How good citizens are we?..

Max Rafferty, the head of California's superintendent of education, defined the "good citizen" a few decades ago:

"The relationship of a good citizen with his country is the same as that of a good son with his mother. He obeys her because she is greater than him, because in her he merges with the vision of the many and because he owes his birth and his upbringing.
He honors her above all others and places her in an excellent place deep in his heart, keeping before her the lamps of respect and admiration ever burning.
He supports her against all her enemies and considers the loss of his life worth it for her sake.
Above all else, he loves her deeply and without display, knowing that although he shares this privilege with others, the nature of his love is unique and personal, flowing from the deepest wells of his being and returning to him in like manner. .
This is the good citizen. And as long as his kind prevails, so will the Great Democracy flourish."

I often hear my elders muttering that they are nostalgic for that time, when human communication was based on simple and traditional ways, unadulterated and untainted by all kinds of modern influences, which today make it impersonal and very often, superficial.

The stormy rhythms and pressure of everyday life, which leave no room for romances, wasting time on sentimentality or strong emotions, have even led to the loss of stable and timeless values, which once nourished us, strengthening our emotional wealth.

Virginia Satir in her book "Making Men" states:
“I see communication as a huge umbrella that covers and affects everything that happens between human beings. Once a human arrives on this earth, communication is the single most important factor that determines what kind of relationships that creature will form with others and what will happen to him in life."

Ultimately, any behavior that occurs between two or more human beings, or between living creatures, is communication. Learning to communicate is the only way to improve our living conditions, our immediate and wider environment and in the long run the society in which we will live as "good citizens". The to learn to communicate  but it is an art which no one learned either at home, or at school, or at university, and which is essentially part of art of living...

Alexios Vandoros

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The article was published on the blog of AfafsiZO > https://goo.gl/Rk6KnC