Meeting Debriefing--David Backer

In an email to the Washington Circle, January 26 2007

Yo, so we didn't do much BetterNewsing last night. But we did some. I read this thing aloud and we talked about it a little bit. I thought putting it in an email would inspire some more discussion. We agree that next week at 9 we'd get to business with the writings.
See what you think, it's very rough: I wrote it like something that would be spoken in front of a group of people.

There is much talk of peace. There has always been such talk. The explanation for this is not our concern here --let us just admit that peace is a goal we hope to attain personally and politically.There are differences among us. There are things that hold us together. There are things that bring us to each other's side, there are things that cause us to harm one another. Differences will tend to inspire the latter, while similarities will aid the former.So many say that we must come together. That we must love each other. That we must have peace.But what does this mean?How do we amplify our similarities and understand our differences so that our paths toward one another are not blocked?We cannot just say that there must be peace. We must think about one another, about ourselves, so that this movement towards peace can occur. Because it is a movement, it is a walk, a way of being, not a series of sentences to be repeated. It is an attitude that causes our movements towards each other. Nations are only only individuals that believe together. If we believe with the attitude of peace, there can be such a thing as a peaceful nation.We call this attitude the philosophical attitude. The philosophical attitude is a way of being that clears a path toward understanding at the individual level. It is a starting place, at least. An individual with this attitude works to find the similarities between seemingly antagonistic or anti-thetical ideas. An individual with this attitude sees that the world is full of people.An individual with this attitude believes, if nothing else, that there are truths of human nature, and that anything produced by that nature is somehow indicative of one its essential aspects. An individual with this attitude says the word "interesting" in response to almost everything. An individual with this attitude will engage anyone in a discussion about anything. An individual with this attitude will ask "what do you mean" until nauseous. An individual with this attitude will, if nothing else, appreciate how things are more similar than they seem, or, appreciate the beauty of how different things are. An individual with this attitude will rarely say the word "hate", unless its usage is clearly justified. An individual with this attitude can be from anywhere-- can be any age, belong to any religion, any race, any culture, any society.

muchlove,derv