Who Launches Our Renaissance?

My humble thanks to The Afropolitan Network for being kind enough to include Me in their Caribbean Rock and Blogroll. Not only am I pleased they noticed Me, I'm also pleased to have added them to My weekly Blog Reads. 


If Puerto Rico were to have its own Renaissance, where would the primary thrust of it come from?

(Go ahead, ponder. It'll make for an interesting mental exercise.)

Some assumptions:

1) Puerto Rico is stuck in a modern "Dark Age." Our options are severely limited and Our outlook has taken some of these limitations and turned them into titanium blinders. Unlike the Middle Ages, We have access to ALL kinds of information. So it isn't a matter of can't, but a matter of won't.

2) Renaissance periods are launched from within, not without. If an outside force changes a society or nation, it's either conquest (of some sort) or adaptation (to a more general trend.) A Renaissance, for purposes of this discussion, is a self-generated transformation that redefines the society primarily along lines it chooses.

3) The Renaissance must ultimately alter a society--Our society--for the better, though the path may be strewn with upheaval and even some losses.

Given those ground rules, let's look at some likely sources for launching Our Renaissance:

--Government? Ha. Ha. No, really, Ha! At most they can be supporters; at worst, and they frequently are at their worst, they are obstacles.

--Religious groups? No. Not only are they fragmented, they cause fragmentation amongst Us. And they have a tendency to side with Government to "return to the past," the exact opposite of what a Renaissance launch source needs to do.

--Universities? They are often the flints sparking revolutions of different kinds, but in Puerto Rico, they are more like incubators or day care centers: Their job is to allow a safe, almost painless exit. Students are basically whiny pukes more intent on going home than on making an honest-to-goodness effort to think, analyze and absorb information. At the administrative level, professors are tenure-paranoid, feeble-minded consumers of power politics. You can't launch a Renaissance with peabrains, young or old.

--Business groups? Ha. Ha. No, really, hahahahaha. At least the government has an incentive every 4 years to actually pretend to care... Business groups here range from petulant to putrid, and take your pick on who is what. They spout the usual tripe, often a parody or pale copy of the government's tripe, and then go academic-whiny on Our butts. If they started a church, they'd hit the trifecta.  Oh wait, some peabrain named Font already did that...

--Entrepreneurs? Now We're getting somewhere. Unlike Renaissance efforts in other societies, Ours will follow the pattern of "individuals first," but never--I mean this: never--reach the point of "institutional support." The only way We'll have a Renaissance is if those of Us who fight Our national inertia tooth and nail every day reach the point where We destroy some, maybe many, of the "inertia-invested idiots" who would rather be captains of a pathetic sinking ship than passengers on a world-class vessel.

You knew where I was going with this,  or at least you had a good idea. Now let's add this to the mix: What areas should entrepreneurs focus on to make Our Renaissance happen before its too late?

Topic for another day...


The Jenius Has Spoken.