On Christmas messages
I have not posted over the holidays themselves, because I have stayed away from this machine (under threat of dire consequences). You could say I went "cold turkey". Or perhaps not... :-)
If you are interested in a couple of fun Christmas messages, check out;
Or if you are into something a little darker (although I am sure it is unintentionally so), consider this message, which was passed on to me via email as these things are. I have extracted some of the text only from a very slick PowerPoint slideshow;
- If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep... You are richer than 75% of this world.
- If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish some place ... You are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy
- [...]
- Have a good day, count your blessings, and pass this along to remind everyone else how blessed we all are.
- You are wished a Merry Christmas
No! I don't think that reaction is cynical enough. These po-faced "messages" embody a really miserable double message (technically a "double-bind", following Bateson and Watzlawick...)
- You are so much better off than practically everyone else, you have an obligation to be happy
- How can you possible be happy when the rest of the world is in such a mess?
There is no way one can emerge from such a message feeling "merry". (Although I concede that despite the ubiquity of the injunction, it is not indeed the "point" of the season.)
Indeed the final paragraph; "You are wished a Merry Christmas" is really insidious, carrying as it does the sub-text, "...but you don't deserve to be!"
Some day I may start a theological blog, but this is not it; this one is about learning. But these messages carry messages in turn about learning...
- about the levels of messages carried by our material
- and particularly for adult learners--what messages do they imply about the learners themselves?
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Comments welcome, but I'm afraid I have had to turn moderation back on, because of inappropriate use. Even so, I'll process them as soon as I can.
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home