For Giving Universe

knifeedge

“I know that you’re job-hunting at present and/or looking to volunteer with non-profits. If your article gets posted, it’ll stand to undermine your chances of being brought on board in most quarters, Richard. You’re taking a risk in submitting your piece.” — One of the author’s colleagues

“Why don’t you found a secular educational institution which focuses on your passion, Richard? I agree that the March for our Lives demonstrations needed a supplement. And I do think what’s happening at places like at the University of Wisconsin will seal our fate.” — One of the author’s home schooled teens

For Giving University… Academy… College. Forgiving U. Whatever. As long as it’s something that makes use of my half a century’s worth of academic experience, and my invaluable, singular interaction in the so-called blue collar world. An educational center of a sort centering on the fact — spotlighting it with all the colors of the rainbow! — that all will come to naught unless we embrace the notion of letting go of resentment, dropping the impulse for revenge when wronged, and acknowledging the incalculable importance of seeing and feeling deeply how all of us are — continually — in need of forgiveness by others, that we are all capable of what we detest, and what others do.

How’s that for a lead up to a Mission Statement?

Regardless, the need for a new kind of education — forgiving aside — is quite clear. If one glances at the ways in which demonstrators around the U.S.A. (and in some corners outside) screamed for a change in gun policies, it’s easy to see what the vast majority do not yet get. That is, for one, what Rachel Oxman has underscored time and time again, most recently in Gleaning the Meaning. And she is not the only colleague of mine who has emphasized the importance of U.S. weapons sales abroad and abominations overseas traceable to U.S. policies. The importance vis-a-vis the inclination of American youth to resort to wiping out strangers, destroying the lives of innocents.

That’s what the thrust of U.S. practices amounts to… as an influence on youth. And the influence has long ceased to be a subliminal matter. Today, as we can easily see, there is blatant encouragement for youth to take part in violent games and other forms of entertainment. Yes, encouragement. In fact, I’d go as far as saying the the typical public and private school in the early — formative — years of students here amounts to an indoctrination into a violent perspective, an almost psychopathic proclivity for violence respecting the way in which American and World History is taught. To say nothing about other disciplines which contribute to that outlook.

Forgiveness has to do not only with forgiving others. It very much — if authentically embraced — has to do with forgiving oneself. And in the context of what I’ve touched upon here, it’s not a mere minor point I’m making.

The educators fighting the good fight must begin teaching not only how horrible the U.S. past has been as per the content of Killing HopeA People’s History of the U.S.Lies My Teacher Taught Me, and many other marginalized sources which my colleagues and I have touched upon from time to time at Countercurrents, they must — in over-the-top, unprecedented fashion — incessantly underscore the present day abominations of our war criminality and callous conduct in the present day.

That would mean instructing the kids daily following a fresh paradigm, risking one’s job… not just marching in solidarity with politically correct steps which are acceptable to a given school administration. Real resistance, as my colleagues constantly point out — Annapurna Tosca Sriramarcel, Valleria Ruselli, Rachel Oxman, Rachel Olivia O’Connor and Marcel Duchamp Oxman — has consequences.

Intrepid teaching is called for now. But to do so requires that one and all acknowledge our “sins” — our sinful behavior by any standards — so that we can forgive ourselves*. All concerned citizens — followers of any religion, atheists, agnostics all, anyone honoring any criteria — should be able to relate to this. I pray that that’s the case ’cause I know how easy the political edge embedded in this piece can lose people… something I can do nothing about in speaking my truth.

*That’s what’s required for us to transform ourselves. And I think that For Giving University certainly can adopt that as a major part of its Mission Statement.

For giving must be unconditional.

Richard Martin Oxman is the founder of the Oxman Collective, select members of which are listed above. Everyone can be reached at [email protected]. The author did his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison back in 1960-61, and the opening link to this article resonates deeply for him, underscoring the horrid educational momentum which seems to have become the new normal.

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