[Culturechat] the American culture war

[Phil and Jane King]

Thank you, Hal.  I think we all need to remember that intelligent minds can
and do disagree, and that weighted language often does little more than
brand the speaker as closed-minded.

Jane

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hal Taussig" <hal.taussig@untours.com>
To: <culturechat@untours.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 2:26 PM
Subject: [Culturechat] the American culture war


> Culture chat is intended to be about the dimension of the Untour
experience
> which puts travelers in touch with the people whose country is being
> visited. As it's founder I can speak with some authority about one
> of  Idyll's central missions: the desire to bridge cultural gaps, to make
> an in-depth contact with life-styles that may at first seem strange, even
> sometimes weird. There is another kind of cultural gap that I want to
> mention in this connection, i.e., the value gaps that have been deepening
> in the United States in recent decades, escalating into what is sometimes
> called an "American cultural warfare." It is ironic that recent
> discussion  in culturechat about the impending Iraq war has tended to
> deepen the value gulf between  those Americans who meet in this on-line
> discussion group. We have tended to fan the flames of our own culture war,
> and done so in the very format intended to bridge cultural gaps. I am by
no
> means neutral on the subject of war versus peace. In fact I feel as
> strongly about the present issue as in any matter that has engaged my
> energies in seventy-eight years of sometimes profound political
> commitment.  But when I encounter someone who has the opposite opinion
from
> mine, I try to do the same thing I do when I meet a new, strange value
> system in some foreign land I am visiting. I try to get inside the
mind-set
> of the people who adhere to this "strange" belief-system, this "odd"
> behavior. I continue to encourage the need to reach out to other cultures
> as an aspect of a rich travel experience. Likewise I hope that in
> culturechat we can consciously demonstrate (most especially by the tone of
> the language we use) an openness to values to which our first response may
> well be visceral rejection.
> Hal Taussig
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