The divides exist everywhere. We don’t need Sherlock Holmes to help us. But we need him to help us out on how and when they become unmanageable. When the divides become unmanageable, jumps across the divide become more difficult. Study divides, skill development divides, reality divides do exist all around. We hear about them in the news, on the discussion forums, and on televisions, radios and targeted news paper columns. It is interesting to see how they come to exist in such a fashion and at what point in time will they become unmanageable. It is my belief that most often than not they arise out of conflicts and become unmanageable only when they are ignored.
Study divides exist when a result of a recent study conflicts with an earlier study. Skill development divides exist when the administration of a skill conflicts with the innate talent of an individual. Reality divides exist when an understanding of a governing body conflicts with another governing body or when benefiting from such governance seems unfair to either of those governing bodies. Societal divides exist when the perception of a segment of society conflicts with another segment of the society. When societal divides are ignored, they become unmanageable much quicker than other types of divides.
The existence of these divides are good for a healthier governance as along as the cracks are not insurmountable and/or not unmanageable and avenues are available to either decrease the gap or provide a bridge to cross. When divides start widening uncontrollably, we see civil movements such as ‘Occupy wall street’ erupting to disrupt the norms of the society – the norms that we have accepted and have learnt to live with them in our daily lives.
Now I hear similar movements around the country on different set of issues. One such issue is now taking shape as ‘Prepare to Occupy’ – a message being sent out to stop an amendment to a Illinois Senate Bill 540 called Amendment 3 and that if passed will drain the much-needed funding to schools. The conflict here is between jobs and the need for education. The divide that exists here is a societal divide putting different segments of the society with different set of priorities invariably leading to a conflict. However, these types of divides are manageable if the transparency is created, collaborative effort is activated, new standards are accepted and an understanding so gleaned is applied to promote the efforts to find a solution to the conflict.
Most often than not the self-interest, the lean towards status-quo, disinterest towards the change, and the wrongful influence of the lobbyists seem to blind and bind the process. We don’t need to be blinded by these if we can all accept COL philosophy under the umbrella of COT, COE and COI to learn to deal with these issues in a more amicable way.
Are we ready to do that? If not, what will make us ready? More disruptions? More civil movements? More heartaches?
I am neither supporting nor shying away from the civil movements. They are to be noticed and to be noticed quickly to understand from a perspective that in-grain processes can be changed only if we are willing. From ruins we have seen transformations, but why should we let the situation deteriorate to that level when we have become much more civilized, much more connected, much more informed and much more capable of setting new standards?