Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Homero Aridjis:

by Homero Aridjis

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Irina Yasina: In the modern world there is no necessity to hunt, fence, make physical efforts to provide food and therefore the role of s physically stronger man is reduced. We understand that. We just have a transitional stage but it appears to us that everything is already different while governmental systems are still the same. I cannot say that I believe in patriarchy. I don’t really think about it much. But the role of women will gain in importance and then there will be of course more harmony because responsibility is more typical of women than of men just because it is an instinctive sense. No woman could be irresponsible if she sees her own children and realizes that she could do harm to them. So I think that changes will happen mostly in the next decades. Therefore there is no reason to trouble much about it.

by Irina Yasina

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Jerry Mander: Answertext will be available soon.

by Jerry Mander

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Jesper Green: Who says that human society should be in harmony and in balance, if there is a 50-50 solution between men and women? I don’t know. I don’t know if there should be 80 to 20%, or 50-50. I really don’t know. But who says that to have harmony and happiness in the society then it would be 50-50 men and women? I don’t know. Maybe it’s not necessary. And who is not feeling harmony? Is that the society’s fault or is it your own personal fault? Do you give room in yourself to the female side and the male side? Otherwise you’re not in harmony. That sounds a little bit like bullshit, right? I don’t know. Maybe it’s good for you. Maybe it’s good for everybody. Maybe it’s good for society. Maybe 50-50 is the solution. I don’t know.

by Jesper Green

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Jodie Evans: So it can't be in balance without women of positions of power. I think it's bigger than women in positions of power. I think it's bigger than women in positions of power. It's entire power shift, a value shift of what power actually is. Because power has become something that's created to be over, to be through fear, through force, through fundamentalism. And so it depends on, it's like the whole idea of what that power is needs to shift. And yes, getting women in positions of power can add to that, but it's actually getting the values of the feminine to be understood by both men and women all over. You know women can be bought into masculine ideas of power, and so you could have a lot of women in positions of power like Margaret Thatcher, and you're not creating a balance. So I think the balance needs to happen with the value shift of even what power is, because we have the idea it's power over instead of power together, the power that exists if we empower each other, where we create win-win situations where our own personal power, our own sense of ourselves that is in relationship to everything creates the power of creating freedom and creating fulfillment and creating nurturing societies. That's a power in itself, but it's not a power over. I'm definitely for women being in more positions of power, but if you just make that the goal, you lose sight of what actually has to happen and that's a whole shift in the value. It's like when we're trying to stop a war and they say well, war is inevitable, but you know war isn't inevitable. War has to be planned, it has to be funded, it has to be kind of forced on us and so what we've done is we've lost the power of the feminine values. [AUDIO WAS CUT OFF]

by Jodie Evans

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

John Gage: Human society is not in balance and harmony, and there is no guarantee that the presence of women in positions of power would guarantee balance and harmony. I think only of the examples in Rwanda where the most capable women developing businesses in Rwanda, at the time of the genocide, turned their incredible business knowledge, their newly acquired skills to the efficient process of killing people. Now, that example contrasts a Rwanda of 15 years ago with the Rwanda of today. That example contrasts the Rwanda of pre-genocide times with the Rwanda of today where the largest single concentration of women in any government in the world, in positions of responsibility, in elected positions, is in Rwanda. The shift in Rwanda, the fundamental transformation of what it means to be a participant in a society, and in Rwanda’s case, an agrarian society, a rural society, a society based on differentials between men and women that are of long-standing basis. This transformation is taking place now. And when we watch around the world, the advances of women into positions of power, bringing a sense, the women’s values, you can call them, a sense of balance and harmony of maternal responsibility, of a feeling, of a sense of community, of a sharing sensibility, that’s how I would characterize your question with reference to women’s values. That capability strengthens every government and strengthens every business. That capability, difficult to measure, but palpable for those experiencing it, is I think at the base of transformation of governments as we know it, at the base of transformations of corporations. Corporations are forced by a very narrow accounting system to measure success in limited ways. And your question points out that, if we alter the presence of sharing values in a corporation, it may alter the methods that corporation itself uses to evaluate its behavior. And in that, we may [audio ends].

by John Gage

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Jonathan Granoff: Women are in positions of power within the lives of every infant that comes into the world. Women are not in positions of power in our major economic, legal, and military institutions. The question that I have is, are these places in which so much power should be centralized. Should we not be questioning this synthesis of power in those particular institutions. And would the values that we associate with women - nurturing and caring, if we mean these to be feminine values, would they be successful in changing these institutions. I'm not sure. I would hope so. I think in the modern world where the strength of intellect is in many ways more important than the brute strength of the body, that women certainly can play a major role in every major institution. But it seems to me that men need to develop those qualities that are associated with women. Caring, and loving, and nurturing. Why are these just the property of women? And the capacity of self-expression and confidence and strength and assertiveness, why are these associated with men? I don't think anybody is truly a human being if they're not able to confidently express their heart, and I don't think they're fully human if our heart doesn't have nurturing and love and compassion as its central tuning fork. So, yeah there needs to be balance of these different principles that we see embodied in men and women. Without them it's like a bird trying to fly with one wing. But our point of reference should be those qualities and values, not just the institutions as we see them today, but the inner architecture of what is it to be human, what is it to be a man, what is it to be a woman, what is it to be a human being.

by Jonathan Granoff

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Jonathan Meese: Why should a human society be in balance and harmony? Who decides that this is good? What is a position of power? Should one take such a position at all? Isn't power anti-power? What is the female value? This question is connected to the mental state. This question only can and will be answered by the questioner. But it will not matter anything, neither the question nor the answer can effect anything. Is a diamant harmonic? Is light balanced? Is everything clear? What is reflection? Do we know the speed of things? Do we know what a value is? What is underrated? Is perhaps the underrated the best? Wouldn't this be the best chance? Is it possbile that the softest material absorbs everything? Or is it the density? What is the few? What is the baby? What is the national baby? Is the national baby Lord? Is arch-nation the baby of a new age? Or is the baby even the new Lord? Who is it? What positions of power has art to take in? In us, to us, by us? Where is the secret skin? Are we absorbed? Are we perforated? Does art go through us totally? Does art reflect us? Do we reflect art? Where are we? What is our point of view? Why does existential orientation reigns the world? Is the ocean balanced? Is a shark harmonic? Is the muck harmonic? Is a volcanic eruption harmonic? Does a vulcan have any position of power? Is a vulcan female? Is a Vulcan a baby? Is Richard Wagner a Baby? Is Richard Wagner a rock? We do not know anything.

by Jonathan Meese

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Jonathan Stack: To begin with the balance and harmony doesn't exist, it's never existed. And in fact, it's the lack of balance and harmony that's going to lead to women ending up increasingly in positions of power. This is the fantastic flow of human evolution. It's happening, it's evolving, it's not happening today, but there is no stasis, there is no like one way of being. We are not going to end up in a place of harmony and balance. We are going to be constantly in conflict. There is always going to be this tension, these polarities of good and evil, of right and wrong, of dark and light, and the male and female. And it's in that kind of opening up to the possibility of both of these participating in the dialog that will lead to the answers that we do need. So, I don’t necessarily see harmony and balance as being the goal of our -- of human kind, but perhaps as I say, perhaps it's the embracing of the lack of harmony and balance that gives me hope to think that that will improve. And it's not just about women in power, but it's also the feminine within the male side. So, can we as men, not only can we -- will there be women [inaudible], but can men find within themselves to embrace the feminine side of their own existence, the inner polarities or such and so that it doesn't create the kind of neurosis or inner illness caused by self denial. Know thy self is once again one of those cliché expressions that I believe in strongly and part of knowing myself is knowing the women inside of ourselves. I think the men to the extent that they can be in tune with that polarity of themselves would be sooner able to embrace the polarity out there. I said before today, I mean, time is such a factor in all of this. It's like we live in the now, there is only the now, but these now just extend through -- for eternity. So, nothing we say today or any ideas that we have today are written in stone, some things around here in this square, but though [audio ends].

by Jonathan Stack

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

José Manuel Prieto: Concerning this question I without doubt think that nowadays we comprehend that social balance and harmony can settle for a huge integration of women, for a huge incorporation of her values, and not her marginalization or denial. The impoverishment and [efequecimiento] this leads to is evident. In assertion of a female society, of a society, the introduction of the point of view of mothers who [equilimipia y entenperan] the male world, the world of ambition, of male projection. I think it is a situation that will change in the course of time, but that will not change from one day to the next. I think we need a big impulse, a broad awareness of what society will gain if women participate in it actively. Above all she will introduce a new way of thinking, a more [incenura] way, a sensitivity that comes from a role like mother, like woman, like being part of a family and the whole female species. Societies stop being used and stop to enrich themselves with this society. I think it is something that is worth the pain of adaption.

by José Manuel Prieto

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Jwan M. Aziz: Sure there is neither harmony nor balance,as long as the male values are maximized in the societies,so this passive idea should be changed and the women should be given the chance so that they become able to take advantage of their abilities and to play their rules in building the society. Some days ago a list of the most effective women in the world was announced and the german federal chancellor "Angela Merkel" occupied the first position of this list among 100 women. If we just give a look to the names of these women, we will find out that most of them work according to the men conditions and mechanism and not according to the women values and humanity. For example we did not notice any increase in the human and motherly tendency, which was more in the past, so nowadays we need women who work according to the feminine values and not according to the male aggressiveness, maybe after that the wars will be minimized and the social justice will be maximized because the women create life and the men kill it. We wait for list of women who work accoring to feminine values,,thanks David.

by Jwan M. Aziz

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Kailash Satyarthi: Again, this is the matter of the mindset. The balance can never happen and the harmony can never come until and unless the women enjoy equal power. And, they have to be in power positions in decision making. It is not that they are in the secondary positions. They have to be in the primary positions to take decisions for themselves and for the rest of the society. Balance is all about say like a bicycle, there are two equal wheels in a bicycle. If there is one big wheel and one very small wheel, it becomes like a circus. You can enjoy with that, but you cannot create a balance and harmony. And, to create a harmony, harmonical speed, the bicycle has to have two equal wheels and moving together with the same speed. If one is moving with the higher speed and another one is slow, that is not possible. So, balance and harmony in the society is all about two equal and equally fast running wheels, and that is man and woman and that is very necessary. So, we have to begin with changing the mindset of the society and the man have to sacrifice because the man have been responsible for that. Man have created history most of the times, man have created so-called ethical practices, man have created traditions most of the time, and this all goes against women and that has been there for generations, for centuries and that's why it may take time. But, everybody should make conscious efforts, especially the men should go a step forward to give a place to women. And, if it is not done, that women have to come forward and grab the power so that a balance and harmony can eventually be established, and that is necessary.

by Kailash Satyarthi

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Kamal Boullata:

by Kamal Boullata

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Kigge Hvid: Hi David, where do you speak from? You speak from Canada. I would understand your question if you spoke from a part of the Middle East or if you spoke from parts of Africa or from Asia. Actually, what I think is going on in the Western world right now is that female values are prevailing. I have two boys, 7 and 10. They are, when not with me and my husband, raised by females. They are surrounded by females all around them, in kindergarten, in school and universities. That’s one thing. And I can tell you that the female values prevail, which I actually think is a problem because I think what you have to aim for is a balance between male and female values. So, that’s one thing. If we look into the educational system, education at the highest level at least in Denmark have more females than males. Being a doctor, being an architect, being a dentist, being an economic, being a lawyer. We have more females trained in those areas than males. So, that would mean that in just a few years all the female values would prevail at least in Denmark. And it might be the same in Canada and the rest of the Western world. And that’s a problem because it’s not that female values should prevail. It’s that female and male values should prevail; it’s that human values should prevail. I would think that if the balance were on the male side or on the female side, it would always be a problem. The other thing you could ask in this question you posed is that in some places of the world, females have very little [inaudible]. Yes, that’s the problem and it shouldn’t be like that. But, I also see due to the global connectivity, due to globalization, due to the internet, that also in areas where females are really oppressed you see big very strong movements working against that. And I can see, you are male. So, you see males and females engaged in a movement of having human rights, not female rights, not male rights. But, having…

by Kigge Hvid

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Kurt Weidemann: Question 17 can be answered very similar to question 4, that is the position of women in our society. It is not absolutely necessary or absolutely to be expected that only balance and harmony will return to the world if women were given more power and more influence. This would idealize the female sex too much. I already said in my answer to question 4 that the 21st century will belong to women, that they will wield influence and that this is not bad for sure. But balance and harmony do not return by women alone but it can also be the contrary.

by Kurt Weidemann

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Lesego Rampolokeng: Right at the beginning, as soon we agree and recognize that women have been made to exist on the periphery of this great human power being. If we agree that from the beginning of time women have for ever been made to serve roles that see them in subrogation, that see them bow down before the male, before the [penis veras]. As soon as we realize that one effect, then we realize why it is so easy to push women away from the center, and if you can be comfortable with pushing women away from the center and you celebrate this parochial little lie that you believe to be your power, then you can easily see why things will for ever be out of [com] and out of cock and out of balance. Human society can never be in balance, can never be in harmony at all, if there is the oppression of one sect of humanity by another, and women have forever been oppressed on a number of levels and a couple in certain instances with religious belief, explain away with the need for economic this and that, women have forever, never been allowed to be as fully and wholly human as the rest of us. And once that then becomes the norm, then you see that balance and harmony can never be spoken about then. If we can just lead to the destruction of the entire power structure, then women can begin to move to the center and the world can indeed be balanced out. And you can speak of this glorious thing called harmony. Until that point it will never be in balance, ever.

by Lesego Rampolokeng

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Leung Ping-Kwan: This is a question usually raised. How can we reconcile respect for universal human rights with this rights conflict with traditional or religious values? And usually when we pose the question and we look at the question, we usually like privileging universal human right and look at traditional values something reactionally or something blocking the progress of the people. But maybe we can step back a little bit and see things not necessarily in party opposition, because I think that these universal human rights have -- it's very important, it is important to have respectful human right, but in different society and different phases in their development, the criteria or the sentence for human rights may not be universal. They may not be at one place, they may not be exactly the same as the other and also we have to be aware that this is of values, ehm, the religious values are not necessarily the conflict to human rights may be in a superficial way, but [if not] in the tradition or values, there are also respect for human rights as well. So, I did said the danger is leading here the traditional value as something oppositional to the human right, but further we, I think they are both positive way will be to develop that to see how we can reconcile as it for human rights and but are also the respect with traditional values because I think that in different countries and in different cultures, when we want to protect the constructive for human right, make it possible to have a broader exact result to the human rights. The best way to do it will be to also do it within the local cultural contacts and to see the things that traditional values that could contribute to and could work together, which as these are of no values brought oppose [audio cuts out]

by Leung Ping-Kwan

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Lijun Fang: A balance and harmony society cannot be an absolute value, which is similar to how many materials are suitable for mixing Vodka or for stir-frying a dish. If it is absolute in this way, actually no one and not a nation can endure it. Hence, in my opinion, our present world is already balance and harmony.

by Lijun Fang

Sep 9, 2006 11:20:00 AM cite

Lillian Holt: Yes, I think that we need some feminizing values. I think some of these so called values in hierarchal institutional organizations have been dehumanizing values, when perhaps that hasn't been recognized by the players within those situations. And I think that women need to bring that intuition and emotion to the situation, to the institution, within the institution of corporate borders - wherever. But I think that what happens is that unfortunately women somehow coerced or intimidated or cajoled or encouraged to take up those masculine values which tend to prevail. And in the process I think those feminizing values are often lost. I know that from my own journey that intuition and emotion has not been respected. It's often been [copad] and that if I wanted to contribute, I would have to contribute in the limited language of the intellect, as I would call it. I think that we also need a language of the heart, which I think probably much more feminine, which is a more feminine type of language incorporated emotion, intuition and passion which is sometimes very scary to what I would call successful right [inaudible]. It's not just about [inaudible] it's about a [Hageman] leadership which says unless you tow the line and unless you agree to our values which I think are very limiting and bereft at times, it might create technology and corporations and profits, but they somehow-- and sometimes are dehumanizing. And I'm very sad to say that, but I think it's true.

by Lillian Holt