click the center of the pupil & adjust volume on right
In spite of our rhetorical litanies claiming to value free exchange, often our reality falls far short of this lofty and necessary democratic goal.
"Be creative," "think out of the box," "we encourage free expression," "freedom of speech is important," in America we have a "free marketplace of ideas, "transparency of leadership," blah, blah, Blah, Blah, BLAH, BLAH!
Too often we are subtly (and not so subtly) discouraged from thinking outside the confines of commercial programming, unregulated greed, plutocratic reverence, competition, prohibition, corporate personhood, academic values, departments, rubrics, outlines, plans, hierarchies, trying to always control....but why?
"Control is controlled by the need to control."
Are a free exchange of ideas, promotion of creativity and leadership transparency really our daily experience? Sure, we don't (always) get clubbed, tear-gassed or shot with rubber bullets and hauled away to jail like people do in those "other" countries - but is that really the standard we want to measure ourselves by?
Why smugly trumpet the values of creative free expression only to abandon them when we are bullied to do so? Sure, for survival, it can pay in the short run, but what about the bigger picture? Does history celebrate or even remember the timid and the tame?
The heroes of history tend to be the heretics and the rebels, those who stand up to bullies, whose narrative challenges the status-quo and who have the courage and support to relate that narrative freely (and who, we must admit, often get burned in some way in the process).
...and if you think about it, human evolution happens because of mutation, deviance, difference, divergence - not just endless repetition of successful traits or formulas, no matter how tasty or fashionable!
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