[Vision2020] Pat Condell -- Muslims must reject jihad

[Paul Rumelhart]

I have a different view of the phrase "E Pluribus Unum", I guess.  I see it as similar to the whole "melting pot" concept that used to be revered more in the past than it is today.   Everyone is an individual, everyone has their own viewpoint and their own unique perspective on the problem.  The concept of "E Pluribus Unum", as I see it, is that our strength as a country comes from our diversity and our individualism, and in how we are able to convert that to sound policy in a system that recognizes where we can agree and protects the minority viewpoints.  That hasn't been true lately, and might be more of a myth than reality, but it's something I strive for.

I think the new world of the Internet, social media, viral videos, and whatnot could be harnessed to work towards this spirit of unity from diversity, if only people would actually concede that that is a concept worth developing.  As it is, people are happier to demonize the opposition, not realizing that "the opposition" is something they've been led to believe must be defeated, and is something that wouldn't actually exist if we all didn't glob on to labels and political parties and cute sound bites from talking heads on both sides of the divide.  Talking heads that owe their success to furthering the idea that there is a divide, by the way.

By giving ourselves over to one side or the other, we've effectively destroyed the "pluribus" part of the motto.  If we had more of a multitude of viewpoints expressed, we would have more chance of finding common threads or overlap.  We would just have to be cool with the idea that we might agree with someone on the "other side" about one thing, though, while disagreeing with them about other things.  This simple concept seems really hard for some people to comprehend.

Paul




________________________________
 From: Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at frontier.com>
To: Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com> 
Cc: Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com>; vision 2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com> 
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2013 2:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Pat Condell -- Muslims must reject jihad
 


On 5/31/2013 2:17 PM, Paul Rumelhart wrote:

By the way, "In God We Trust" is the our national motto, as signed into law by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956.  If people out there want "In God We Trust" removed from their currency, they should lobby for a change to our national motto.  Personally, I like "E Pluribus Unum" better (From Many Into One), because that supports actual unity instead of the divisiveness that is tearing this country apart.
>
E Pluribus Unum is more likely a part of the problem than it is part
    of a solution.  While it may be the case that cheering on team
    efforts in a competition among other teams is useful or comforting,
    the fact of our increasingly less hierarchical and and more
    networked social organization is that peer-to-peer and
    network-to-network relationships are now more common, and more
    important, not just within this country but around the world, both
    within and among countries and companies.  We need adjustable,
    dynamic organization charts that can be more readily modified to
    meet the needs and exigencies of necessary problem-solving rather
    than just historically inertial, traditional, fixed, relationships
    among solution-generating and strategy-deciding workers and
    officers.


Ken
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