowledge we call "human".  But one thing i know i cannot do, to get to its essence, is to downplay the freedom of our diversity and white wash that all into a lump of human sameness.

Seth says
  • mark: Diversity is all about the division between things & [in your case] people.
  • seth: true
  • mark: Your story about diversity only exaggerates such.
  • seth: My story about diversity respects differences.  That you think i exaggerate differences is a  misunderstanding of what i have said.
  • mark: Hence your quest to turn around & go for human generality or humanity (probably not the same) is a windmill yet to be vanquished.
  • seth: Nothing in that sentence follows from anything you said above.  I want to perceive humanity as a whole being ... as if a pixel of a picture wanted to recognized the picture it itself is within. This want, this desire, this urge follows from nothing whatsoever.  It is just something that i have wanted since i was a small child.  That you seem to think that it needs of vanquishing is kind of just your thing ...eh? 
  • mark: I hold humanity more in the context that RS does as the highest aspiration of the human race & evolution on the Earth & beyond.  
  • seth:  hmmm strange ... i hold it in the same context.  to see humanity as a whole being is also to see what humanity can aspire to become.  that better and better future humanity is what draws and excites me to the opus.  RS's story of that is one of many (see topic).  But his is a might too grand and expansive for me to perceptually grasp.  i am looking for someting that, er Bozo, can actually grasp.
  • mark: While the steps along the way are interesting - they are just steps - not to be confused with stopping points or end points.
  • seth: well the journey itself is all the fun i can handle. 

Seth says
seth 2016-02-09 12:07:56 [item 17141#45069]

Singularity: A single point that a collective agrees to reproduce exactly the same in each members individual realities, thus making it appear to be a principal or law. But it is not an actual law, only an agreed upon single point. There is only one actual law, the Law of Attraction. Practical laws are governed by excitement. If it is exciting, it is lawful. If it is not, it is against the law. There are no others.

d’A

well i am not a fan of a notion of there being “only one law” … or “principle”, … or “god” … or “story” … or “true religion”.   Not only does that not match my own experience … but it is a setup for needless RWG.   My experience tells me that there are many forces happening in the universe or in whatever context i happen to visit.  There are attractive forces and there are dispersive forces.     In fact i would predict that if everything just attracted in some universe, it would eventually just clump together then never change again … no new possibilities. 
dA 2016-02-09 12:29:19 [item 17141#45070]
Well most of that is true. There are many forces. No one has suggested otherwise. There are as many as you desire and create. You could design a verse where all things clump together, if you want. Or you could design a verse where a billion billion different combinations of attraction relationships balance and interact in a trillion ways, like the verses we mostly inhabit. But none of that is law. That is all just design and manifestation … all built on top of the one Law of Attraction. You are simply calling phenomena law. There is only one LAW, and there is virtually infinite variety of phenomena. A law is something cannot be changed, bent, redesigned, and most importantly, cannot be reimagined. The Law of Attraction is the only principal in all verses that will remain as it is no matter what is imagined and manifested otherwise.

well that is exactly what i am contradicting … there is not just one thing (principle, law, whatever you want to call it) which can never be changed.   and, strangely enough, this one you keep  shouting about can be changed in some contexts for some people … or if you prefer in some verses.  it seems totally kewl that you are so into it … but your thinking that it is the only thing that dominates what happens for every person  is, imho, just your own being oblivious to their contexts.   Chimamanda’s compelling talk linked to this thought above, my own experience, and my study of biology physics, and metaphysics … pretty much contradicts this message you keep sending me. 

Mark de LA says
Since this one keeps bubbling up & chirping into my attention – here is yet another story – enjoy! 
(There must be rose around here somewhere I smell the manure pilerose

Seth says
dA 2016-02-09 12:53:52 [item 17141#45073]
If you don’t believe this, simply try. I bet you cannot imagine a verse of any kind where the LOA is not the prime force. LOA allows dispersible and repulsive forces. This is fully explained in http://www.fastblogit.com/item/19798#44558. LOA is the principal that all is vibration, and like vibrations attract. That is all. Imagine a verse where that doesn’t operate. I challenge you … but of course, it is not possible, you will come to see that in trying.
seth 2016-02-09 15:13:11 [item 17141#45078]
it is easy to imagine (and even  experience) these verses (contexts) where LOA is not the only prime  force.  Here is one which i actually experience:  ~73 years ago, my dad attracted to my mom, excitedly shot sperm into her vagina … one of them was attracted to her egg and I began.  But then something in the other direction happened … that one cell separated and made two .. and thereafter for 9 months I continued to separate and differentiate.  After my birth i was attracted to different people … and got too close to some … needing separation … we got our own rooms in life … and on and on in an ever expanding differentiation of possibilities.  It has been not just likes moving to likes, but also differences moving away to obtain more space to grow.  this life has been an ever expanding spiral of different possibilities … an expanding, and a contracting … a breathing out, and a breathing in. 

But for whatever true story i tell you about my experience, you will be able to spin to tell yours to me instead. We will both believe our stories true,  even though they will be different, at times contradictory ← now interact those two unlike stories and we get more possibilities, or attract them too close and they will fight and decay  ← there you have the nested  example for which you asked ←  sorry if it is not what attracts you.
dA 2016-02-09 15:39:49 [item 17141#45081]
It’s simply not a story about something where LOA is not a prime principal, that’s all. Otherwise, it is a fine story.
seth 2016-02-09 15:54:15 [item 17141#45083]
well it is a true story about two principles,  and a contra example of  “There is only one actual law” .  
dA 2016-02-09 16:01:09 [item 17141#45084]
I said there were lots of principals, and phenomena. We can imagine them in as much detail as we desire, or turn them over to the fairies to detail for us. What we can’t do is imagine something that cannot exist. That is why we cannot imagine reality devoid of Law of Attraction. We can imagine it in trillions of other ways and each will exist. Reality without it does not exist, for it is the one thing that is outside our range of imagination, the one law upon which everything we can imagine is built.
well me thinks we can “imagine” whatever. 

will what happens ever be devoid of attraction ? ←  i totally agree, it will not. 
will what happens ever be devoid of expansion ? ← no, i think it will not. 

Holmes says
BTW … I take the thought here to mean something different, something I agree with. I take it to be expressing the multitude of the multiverse. The idea in all it’s splendor that there is not a universe where all must happen in a way that fits together in a unified manner, but a multiverse where each and every beingness creates it’s own reality … everything a beingness can experience … and there is not just one … every beingness is a complete story written fully in every aspect, from the smallest cell, to the most complex being, they all have a complete reality story of their own.

Holmes says
Mark 2016-02-09 16:13:01 [item 17141#45087]
Well evil attracts evil & good attracts good! The Tao is preserved! thumbs up

dA 2016-02-09 16:23:39 [item 17141#45088]
Except there is no evil. Evil is propaganda of another age when man desired to be constrained and controlled in order to experience certain things that could only be experienced in that manner.
Mark 2016-02-09 16:32:16 [item 17141#45089]
Time for a celebration! 
Unless this by dA means anything “LOA allows dispersible and repulsive forces. “ see above. 
ponderingHmmm…. good-evil ; attractive-repulsive ; 
Yep. No repulsive. We covered that elsewhere.

Holmes says
And really, you’ve lived 70 something or so years and you still think there is evil?
Really?

Mark de LA says
dA 2016-02-09 16:50:14 [item 17141#45092]
Why celebrate? It’s always been true. Do you celebrate after taking a shit? It’s simply moving along.
Yeah, it was pretty much depleted biological material. Take a course in physics . smug

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