the profound diversity of rethorics

(get all set, in a very substantial sense!)

Is communal play –- the rites and rituals that confirm membership of a culture, tribe, or community –- a way into understanding why their-so-called-non-western-traditions-like-Islam might be enraged by the semiotic frenzy of western consumer culture?
Is cosmic play – the deep webs of existence posited by the Asian traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism – a kind of necessary corrective to the egoism of the modern western player?
Might the variety of rethorics available to a northern liberal – the ethical chord chart from which they performed their lives – need to be constrained, or at least weighted, in a global context of multiple truths and value systems?
Might some forms of play, in a world of potentially clashing civilizations, be more ethical than others?

The one thing that a richer understanding of role in cultures can bring to the struggle, to make it a benign and creative (rather than a malign and destructive) process: an appreciation of the diversity of consciousness that human beings can generate among themselves.



Walt Whitman in Song of Myself: “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes).”

inspired by my elevator incident in 4H NCC Building, Washington D.C.
the first footsteps in the USA