Rafaelo
I am glad I helped you think.
I hope that you are evaluating your own judgments, as I will now evaluate mine.

Could you have a quick look at your definition of reactionary for me and tell me whether you mean I reacted to your own particular bias with my own, or whether you mean I am opposed to your ‘liberal’ ideas? If the former I agree, if it’s the later I think the ideas you expressed previously were very conservative, subjective alternative dogma, indicative of those of us born into a privileged life. (Including me) (not criticism but question)
I would have preferred a word like contrary or differing.

I once thought the same as your previous post implied. I was frustrated at what I saw as the erosion of cultures. I also thought supporting the collective consciousness and building intention and universal vibration was enough. I judged the people in places I traveled as not being as ‘enlightened’ as myself for choosing a path I was rejecting. (I know it’s awful) Then I had a look at myself and realized I was a rich (by world standards) neo-hippy kid, traveling all over the world, having a party, meditating, being ‘spiritual’, doing yoga, and dressing up, having a great time on drugs and thinking I was really doing something and everyone else that wasn’t doing what I was doing wasn’t awake. (Not saying you, this was my experience) (also not saying I have given all of this up, I just don’t fool myself about what it accomplishes)

Then I woke up.
Sometimes not respecting the luxury of choice and freedom is a yoke that binds us and mask that blinds us.

I know I am guilty of having a very specific worldview. This comes from my job covering worn torn areas and impoverished countries for National Geographic and more recently ABC. This forced me to accept that I personally have no right to judge people for adopting any system including and especially the ones I reject, having been born into a life of comparative luxury and freedom myself. The solution? To paraphrase a philosopher I just met “the world is the way it is - we're all test pilots; there’s no failure, just feedback”.

You wrote: “I make no judgments on anyone, though I do reserve the right to judge behaviours, by my standards anytime I wish.”

You are definitely (and defiantly) correct saying that you have the right to judge behaviors (especially your own) - if it’s tempered with empathy rather than sympathy. To state that a culture is misguided for a choice that is out of our cultural experience becomes an elitist value judgment, open to rebuttal. I can hate what cultures do and fight against what I believe to be injustice when a culture attacks, manipulates or represses but if a culture chooses, modifies or modernizes a political/economic/social model; I know I need to clean my own house before I criticize theirs.
Which missionary has the righteous message? All, some, none? Or is their dogma just another control method limiting self-determinism. Do the Balinese deserve the right to make their own choices or should we step in with our 'superior' knowledge?

There is one thing I always told my film crews when we were working with remote tribes for Nat Geo, Never judge these people by your own standards, understand them through their situation and environment. These people mostly isolated from modern thought, many of whom had never seen white skin, had social systems built out of environmental necessity; by modern definition they would be savage and brutal. By their definition it was a successful system that had evolved and adapted to the prevailing environment.

You are also right in saying I am not there in Bali with you now, I left the day before Burning Man, I had dinner at Jimbaran Bay with my friends and their children of 3 and 11yrs, the staff of Nyoman’s have known them since birth. I still don’t know if any of them were amongst those killed. I don’t know what you are feeling and I don’t know what the Balinese are really feeling, I can only go from my own experience of previous terrorist attacks, war and famine to empathize - 'through my own filters'.

To quote the same philosopher “you need to acknowledge the problem and be open to all the possibilities before you can do something about it”.

Let’s agree that there is a problem, it has no easy answers and especially no easy judgments.

And it’s important we (really) think about it.

Stu

groups.myspace.com/bali
"Balinese send a beautiful message to the world" ..............read what I found

By the way : There is a wonderful Book called Bali Blues talking about the time after the Bombings and how balinese people cope with it