It's a Small World After All

Lee has been thinking all day about just how our view of the world, our connection with the larger global community, our sense of our place in the human environment has shifted over the past decade or so.

Just over the past couple of days the world "out there" has impinged in myriad ways. Monday afternoon he viewed THE YOUNG VICTORIA about the romance between the English Queen and Prince Albert; that evening, the 'Net provided access to an interesting subtitled documentary about kindergartners in Hebei, China (appropriately titled KINDERGARTEN).

Early this morning, he watched a thirty minute news update on NHK World, the Japanese equivalent of PBS, on his iTouch before heading off to a Fossil Fuel gathering of retired guys at Plymouth Church where a dozen of us engaged in a spirited and probing discussion of Islamicists and Islamaphobia.

And fifteen stalwart readers gathered this afternoon at Fairmount Presbyterian Church to discuss another eight chapters from GENJI MONOGATARI, the classic Japanese novel from the eleventh century.

In between he read chapters from two books on contemporary India, and he and Heidi together watched a couple of episodes from the Micheal Wood video series on Indian history. To round things out, this evening, he watched half a Bollywood film streamed via Netflix.

All this information flooded in over the past two days as just part of a "normal" day's activities; amazing when you think about it - and very unlike decades past! The global village has indeed become even smaller and much more easily accessed than ever before.

Yet a smaller world can seem even more dangerous than one that remains largely unknown and distant from our experience of the everyday. One can only hope our appreciation of its diversity continues to trump our tendency to regard exposure to the unfamiliar as frightening and threatening.