Basic

Gandhi is talking about the basic struggle in any society. What is law? What is justice? What are one's basic rights? 

For many this kind of debate and opposing opinion is confusing and frustrating. It is like a child who has been used to simple black and white answers to life but wakes up to find grey complexities and nuances for them to work alone.

Through many wars and mistakes the world has gone through much. I hope we will never forget hard fought lessons in too much compromise in basic human dignity and too little when it benefits the long term.

Personally I find the learning process beautiful no matter how hard and dissonant like the Third movement of Stravinsky's Symphony in 3 Movements. It was written during world war 2. But I think it applies in our technology infected world.

Yes although I am a geek (one who is technically inclined), I think we are being led by "progress" in technology without enough heed to other sciences. Even music is full of algorithmic research perhaps ignoring social aspects. Statistics have become a tool to guide thesis instead of hypothesis led data gathering using experimentation including statistics. It has become a struggle for human dignity again as money (which is really a mathematical tool to manipulate value in society) is now being managed by machines. I am sure this run away technological focus has rocked the ethical and motivational balance towards irresponsible growth. Greed seems to justify inequality.

Yet, I believe in the instinct to survive, to learn and to thrive in humans. For life on this little blue planet is already an improbability in our hostile empty Universe. And if life found a way for us to be born, I know there is a way to continue. For even the tragedy on the scale of WWI and II, caused our current world order has find some peaceful equilibrium.

But as information and knowledge is so instantly available to anyone with a screen and an Internet line, the equilibrium has been shaken again. Mismanagement, miscalculations, hidden agenda, dishonest views of history and society... all make change so much more painful

It would be beautiful if we saw each other as equal neighbors instead of making power that which values us. I hope the world will continue to learn this lesson. Because not facing our past mistakes, not admitting error and not reducing the risk of repeating bad policy, but just carrying on what has been done for tradition (?), is the greatest obstacle for competitiveness in our youth.

This struggle is evident in Hong Kong. This symphony is relevant to the feelings of tension and beauty of the human spirit. Learning to talk honestly and with dignity is better than propaganda and inciting violence. Yet you can find beauty in what seems to be discord on the surface, both in this symphony and during social discord.