Possible Title:  Neurodiveristy and the Connection to Living Cultures

Civilized

     As I began my study of diversity and cultures through Vandana Shiva's chapter on Living Cultures, I had realized it this had much to do with relation to my previous writing to explore essay about neurodiversity. This knowledge of living cultures had strengthened and had expanded my knowledge of on neurodiversity. Shiva states that our now day American culture is not holding together as a society. We are a culture that is constantly breaking down our peers in a physical, mental, and emotional way. We are not building up our culture as a united society. We are living individually to pursue our own needs, without taking the introspect in of other's feelings and well being. We are not living at a societal or individual level of peace. Even our media portrays almost nothing but our violent and heartless acts. So how do we live as a civilized and unified culture with such a neurodiverse and culturally diverse group of beings? Shiva suggests, "To be civilized is to live and let live, both at the individual and societal level". With such a simple quote, it could easily change the minds of others.  If only they were open and aware of the importance of this message quote.  Open-minded or closed, I would like to reach out to our society to inform them of the connections between a civilized culture and reaching unity and peace. inform an audience, to all whom are open minded or even those whom are close minded, of the acts we can take at an individual and societal level to attain unity and peace as a civilized culture.

Violence

     Violence has become a part of our everyday American culture. The mass media has done an excellent job of informing our society of the many violent acts that occur daily everyday. Our mass media has exploited violent acts such as shootings, fights, and wars happening all around the world. This has only set a status quo for our western culture to the rest of the world, and worse, to our own culture. These violent acts have become so outsourced that many popular media television shows, movies, and even music have become a source to exploit more violence. Popular MTV shows constantly have violent physical and mental acts amongst old and young beings, friends or foes. Television and movies with high ratings are based around violence. Many highly rated music tracks in the rap culture are all based around physical violence, and the mental violence of talking down to one another.  (I'd use links to show examples) With all of this popular violent media, it has effected the thought and reasoning of our American culture. It is being ignored by authorities, causing this to "brain wash" our American society down a negative slope. Part of the reason authorities are ignoring this part of our culture is because our authorities are exerting the same violent acts amongst other cultures. (cite an authority here to strengthen this statement) The American authorities have put themselves in charge of the colonization of our own culture and other cultures. Our authorities are reshaping the world in their own image. The only way to enforce such colonization on other cultures in an ample way is violence. The practice of violence cannot be referred to as culture. So what kind of image are we enforcing on our world? A very disturbed and centralized view of unity.

Diversity

     Diversity is a gift to our human species. Without such a neuro- and culturally diverse society culture, there would not be so many branches of knowledge and intelligence in our world. Our world would not have become so advanced in its technology and its reasoning. So  Why has the American government set a standard to live by for the rest of the world? (example?) Don't our authorities know the importance of cultural diversity? (soft question- I'd strike it) Culture is what holds a society and community together. The imperialist view of the West, cannot be civilized, for the West is destroying other civilizations and cultures. The imperialists do not recognize their inability to respect self-organization and the integrity of other cultures. This in turn has created diverse forms of violence. This imperialist view has formed a globalization process that has created a war against farmers, women, other species, and against all other cultures. The imperialist view has become so blind sighted by their own world view that there is no recognition of the torture and dismantling of other civilizations. The globalization created in the hands of the imperialists is their own view of reality. The reality that is the "right" way through their perceptions. These abstract perceptions created by the dominant powers of American culture are manipulating nature and society for their own profits. The universal order of globalization is based on the conquest and colonization of resources. So, power becomes easy once these resources and wealth is acquired. The welfare of real people and real societies are replaced with the welfare of corporations, building this globalization and diminishing our diverse cultures that make up this earth. 

Globalization

     This globalization created by the imperialists has created a monoculture of the mind and the law of the excluded middle. This pathway to thinking is threatening life in its diversity and its self-renewal. The monoculture of the mind is the perspective which sees and constructs the world in terms of monocultures. It is a mind, blind to diversity and its richness, that pushes neurodiversity and cultural diversity to oblivion. This monoculture, if not stopped and settled by a new generation, will push to extinction all of our cultural security. This monoculture will destroy the most important aspect that makes our species so intelligent, diversity. The law of the excluded middle constructs the world in mutually exclusive categories, banishing relationships and connectedness. It denies the existence of neurodiversity and cultural diversity. We have expanded as a human species with our intelligence and reasoning, so much that we have grown toward individual paths of perceiving, excluding all other perceptions of other beings outside and even within our own culture. We have found many philosophies of life, some proven true and some not yet proven true, that have created all that we know as wisdom and knowledge. Now that we have created and expanded so much knowledge and diversity, the next step is to take all of this knowledge and diversity to become unified. Not in one particular path, suggested by the monoculture, but to see each individual path with awareness and acceptance. 

Culture

     Living cultures, the main topic of Shiva's chapter, are based on cultural diversity and the recognition of our universal and common humanity. Living cultures is all about our common humanity, our oneness, and our interconnectedness. These factors provide the conditions for peace, cooperation, and coexistence. To become a unified earth and to socially accept others for their uniqueness there needs to be a call for a peace and unity movement. This movement requires protecting diversity through care and compassion, not through domination and conquest. This movement cannot be a radical one, but a gradual one. Through the work of time comes good outcomes. Our world and species is so vast and so crowded that our generation can only start the ripple of change. Our imperialists of our time and the times before us has dug our civilization into a deep hole of negativity and disconnectedness. We can only now work at an individual level and a societal level to start a change of peace and coexistence among every culture, and within each culture. Shiva states, 'identities can be forged by compassion and the consciousness that we all belong to the earth family. These deep positive identities recognize that we share a common evolutionary history and a common future'. Our generation calls for a new way of thinking and living on this planet to make a unified movement. Compassion, not greed, needs to be globalized. This new generation is slowly being formed, even with violence and war surrounding us.

VOTE or DIE

     "To me it is clear that a genuine sense of responsibility can result only if we develop compassion. Only a spontaneous feeling of empathy for others can really motivate us to act on their behalf" (Dalai Lama).  Each individual has their own responsibility to take part in this peace movement to unify and to coexist with one another. The most important is to be yourself and let others be themselves, and to live with each unique entity with acceptance of their individual structure. Yet do not categorize each individual as a separate entity. Shiva states that we have a common humanity, a oneness, and an interconnectedness with a common evolutionary history and a common future. To do this, we must eliminate the monoculture of the mind. We need to break free of this mental prison. The mental prison of the monoculture needs to be diminished by the understanding of our humanity's interconnectedness. We need to recognize each and every person as a part of our earth family, universal and local planetary beings. Another great action to individually work at the movement of peace is to VOTE. VOTE OR DIE. (love this)  Not saying that you shall die if you do not vote, but just as a reference to just how important voting is. Our founders have created a democracy system so that we as individuals can create what we want to be made out of our society. Getting involved in our politics could possibly determine if we are going to live or die as a culture and civilization. We are a civilization with many cultures, which comes a long with many religions. Some of our now day authorities in the political world are claiming their divine right to power comes directly from their God, a god derived from the most populate religion of Christianity. We as individuals need to put our own religious and culture views into our political society to start toward a unified movement.

Democracy

     "Democracy is the system which is closest to humanity's essential nature. Hence those of us who enjoy it must continue to fight for all people's right to do so... We must respect the right of all peoples and nations to maintain their own distinctive characters and values" (Dalai Lama). To work as a society, one needs to work through work. Work through your job and your specialties. Whether your an artist, a writer, a scientist, or just a store clerk, work toward our society's unity. Work toward a peace movement. Get others involved. Look toward working and preforming in a positive manner with others, others of all appearances and all personalities. Get involved with an environmental or societal movement to help our humanity and our home, planet earth. This involvement in the community will, in turn, spread the compassion, creating a closer since of unity among our society. 

By: Sheena

Boda's Thoughts:

My first impression and advice is - write like you talk.  The first paragraph or two are a bit stuffy.  The latter part of the essay is more laid back.

Instead of linking, go ahead an define neurodiversity and explain it's connection to culture in the beginning paragraph(s).

I word smith a lot ... I gave you some alternate word choices.  I try to mix up the word if I have to say the same thing many times (eg. daily for everyday)

Imperialist / imperialism ... these are loaded words.  Can you use a different word that means the same but connotes something less divisive?  It alienates non-believers and is less persuasive.

The paragraph Diversity felt the weakest to me.  It had the "squishiest" language.  You make many claims without sources. 

References.  You don't cite many authorities.  Your piece is weaker for it.  You should include more evidence to back up your claims.  Your appeal is an emotional one grounded in facts.  You need to cite those facts or folks will dismiss your emotional appeal.

I liked your essay.  It flowed well.  I tweaked it here and there.  I didn't give it a hard pass and edit.  I like your arguments, but if you want to persuade the non-believers you'll have to cite some authorities.  To make your argument even stronger, give the counter-arguement to your claims and then destroy them with evidence to the contrary.