August 24th, 1997
HOLD ON
By Jackie Giuliano
Hold on, hold on to yourselves,
for this is gonna to hurt like hell.
-- from "Hold On" by Sara McLachlan (Fumbling Towards Ecstacy CD)
Hold on to what is good
even if it is
a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe
even if it is
a tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do
even if it is
a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when
it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when
I have gone away from you.
-- Nancy Wood
Releasing the separate one
is a difficult knot.
Finding yourself is something
only you can do.
Imagine yourself coming back
10 years from today
Through time, to help you
where you must now be.
-- Jim Cohn
Death is not tidy. It often takes a long time and is extremely painful. It's not like we
see it on the evening news - all clean, covered in white sheets, or the subject of a
grisly jury trial. True, it is an under-acknowledged part of all our lives. But our own
actions should not bring on death and suffering. Yet we seek it every day, it seems.
Oh we say that we fear it and don't want to talk about it. Yet, virtually all the actions
of most people who live in major urban areas, and many who live in rural areas as well,
seem to be directed at bringing on a long, lingering, painful death at the hands of
substances we either put into our bodies or put into the Earth. Why is that?
I was reminded of the preciousness and fragility of life the other night as I had to help
a baby opossum die. Even in Southern California urban areas, wildlife abounds, and a young
opossum, while walking through my yard, was attacked by my dog. She didn't bite it, but
she shook her head back and forth, in a fashion characteristic of her breed, and the
creature obviously sustained serious internal injuries. I have seen many injured animals,
particularly baby opossums, since I was very involved as a wildlife rescuer and
rehabilitator for a number of years. I felt it was time to help this little one die.
It is very difficult to end a life - particularly that of an animal who has walked the
earth nearly since the time of the dinosaurs. I wanted a relatively peaceful death for
this wronged critter, so I put his unconscious, raggedly breathing body into a plastic bag
and held the bag up to the exhaust of my car. The baby eventually succumbed.
Please be careful if you come upon an opossum, or any other wildlife, who has just
suffered a trauma. If you can, call someone who knows what to do. Opossums, when
traumatized, will often play dead so effectively that you cannot tell if they are alive or
not. Wait a while to be sure that their defense mechanism is not simulating death before
you act.
The event made me so very sad. This poor baby did not seek death, yet it came, in a
random, rather naturally inspired form from a domesticated creature whose genetically
manipulated breeding and instincts are confused at best. It made me think not only of the
fragility of life, but of the senselessness of how we seem to court death every day with
so many of our actions.
I am surrounded often by many types of people: activists, engineers, adult students,
scientists, teachers, grocery clerks, yet the common threads of sadness, fear, and
disconnection from the natural world bind them all together. I marvel as I conduct a class
on our connection to the natural world, filled with adults who have chosen to return to
school to get their bachelors degrees, and hear a familiar litany of concerns:
"I can't give up my caffeine."
"I have to drive 60 miles to work every day."
"I can't carpool, my schedule is too irregular."
"I was too busy to do the assignment."
"Life is short - I don't want to give up the 'good things.'"
Trying to plan a field trip with my busy, hard-working adults is an experience in
frustration. Everyone is so "busy" that no day is ever good. The idea of
stopping the relentless madness of their lives to take a hike to a lovely waterfall is
unthinkable.
In a meeting room filled with highly educated scientists and engineers working in the
space program, I am surrounded with a similar, but more articulate, litany. In a meeting
last week, after the project manager had shown many charts for a presentation to a high
ranking boss next week, he came to a chart that tried to boil down the often confusing
array of technical information. The chart was in clear language, had no technical jargon,
and conveyed a good summary message. A number of the engineers in the room said the chart
was "offensive" and should be removed.
A couple of months ago, I encountered a young man whom I had met while I was helping plan
conferences on environmental activism. He is a dedicated activist who, just recently, had
his picture on the front page of a local paper because he had chained himself to a
bulldozer that was going to be used to destroy the last important wetland in Southern
California. I greeted him warmly and reached out to shake his hand. He pulled back, saying
he is not "doing that anymore" because there are so many germs on our hands.
The front page story of the Los Angeles Times on August 24, 1997 is devoted to the
business of selling assault rifles in California. Many crimes are committed with these
military-like weapons that can fire 100 rounds through a brick wall at 40 yards. How could
there possibly be any justification for allowing these weapons to be made? Could it have
anything to do with the nearly $3 million that the National Rifle Association, the most
powerful pro-gun lobby around, gave to political candidates during the 1995-96 political
year?
Why are senseless deaths and environmental destruction viewed as just another sad story in
the newspaper that we can't do anything about? I don't know about you, but this is making
me nuts.
What's wrong with us? I can't help but think that there are a few key factors that keep us
separated from each other, the natural world, and ourselves.
One of the issues is that the quality of information we take in about what is going on in
the world is low, and the way we process it is suspect. Over 40 million people watch a
major network television news program each evening and countless more watch the
uncountable number of local news programs on each day. TV news programs are the cash crops
of today's networks. TV news programs are designed to keep you watching closely, in a
state of fear and denial, desperately hoping for some relief. The relief is often promised
in the form of a human interest story, always at the end of the program. In between the
fear-generating vignettes, the program will supply you with a way to overcome your fears
and rising panic in the form of many carefully placed opportunities to buy things.
Advertisers know that TV news programs are the places to get their messages across. They
know that viewers tend to be better educated and have more money to spend than other
audiences. The commercial spots they design are often longer than the news stories
themselves! Neil Postman and Steve Powers in their book "How To Watch TV News,"
say "The commercials are fast-paced and exciting and, as a result, influence the way
the news stories around them are produced."
Developers of interactive television are very excited because they are working on ways to
send viewer-specific commercials into your homes. They will use not only geographic
information, but personal information about your household, such as your publicly
available mail-order spending patterns, to target you. Prescription drug commercials will
litter the airwaves going to senior citizens' homes, while Nike sneaker commercials will
invade the homes of families with children who play organized sports in school.
So, Postman and Powers ask, who is watching whom? You may think that you are just using
the TV to pick and choose your information, but this is really not true. You are being
presented with a carefully designed program that is constructed to influence you in every
way. As you watch the TV, you are being "statistically watched, and very carefully,
by managers, accountants, and business people . . . [who] argue that they must know who
you are to mirror your interests and give you what you want," say Postman and Powers.
Television and print media news gives us other burdens as well. It teaches us to be
satisfied with 30 second soundbites of information. It teaches us to not be concerned with
depth and precision. It teaches us to overlook the details and make global, far reaching
conclusions after hearing only a few seconds about a situation. And, most damaging, it
teaches us that after 30 seconds to a minute, the story is over and we don't have to
concern ourselves with it any more. How can we? We are not given any tools to act. How
many of us can really say that these habits have not infiltrated the way we learn and
communicate in our personal lives?
What becomes news in our lives is based on the narrow definitions that we see presented in
programs such as these. In a 60-minute broadcast, or in the morning paper, not all the
news is covered. Yet it is easy to go about your day thinking you have caught up on the
news.
I tell people that I do not read the daily paper or watch the evening news. I continue by
saying that I have a copy of the Los Angeles Times from February 5, 1972, and I take it
out once per week to catch up on the news. A joke, to be sure, but with a powerful,
depressing seed of truth.
What you see on the news is only one tiny, tiny piece of the puzzle. You are not really
learning anything. Postman and Powers point out that on the day Marilyn Monroe committed
suicide, many other people did as well, people whose reasons may have been even more
significant than Miss Monroe's. We shall never know of these people or their reasons.
Those who decide what is news at CBS or NBS or The New York Times simply took no notice of
them.
Postman and Powers point out that this is about "judgement," a very subjective
thing. What is "important" to one person concerned with human suffering and the
beauty of nature will not be as important to a person who has been taught to define
"health" as the state of the economic elements of their life.
So how do we use the powerful intellect each of us has been given to make rational
choices? How do we define rational? I don't know, but here are a few thoughts, adapted
from my work and the work of Richard Paul, director of the Center for Critical Thinking at
Sonoma State University in California who developed these ideas in his efforts to develop
programs for teachers and students that teach clear, reasoned thinking.
- We need to develop ways to create an environment in which we can practice thinking
critically and clearly about our lives and our world.
- One of the reasons why people seek news, whether explicitly or implicitly, is to develop
their intellects. Most people don't develop their intellects - they are not in charge of
their thinking or their ideas. They use intellect to justify infantile, egocentric, and
destructive behaviors. For example, we all rationalize our use of resources - our cars,
boats, planes, etc. We need a car to get to work. But if we are truly thinking critically,
we would have to conclude that in order to preserve our health and the health of others,
we must live closer to where we work and work only in ways that support our health and
planet. But we don't. Instead, we unconsciously pick up what people around us think, what
is on television or in the movies, or from the families we were raised in. We are products
of a process we did not select.
- To change these things, we must work to think consciously, deliberately, and skillfully
if we are to take charge of the ideas that run our lives. Whenever you are doing anything,
whether it be at home, at the office, or inside the classroom, constantly ask yourself,
"Would an outside observer watching me closely conclude that I am engaged in taking
charge of my mind, my ideas, and my thinking?" Or would this observer conclude that
you are merely going through the motions of doing an assignment, trying to get by with the
minimum possible effort, or waiting to be told what to do? It is obvious which observation
suggests critical thinking.
- Be on the lookout for flaws in your reasoning. Here is an excerpt from my course
syllabus, also adapted from the work of Richard Paul, that illustrates what I mean.
We are constantly looking for "evidence" of one thing or another. Well, when
we don't reason well, we are making evident attributes of our own thinking:
- When you write or speak in a manner that can be interpreted in many different ways, you
make evident that you are thinking in a vague way.
- When you do not give concrete examples and illustrations to make your point clear, you
make evident that you are not clarifying your thought.
- When you do not make clear, with appropriate transitional words and critical vocabulary,
the logical relations between the sentences you write and the words you say, you make
evident that you are not thinking in terms of the logic of your thought, that you may not
fully understand the structure of your own reasoning.
- When you do not analyze key concepts and demonstrate how they apply to the subject or to
your life, you make evident that you may be weak at conceptual analysis.
- When you do not reference your work and tell people specifically where you heard what
you are writing about or saying, you make evident that you are unclear as to the sources
of your work and are not holding yourself accountable for your information.
- When you watch the evening news or read the morning paper and answer the question
"what's in the news" by repeating the stories you have heard or read, you are
not exposing yourself to the richness of what is really happening in the world.
These are not cures, to be sure, but interesting thoughts. I sometimes visualize what
should be the headline of a newspaper sometimes that might me a more representative story
of people in our world.
Los Angeles Times
The Jones' Have a Pretty Good Day
Today, the Jones' lingered in bed a while, enjoying each other's touch and presence. They
then walked their dogs, had a fun breakfast outside in their backyard, and got ready for
work. They worked hard today, then returned home, greeting each other warmly, playing with
the dogs, and began to cook dinner. They watched a little TV (not the news!) did some arts
and crafts, and settled into bed, falling asleep in each other's arms.
If you think this sounds nuts, then you are definitely watching too much TV news or
reading the morning paper too often.
Rise up, child of earth
let life rise up in you,
full-term, new-born.
Time enough in wondrous darkness,
Echoed sounds of voices, stirrings,
splashings of new life.
Relinquish to memory this one mystery
we yearn to know and will again
in after-death.
So much latent
still to rise
Until our rising lifts us to a depth
that questions every truth we've ever known.
Mud-stirred of first-clay.
Plaything of a potter who fell in love
with her hands' work.
Blessed be her handiwork.
Blessed be the work of her hands.
Blessed be.
-- Pat Kozak
"The weight of this sad time we must obey.
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."
-- William Shakespeare, King Lear
RESOURCES AND REFERENCES
1. Read any of the works of Neil Postman for an outstanding analysis of the media and
technology and their affect on our lives. Powell's on-line used and new bookstore can help
you find them. Visit them at http://www.powells.com/
2. There are a number of websites about Neil Postman. One interesting one is at http://www.channel-zero.com/issue1/postman.html
3. For help getting off the consumerism treadmill, visit Adbusters at http://www.adbusters.org./main.html
4. Try hard to check out alternative media outlets. For Southern California happenings,
visit the Los Angeles Alternative Media Network at http://members.labridge.com/applepi/laamn/default.html
5. If you are going to be exposed in any way to the media, you really should get involved
with "Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)," an outstanding media watchdog
group. Visit their site at http://www.igc.org/fair/
6. Visit "Links For Those With Conscience And Consciousness" and find an amazing
array of alternative information sources at http://artitude.com/links.htm
7. Want some electronic broadcast news? Listen to Pacifica radio stations. They are
listener supported and use no corporate dollars or advertising at all. Great news
broadcasts. Find the station near you at http://www.pacifica.org/
8. For a printed, bi-weekly treatment of an angle on world events that you will not see on
the evening news, check out "In These Times" at your local progressive
newsstand.
9. In Context magazine offers powerful perspectives. Visit them at http://www.context.org/
10. Visit women's bookstores in your area for a powerful perspective.
11. Click on the ARCHIVE button on any "Healing Our World" article for the
complete list of others in this series.
{Jackie Giuliano can be found trying to think clearly (with the TV off) in Venice,
California. He is a Professor of Environmental Studies for Antioch University, Los
Angeles, the University of Phoenix, and the Union Institute College of Undergraduate
Studies. He is also the Educational Outreach Manager for the Ice and Fire Preprojects, a
NASA program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to send space probes to Jupiter's moon
Europa, the planet Pluto, and the Sun. Please send your comments, ideas, and visions to
him at jackieg@jps.net} |
