Commentary: Power of Culture - response to PFAW Kathryn Kolbert
Commentary: Power of culture - response to PFAW Kathryn Kolbert
excerpt of email to kathryn kolbert
response Kathryn Kolbert on ways we PFAW (People for American Way) can creatively
use culture to make social and political change
hi kathryn
hope all is well
kathryn the quick response to your ways we can creatively
use culture to make social and political change is first we
as in we the people need to stop pretending that we are
zombies and go along to get along - because we all know that
our leaders of the world are changing the facts to fit their
needs and that things are not what they appear to be - we
need to change the conversation from we vs them to just “we” -
and to do that we have the courage to be creative and be
like the butterfly flapping its wings can change or create a
storm - the creative use of culture to effect change is what
i call the power of one person to make a difference - we
need to re-invent ourselves and ask ourselves what the
future will say about us and then try and change that -
the longer side of the above including the above
usual i just plant these seeds with ron feldman and
sometimes they get carried to who knows where
but in your request for feed back on ways we can creatively
use culture to make social and political change
>>>i joined with the thought that if we are going to
have a more human and creative society artist needed to be
part of the dialog and not just spectators and in essence we
artist need to be more engaged then just commentators about
the state of how bad things are - one of the masters of
cultural in-sightfulness and in-citefulness was leon golub
you can see a 3 min and 19 min segment i shot of leon
golub as part of MyOwnPrivateRevolution documentary in
progress about people who are challenging the status-quo,
the imagination and themselves too -
http://myownprivaterevolution.com/
but aside from that i have been getting your newsletters for
years and every once in a while i would think that there was
something missing and though i am sympathetic with the
mission of pfaw i have always felt that the problem is we
are in a conversation with ourselves preaching to the
converted i know that is its progressive purpose to have a
voice for the people and i often quote thomas jefferson- .
“We are to guard against ourselves; not against ourselves as
we are, but as we may be; for who can imagine what we may
become under circumstances not now imaginable - Thomas
Jefferson to Jedidiah Morse 1822 .
http://emperorsnewclothesproductions.com/jefferson/
the problem i have with pfaw as i see it is that it is not a
conversation with all the stakeholders but often a reaction
to what i call the we vs them syndrome - if we are going to
every stop this revolving door we as in we the people need
to take back the future not take sides or have a position or
even a reactive progressive position but a more inclusive
comprehensive position - and by i think we need to not
look at sides but the whole and we are all in this
together and we all want the same thing we all need the
same things -
the thing as i see it is that we are addicted to fear and
have lived in a top down management by fear society since
forever and keep repeating the same wars, violence, fears,
propaganda since before forever and here we are - it is our
turn and look what we are doing and why - and i ask myself
in you what can we as individual do to make a difference
locally - and i ask myself in you what will the people of
the future say about us today - the people of the future
wonder not only who they are but who we are/were too and
what we a mess have left them to deal with
so i have issues with the concept of culture and culturalism
some times we think it brings us together but often it tears
us apart and is used as a propaganda tool to perpetuate the
myth of history into the future - history is the fiction of
facts a faction - even thought i think of myself as a social
sculpture and suffer from a social conscious i realize that
cuturalism is along with the other isms of schism what
creates the division of we vs them - but then again to echo
saul bellow “we are so shock resistant that maybe the only
thing that can touch us is poetry (art)” and yet to me art
cares for our imagination - as individuals and collectively
as a peoples
food for thought