weird dreams
Last night I had a dream that I was visiting this strange society that had never been contacted by mainstream civilization. They lived on the western edge of a range of mountains, in a semi-arid area at a fairly high altitude. They were remarkably advanced...living with them was very comfortable and felt very modern in many ways and their lifestyle was very comfortable and easy. They had libraries and lots of common places, places were clean and simple, but lively and cheerful. They really valued education too, and they had remarkably open-minded spiritual beliefs and were very open in general to new ideas, and were very friendly and positive.
In the dream, western civilization made contact with them, and I was worried that they were going to corrupt this civilization by taking it over with the global economic system.
The leader of the civilization, a woman in her 40's, wanted to meet with me because I was the only person present who had had contact with these outside people. I told her that the outside civilization was going to come in and claim to be more "advanced", but that this was actually an illusion...that they would present all sorts of technological gadgets and would claim that they would offer improved quality of life...but that they had a sneaky way of having their economic system and system of social organization come in and dominate and replace the social organization of other socities...and thus destroy the things most important to these societies. I told her that I thought, in many ways, the structure of their society was actually more advanced than the people outside--it was just that the ways in which they were more advanced were subtle and were likely to be ignored by outsiders.
I told her that confidence in these things, and restraint towards things offered, was critical if the civilization were to maintain its own identity. The people must believe in their inherent worth and in the inherent worth of their culture, for then they could not be convinced that someone else is "better". And they must not assume something is "better" when they are only seeing a small piece of it...
---
It was a weird dream, but I think pretty true.
I had another dream about parking spots and parking meters and parking tickets in a college town.
In the dream, western civilization made contact with them, and I was worried that they were going to corrupt this civilization by taking it over with the global economic system.
The leader of the civilization, a woman in her 40's, wanted to meet with me because I was the only person present who had had contact with these outside people. I told her that the outside civilization was going to come in and claim to be more "advanced", but that this was actually an illusion...that they would present all sorts of technological gadgets and would claim that they would offer improved quality of life...but that they had a sneaky way of having their economic system and system of social organization come in and dominate and replace the social organization of other socities...and thus destroy the things most important to these societies. I told her that I thought, in many ways, the structure of their society was actually more advanced than the people outside--it was just that the ways in which they were more advanced were subtle and were likely to be ignored by outsiders.
I told her that confidence in these things, and restraint towards things offered, was critical if the civilization were to maintain its own identity. The people must believe in their inherent worth and in the inherent worth of their culture, for then they could not be convinced that someone else is "better". And they must not assume something is "better" when they are only seeing a small piece of it...
---
It was a weird dream, but I think pretty true.
I had another dream about parking spots and parking meters and parking tickets in a college town.