Folkenlightenment

Listen, I know, that there are many people in the liberal camp that is devastated and sorry about the election. Me as well, I put a lot of effort into the election.

But that is how democracy works, and instead of feeling sorry for ourselves. I believe we should start discussing what went wrong. In other words learn from our mistakes.

One thing I believe we got wrong, was the putting up of a candidate that pointed to the past and not the future. I do like ms. Clinton, but hey the 68´hippies are gone. Now it is time for a new generation to take over.

How do we do that? First of all, we listen to the theories of old, and then we make new theories.

The foremost theorist of the liberal constituency, is Alinsky. He told us two things. Most importantly; we are a democracy, so we need to turn that democratic flame on. Secondly, we are a workers party. Now, he was also for minorities, but that is not our problem. We do that. What we do not do are the two first things, mainly democracy and union work. I mean, mr. Trump won all the union workers hands down.

What do we do to correct the situation?

We open our minds to the world. Instead of trying to make the world fit into our frame, we forget about our frame for second and try to understand the world without prejudice.

Allow me to give an example.

When I finished university, (I went to a university very much like Berkely) I travelled the world. I went to Brazil, the States, France, Germany, Italy, Bangladesh. I was a dancer, so I went a lot to Brazil to dance there.

In other words, I lived the normal liberal life, I even lived in a place called Vesterbro in Copenhagen, home to artists and other kinds of bearded hipsters.

Then, when I matured as a philosopher, I started thinking about my own country. At a certain time, I realised, that I did not even know it. I knew the city, but the countryside was unknown territory to me. That kind of struck me as a flaw in my own upbringing. So I decided to get to know it. As Walden I went off the beaten track, and made, friends with some of the most incarnated right wing hillbillies.

You know my friends in the city just did not understand me. They asked me; why on earth do you want to go there in the countryside, they are narrow minded and racist all of them.

Well, on the contrary, I found out, that was not true. In fact, it was the city folks that were narrow-minded and had a lot of prejudice. The country folks live close to the earth, and their perspective was often simple, but much more true.

My friend Anders, the right wing extremist, was an organic farmer, and he had a son with a palestinian woman. He loved his son, but hated islamic ideology. (We worked on Islam critic things together).

He knew a lot about Islam, and he was not prejudiced, but really knew things.

Now, what I am saying is this; it is time we get off the beaten track (Brazil, France, MOMA and cafe latte) and try to truly understand our own country. Or rather you need to get out of your comfort zone of Manhatten, and go out into the mountains and meet people, understand them, get their perspective.

They say that their way of life is dying. Well, that is a cry for help. That is why mr. Trump won, and that is what we need to deal with on a constructive basis.

In Denmark, we have the beautiful tradition of Folkenlightenment. The city folks go out to the countryside, and together we make theories. Like the andelsbevægelse, and the Højskole.

You need to make the same, work together, instead of against each other. Find out theories together, meet, share, be friends.

G-d bless the willingness to learn from our mistakes.

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