Fright

[Felipe Sanchez]

From: "Andrea Innes-Michailov" <andreaaCORP.IDT.NET>
Subject: Re: Fright


>"What is the belief system behind that that we as Americans have lost?"

I don't believe we have lost any cultural pinions.  We may not have found
ones that other societies embody.  Our two hundred year frontier which
demanded self-reliance, struggle for survival, and promoted the image of one
man against the world (e.g. 'High Noon'), is in part responsible.  Also, we
seem to live in the most competitive culture in the world.  130,000,000
citizens watched the 'Super Bowl.'
Competition encourages the more aggressive side of our predatory naturesand
seems to relgate cooperation to a status of contraindicated.  Comments of
this type are all relative and matters of degree but these concepts have
assisted me in making some sense of what I discern as exagerated patterns of
violence in the US as compared with Spain.  On a personal note and as a
result of my own suspicious nature, I started the Camino armed with a
collapsible baton of the kind employed by police units.  After one week I
sent it back to Madrid as it obviously was not necessary.  But it took me
that long to cease looking over my shoulder.  I still stayed on what is
known as "yellow alert" in police circles, that is aware at all times of
what is occurring in one's proximity.  My impression after forty days of
exposure is that the average Spanish citizen is much more comfortable in her
society than are we Norteamericanos as a whole.  Felipe Sanchez
PS:  I may once again carry the baton on the Via de Plata due to the
isolation, long distances, the possible presence of dogs, and a
responsibility I feel toward my female companion.  Some of the refugios have
only two places and are in abandoned buildings.  The America mind set sees
this as too tempting to the opportunistic brigand or lonely inebriate.  F.