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 Building
Bridges Series
"Allness Disease Alert", by Laura Bertone
I will be writing this column from the South, in a spirit of exchange and
cooperation, in the belief that the mere fact of exchanging information
about other cultures can help us enlarge our viewpoints and constitutes, in
itself a good exercise in "otherness", - that is an exercise in shifting
positions and understanding better what looks or sounds different.
When I settled back in Argentina in the mid 1990s, after almost 20 years in
France, and several trips to the States for GS immersion,
I felt shocked at what appeared to me as too frequent symptoms of the "allness"
disease displayed by politicians, officials, authorities in general, many
journalists, etc. Time went by and one of the worst latent crises ever in
local history came to the surface.
It is interesting to observe, that the "allness disease" - widespread, and
specially visible in those who had the chance to be heard by very many - had
an impact on people at large: now vast numbers of Argentinians are literally
verbalizing their discontent through the expression: "que se vayan todos" =
"We want them ALL to leave", or "they should ALL leave" implying ALL
politicians, ALL representatives, ALL senators, ALL officials, ALL judges,
ALL etc.
Nevertheless, the absurdity of the desire does not conceal the dimension of
discontent, anger and impotence shared by the great majority of people. The
curious thing is, that confronted now by the mirror of their own disease,
some of the representatives - a few politicians, a few journalists, etc. -
have started to point out the absurdity of the ALL expression, and the chaos
it would create if the wish came true. What is more, some of them have
started to convert the "allness habit' into a 'non-allness' attitude, now
paying much more attention to what they say and how they say it. I have even
heard some correct themselves when speaking in public.
The process is slow, and we will most probably go through some still very
difficult periods (a difficult presidential election took place recently).
But the interesting thing, it seems to me, is this reversal in attitude
among some of those who are often heard by very many. A greater
consciousness seems to have been born in them out of the confrontation - in
a sort of deforming mirror - between their own "allness disease" , and the
much more shocking (to them) "allness" pathology widely expressed by the
masses. Is there a greater chance now for the masses to start adopting a non
allness attitude? Be that as it may, GS tools could - if widely used - turn
out to be extremely useful here and now.
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