97 days ago
When everyone around me in Montreal was over excited about the economic crisis, I asked myself why did I play it cool. First of all, I have no credits anywhere, no mortgage, no education loan and no kids to raise. I totally disbelief the continous progress theory that presumes endless development, so I expect system crushes and failures.
And I also strongly believe in two theories: the cyclic history of Ibn Khaldun -"constant renewal or replacement of the ruling group by nomads conquering the towns and settled lands. This was followed by a period when the invaders lost the skills of the desert and acquired the vices and slackness of town life." I think that our conquering nomads are the Chinese and Indians who are eager to learn and move up on the social and professional scale, in opposition to the hedonist consumers.
Then I think about Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave and Future Shock: "Society needs people who take care of the elderly and who know how to be compassionate and honest. Society needs people who work in hospitals. Society needs all kinds of skill that are not just cognitive; they're emotional, they're affectional. You can't run the society on data and computers alone."[2] Toffler also states in, Rethinking the Future, that "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."[3]
Most of all I rely on this "change is non-linear and can go backwards, forwards and sideways."
About Barack Obama - I'm glad he was elected, because he's a democrat and the US needed a political orientation change. Now, he's not black, but a half and half, and he has been raised by his WASP grand parents. He's not a ghetto kid and he spent the first part of his life abroad. I'm pretty sure he didn't hang out with black communities people. I don't identify him with the Afro-Americans I saw in New York, New Orleans or Philly, he doesn't look or talk like them. Take Oprah Winfrey for instance "She was consequently sexually molested by male relatives at a young age and endured the hardship up until she was 14 when Winfrey moved to live with her father in Nashville Tennessee." It doesn't mean I don't trust him, he's just not as symbolic as others think, his lifepath is similar to any other white boy's one. I really appreciate though that he did community work. I don't think his election will change dramatically the face of the USA today, or my country's or my own destiny.
I guess a lot of us like to feel involved in big events for lack of proper entertainment.
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