Re: Compassionate Listening Project - Germany trip

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Some of you might be interested in the upcoming Jewish-German reconciliation trip with the Compassionate Listening Project:

http://www.compassionatelistening.org/germany.html

Hi :

The Compassionate Listening work is lovely. Cohen was a presenter at our One by One Dialogue Conference in New York http://www.one-by-one.org/ and we are considering having a similar conference next year to bring together organizations that use Dialogue in the work of peacebuilding and reconciliation. Perhaps Compassionate Listening can sponsor the next conference. I'm still trying to find time to write an article about the conference which was a beautiful and gathering. We will put out a newsletter within the next four weeks with conference photos and updates. One of the highlights for me was watching 's film, the Children of Abraham about her work in Palestine/Israel. Also the keynote address by ph Sebranezi and the Rwandan ambassador to the UN was moving beyond words and a powerful example of forgiveness from somebody who lost 60 members of his family in the Rwandan genocide.

We just had a rather interesting Dialogue on the One by One listserve about using the term German/Jewish Project as it connotes that one must be either German or Jewish and on opposite sides. In fact many of our members in One by One, including Holocaust survivors; are German and Jewish. German is their first language and many have lived in Germany for generations. In the early days of One by One we were foolish enough to try to divide the group into Germans and Jews, Victims and Perpetrators for certain workshops and often the German Jews wanted to join the German group and the German Americans wanted to go with the Jews because they had more in common culturally.

As we've grown we realized that things are much more complicated; we have Germans from East and West Germany, who have a lot to Dialogue about, and Germans whose parents were resisters and communists,etc. One of the nicest things we do in One by One is try to organize an opportunity for German Jews to return to their home town. We place stumble stones when their homes are no longer there and I've witnessed more than one reunion when the entire town came out to honor the return of Jews who survived the Holocaust. There is so much we can do to at least listen to one another and witness the atrocities we humans are wont to perpetrate upone one another.....we can do these dialogue groups and small rituals....one by one by one....they add up.

Suzanne

"To develop the drop of compassion in our own heart is the only effective spiritual response to hatred and violence."Thich Nhat Hanh

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Suzanne says: >>In the early days of One by One we were foolish enough to try to divide the group into Germans and Jews, Victims and Perpetrators for certain workshops and often the German Jews wanted to join the German group and the German Americans wanted to go with the Jews because they had more in common culturally.<< --That's interesting. Seems like a lot of those victim/perpetrator divisions exist only in language and generalization, breaking down when individuals seek people who are like themselves in other ways. >>One of the nicest things we do in One by One is try to organize an opportunity for German Jews to return to their home town. We place stumble stones when their homes are no longer there and I've witnessed more than one reunion when the entire town came out to honor the return of Jews who survived the Holocaust.<< --Ironically, Palestinians are having the same experience. I think it's time we recognize the damage done to human beings when their sense of place and belonging is torn apart by political divisions. All human beings deserve the right to live where they were born, it's a psychological or spiritual matter, not a political one. When politics prevents the soul from finding its peace, there can be no peace in the world, regardless of the identities of victims and perpetrators. Both are harmed by it. >>There is so much we can do to at least listen to one another and witness the atrocities we humans are wont to perpetrate upone one another..... we can do these dialogue groups and small rituals....one by one by one....they add up.<< --I've seen that happening more and more lately. Maybe I'm just looking for it more. According to cybernetic systems theory, there are times when an entire system can

shift into a new phase, triggered by very small, subtle changes on levels that aren't even noticed (like, say, a conversation between individuals who have never met). Not easy to explain why that happens to someone not familiar with nerdy ideas like chaos theory, but it happens. There's a reason why the "butterfly effect" meme has made its way into movies and other outlets in popular culture. Anyone could be the hundredth monkey, and the notion that individuals have no power and dialogue makes no difference is incredibly naive, now that the global social/economic/political system is so interconnected. C. Lockharthttp://www.soulaquarium.netYahoo! Messenger: grailsnailBlog: http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/"The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads." -- Carl

Jung"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Aird"LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS - NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE." -- Unknown

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Toni says: >>Who decides what each human being deserves????<< --Everyone does. Everyon, inluding you, has ideas about what each person deserves. Some have political power and can force the issue, giving some people the "right of return" and denying it to others. But I believe there is something innate in human nature that has a connection to birthplace and a drive to seek freedom and self-determination. Politics can divide people by religion, nationality or ideology. When it does, chaos results because human nature is undermined by the ego need for control and security. That is why the Soviet Union no longer exists, and it is why the American, Israeli, Iranian and North Korean governments may not be able to "live by the sword" indefinitely, without producing massive suffering on all sides. >>"All human beings deserve the right to live where they were born, it's a

psychological or spiritual matter, not a political one."<< --Yes.>>Life,liberty and pursuit of happiness weren't enough? Now we have decided unilaterally what each person is owed?<< --What is your definition of "life, liberty and the persuit of happiness"? I can't imagine anyone would be happy or feel free in a refugee camp. There are people like me who can feel at home almost anywhere, at least for a while, but I don't think everyone is like me in that respect. Most have a deep, spiritual connection to their birthplace, regardless of any political conflicts that get in the way. I would not support any policy of ethnic cleansing, and I doubt you would either. Most people seem to understand that, at least for themselves if not for others, the land of one's bith has significance that is deeper than political.>>Life is a gift, existence is a gift. We are owed nothing, indeed

it is we who must say thank you.<< --I can't argue with that. The problem is, many people in this world have a hard time being thankful for their lives, having lost family, land, homes, security or food. It may be possible for a Buddhist to have gratitude in those circumstances, but that is not common.>>We do not come into this world with "inalienable rights" as human beings.<< --Have you considered taking it up with the US Constitution? I'm not sure I would argue that inalienable rights exist in the way a chair exists, but I believe a shared recognition of rights that extend not to one group alone but to everybody, is a requirement for civilization and social stability. >>Political statements can mean a lot or nothing----- We have no G-d given right to anything...<< --In that case, there is no right for Jews to

live in Israel, and no right for Palestinians to live in Palestine, no rights for Native Americans, no rights for me or you. It is survival of the fittest, if you are right, and that is a recipe for diaster. I am not religious, but there is some truth in the Judeo-Christian moral code, although it is often applied inconsistently or hypocritically. There are very few human beings who can accept that they have no rights. Again, probably mostly Buddhists who are experienced with meditation and non-self.>>We human's can not demand certain things of life...that is not how it works.WE alone or together decided what we think we are entitled to, or others, but it is not engraved in concrete or anywhere else. We want to give whatever we can to others to make life better...that' s fine, but no one has a right to expect anything.<< --That's a bit Nietzschean... in terms of raw, animal power, I might agree. But I think there are

dimensions to life that people who live on power alone do not understand, and when power is lost because it lacks wisdom, it can be messy. Many things are engraved in concrete, incluing the Ten Commandments, various prayers, poetry and celebrity footprints. We do that to show symbolically that we believe some things are greater than the individual, and are timeless.>>Politics can not prevent a soul in any way whatever...it can kill you, but not change your soul.<< --That is why politics will never be able to keep people from fighting for the land of their birth. If there is no shared agreement on rights that are consistently applied, chaos results because the soul will not back down. Gandhi understood that and used in in a way that resulted in very little bloodshed on either side. Not everyone is that good at understanding the relationship between power and the soul. Moses also understood, although he was still locked into

the tribal code that produced ethnic cleansing and hypocriy. Luther King Jr. applied it very well. We are all still learning.>>Why don't we get real and understand we come into this world with nothing and we leave with nothing.<< --Can't argue with that. >>We have no way we can "demand" anything, nor do we "deserve" anything.<< --You have done a rare thing, if you no longer make demands of anyone or anything. Can you teach others to do that? >>It is up to other human beings to consent to allow us whatever we need.<< --How disempowering. Gandhi did not wait for the British to consent. Something more was required. >>There are laws which are now in place for many people. But there is no law that says I deserve to live where I was

born.<< --You're talking about the kind of laws made by human beings to control each other, which is based on demands. The law demands, and if it demands what is contrary to the soul, chaos is produced, including genocides, wars, terrorism, revolutionary movements and massive suffering. We have to work according to a deeper set of laws, if we want our species to survive. Otherwise, the purpose of the law, which is to protect the rights of one group if not all groups, will be undermined by its effects. Nature cuts out life forms that undermine their own survival by destroying their own food source, environment or, if the life forms are social primates, the social fabric. >>No commandment either, no religion which saYS WE ARE OWED ANYTHING.<< --"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors"? If we are consistent with that, it might be a good thing.

>>Maybe if we stopped expecting what we are owed, we could instead help ourselves and others to get what we and they need.<< --I agree. Like I said, there are a few people here and there who make no demands of life or of other human beings. There can be a lot of power in that position. But ignoring the needs of others can be disastrous. The key is not to demand for oneself, while serving the needs of others so that they do not fester into demands.>>No guarentees come with birth. It is other human beings who must step in.<< --I agree there are no guaranees, and that action is required, unless one takes the Buddhist position that desire is a trap. >>And no one MUST guarentee us the place to live for all time.<< --If that is a MUST, then it would be necessary for you to work against Zionism. Are you doing

so? If so, how do others react to your position?>>Social committments are not law, nor absolute.<< --Nothing is absolute. Absolutes come from language. But if we had no desires or demands as a species, we would not be here. Only our ancestors who demanded freedom could end slavery, only those who demanded a higher standard of living could give us cars and internet and heart bypass surgery and the Bill of Rights. While I am very Buddhist in some ways, I also have an appreciation for what has been passed down to us, and am not prepared to let what we have disappear. Are you? C. Lockharthttp://www.soulaquarium.netYahoo! Messenger: grailsnailBlog: http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/"The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads." -- Carl Jung"If you can't be a

good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Aird"LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS - NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE." -- Unknown

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Toni says: >>We are not BORN with rights.<< --I agree, in the sense that "rights" are not a body part. Rights are an emergent property of social systems. When they are violated, things go wrong, and eventually everyone suffers. It's a consequence of resonance in social systems. Rights are what religious people call "God-given", and they do mean something. They are not something you can pin down and take a picture of, but they are real, and denying them has consequences.>>As for the situations you mention....some people thought they had a "right" to give others something in recompense.<< That's a cool concept, fighting for the right to give. I like that. >>or did G-d tell you the Jews had a heavenly/worldly right to Israel?<< --Jews tell me they ahve a right to Israel, and I agree, provided

they are willing to acknowledge the same right for Palestinians. Displacement and diaspora are against the nature of human beings, and they have consequences for the planet, not just the displaced and the ones who displace them, and the ones who displaced the ones who displaced them, etc. It's a domino chain. If the chain is not stopped, it will collapse the global economic system, possibly the ecosystem, and set civilization back to the dark ages. On the bright side, a dark age wouldn't last long, the fear would get people moving toward solutions and solutions would be easily found. But a lot of people are dying now, and a lot more will die unless we get rid of some misconceptions about reality. One of those misconceptions is that the spiritual/psychological connection to the earth can be severed without creating waves of suffering that expand and include more and more innocent people. >>The Judeo-Christian moral code only exists if one decides to follow

it.<< --That may be true. My computer only exists because it came into someone's imagination and they followed the image. The image of God may be no different. My computer is real enough to type on. God may be real enough to inspire people to take action that saves other human beings from suffering. If that is the function of God, then God is perfectly in balance with nature. But if the image of God turns poisonous and people follow self-fulfilling prophesies, it is entirely possible for the dark side of God to destroy what we recognize of civilization. We have the technology. God has the vengeance. Who will act out the collective shadow of God? Who will God save? >>Judging by our behavior at the moment, I see no signs of the "Judeo- Christian " moral code endorsed by all and followed by all those groups.<< --True. Good thing I don't believe in peer pressure. But

really, I think you're just looking at the darkest examples of human behavior amplified by the media. Most people I meet, including Christians, Muslims, Jews and pagans, are pretty decent. Not perfect, but they try. The media makes us think everyone not on "our side" is violent, treacherous and evil. That may not be the media's fault... they are only showing acts of violence because that is what draws the audience in. We are the audience. Bystanders are involved, whether they want to be or not, because they are aware. But the media can turn awareness into tunnel vision. It is terrible that Israel's political system harms Palestinian civilians in the name of security. It is terrible that sectarian militias kill civilians in Iraq. What's happening in Darfur is a nightmare. What will God do? If you are right that the Judeo-Christian code only exists in the actions of its followers, what are the consequences of not living it, or misinterpreting it? >>The moral code as the 10 commandments is a social contract made by the members of a society for the good of all (when it happens)<< --I agree, pretty much. Fortunately, social contracts evolve, and the first amendment replaced the first commandment. "Thou shalt have no gods before me" is an oppressive law, one made out of fear of social breakdown or invasion and enslavement by other tribes. The early Hebrews believed they would be saved by God if they killed blasphemers, used ethnic cleansing against surrounding tribes (not to imply the Hebrews were the worst tribe, probably somewhere in the middle as far as intertribal ethics went at the time), and followed the teachings of Moses. They were wrong. No culture is saved by religious persecution, genocide or idolatry. Jesus got it right, and then his followers got it wrong again. He said, "The letter of the law is not the same as the spirit of the law" and his followers said,

"Repent or perish". They're still saying it, although they're a little more polite in that they don't try to eliminate heresy by force on God's behalf. Idolatry is missing the forest for the trees, and it has been common throughout history for monotheists to worship scripture rather than the purpose of scripture, which is to establish the moral code and social contract, making survival and sanity possible. When any culture misses the point and focuses on hair-splitting arguments and petty rivalries, it collapses. Look at Iraq, and you'll know why a social contract is so important, and why a shared idea of God can be so destructive and so potentially life-saving for people who can't see their way out of chaos. >>You confuse "rights" as universal... they are not unless the person practicing them agrees. G-d does not give "RIGHTS" in my opinion. He allows us to arrange our social economic, religious conceptions as we chose...if we can convince

the community to honor them.<< --So God is kind of a spectator? My idea of God is closer to the Jewish one, I believe that human beings are the cells of God's body, the building blocks of His or Her kingdom. If we live in balance with nature, God becomes a source of knowledge and social stability. If we fall out of balance and become too insular, we collapse, and God dies. Eventually, people get sick of insanity, and God comes back through the generation that understands the connection between words and actions.>>Everyone demands "rights" nowadays...probably because no one wants the responsibility for forming a social contract according to a few wishes. We have dignity as a human being....the rights mankind gives and takes away.<< --People demand rights for one of two reasons: they want to dominate others, or they want to be free of persecution. Many want both. The rights that matter

are the ones we are willing to share with everyone. Hypocrisy is the real issue, when one group assumes rights it is not willing to share with other groups. That's why the idea of religious freedom was so revolutionary in a world dominated by dogmatism and sectarianism. At one point it was heresy to say that people have a right to be free from slavery. But all tribes believed they had a right to be free from slavery. The Hebrews got out of slavery, thanks to the tactical genius and binding charisma of Moses. Then they started enslaving others, got enslaved again themselves, and so on. The Christians came, attempting to free themselves from religious orthodoxy, dogmatism and the corrupting influence of empire. Then they took over the empire and enslaved other people. One problem is "sins of scripture". The Bible doesn't condemn slavery, it only condemns the enslavement of Jews. It doesn't take a lot of insight to use the Exodus story as a

symbol of mankind's inherent need for freedom and self-determination. But, strangely enough, we had slavery in the US until not long ago in generational terms, because those who supported slavery were able to use literal readings of scripture to warp the social fabric and perpetuate a form of injustice that's still rippling and dividing our culture. Same thing is happening in various parts of the world today. The schism between literalism and symbolism is behind some of it, the rest is all politics, and those who use religion to persecute others end up doing so much damage that their own children abandon their dogmatism and learn to make peace. Eventually, it will happen between Shia and Sunnis in Iraq, and between orthodox and heretical Christians, orthodox and reform Jews, Jews and Muslims, and so on. All rifts are repaired, or the damage keeps rippling forward. Our species has to stop it, and if there is any truth to the idea of God, then God will provide the means to

do so. God ended slavery, once the people who represented the original spirit of the faith prevailed over those who used literalism to oppress other human beings. It's one of the core myths acted out through history by people in all cultures that have faced persecution or persecuted others. >>Any spiritual person I know has long since realized that all life is a gift.<< --Can't disagree with that. The question is, "What are we given the gift for?" The fate of every society hinges on that question. >>A good book on how society forms and conducts itself might help.<< --Depending on how the book's laws are interpreted and enforced, yes. Amazing to me that we are still dealing with massive suffering produced by literal readings of books that were written 1500 or more years ago. It couldn't be more surreal if we were using cowboy movies to

justify persecuting indians. Even "manifest destiny", the belief that a particular ethnic group or religious group has sole rights to the land, is still being perpetuated and used to prevent solutions to conflicts that require fairness and religious freedom. >>The "survival of the fittest" is a philosophical understanding of how the earth works, and sadly we as a nation seem to relish being the fittest, at least for a while. We cheerfully give ourselves "rights" but our laws differentiate between members of our country and strangers.<< --Well said, Toni. In social animals, survival of the fittest individual can lead to a lack of fitness in the group. It happens in politics, when the most viable candidate (the taller, more "alpha" male who knows how to speak the language of many groups at once) wins and then undermines the entire system by dominating in ways that break the contract underlying

the strength of the group. The house of cards eventually comes down, which may or may not be a good thing. If the social code breaks down, sociopaths and pyramid schemes are promoted, using fear to replicate their own viral code. But if the political code is broken by a deeper, more solidly rooted social code, things change for the better. The problem is, people who advocate revolution and resistance often don't understand why it works or doesn't work at any given time. They master the political code, while ruining the social code, and chaos wins. There are people in the world with enough wisdom to handle power in sane ways, and they don't seek power. Except for Kucinich, but I don't know if he's "viable" as a candidate (i.e. if people will vote their conscience or go for the candidate with more leverage against other candidates). >>The Palestinian- Israeli problem is not a matter of rights...since neither side accepts the right of the other. What right? who

decides?<< --Chaos decides, unless there is an agreement to recognize the same rights in each other that they demand for themselves. The underlying problem is not how people view rights in the abstract, but which rights they are willing to share. Israel is an unusual blend of theocracy and democracy, and it will either have to deny Arabs equal voting rights or give up some land in order to maintain a Jewish majority. That's why Israel is building the wall, in preparation for withdrawal from the occupied territories. Palestinians regard Israel's strategy as a kind of Apartheid or ethnic cleansing, with their rights routinely denied, frequent curfews, checkpoints along every travel route, restrictions on freedom of movement, denial of land rights, and the integrity of their homeland compromised by a "divide and conquer" pattern of breaking up Palestinian areas into tightly controlled zones. That's a recipe for disaster, and extremists on

the Arab side have used it to gain power and media recognition, and that can only be changed by an Arab majority demanding that their own leaders give the same rights to Israelis that they demand for Palestinians. Namely, the right to a homeland in the Middle East. Whether they will ever share a single nation or be divided along ethnic and religious lines until intermarriage blends them into a more complex and diverse population, nobody can say at this point. All we know is that the situation cannot continue, not without grave danger to Israel's survival as a nation and the destruction of Palestinian culture. >>The strongest at the end will do what it has to..even to the point of violence.We cannot "give" "rights" to anyone unless we can enforce that right by law or power.<< --Gandhi enforced the rights of Indians. Luther King Jr. enforced the rights of blacks in America, and would

have gone on to champion the rights of the poor worldwide if he had lived longer. They followed God's law. Those who pretend to be religious but do not listen when the voice of God whispers in their ear are regarded as false prophets or hypocrites by the Biblical and Quranic prophets. In a way, they're right. God is present when people stand in their truth, and the truth sets people free. Again, it is not a matter of rights existing in some Platonic space, but of consistency overruling inconcistency, of hypocrisy being undermined and washed away by conscience. When there is a worm in the cultural code, something comes eventually to expose and eliminate the worm. Unfortunately, people keep going wrong by thinking the worm is an evil individual or group, rather than a defect in the cultural code that can be removed without killing human bodies. Killing always produces guilt, and mass killing produces mass guilt, and both Arabs and Jews have a fear of being portrayed as

guilty, as deserving persecution, and cannot apologize or admit fault in front of their enemy. The problem is, God sees everything, according to monotheists. For those who believe in God, God is not mocked, and both sides have mocked God by denying each other's human rights and not standing up to extremists. As long as Israel is a Jewish nation, Jews have both a political and a religious obligation to consider the rights of Arabs equal to their own in any area where Jews have control of political and military machinery. As long as Iran is an Islamic nation, Muslims have the same obligation to stand for the rights of Jews and other non-Muslim minorities in Iran. Just as whites in the US had a moral and political obligation to stand for the rights of blacks. Consistency is not optional, it is obligatory, and there are consequences for inconsistency in any social or political system. >>I have the rights given to me by the nation I swore allegiance to ...yes

under oath.<< --That brings up something funny... Jesus said not to swear oaths, to anything. Why were fundamentalist Christians upset about the Muslim Senator wanting to bring a Quran to the oath ceremony instead of a Bible? It's weird how selective people are when they attach religion to politics. To Jesus, hypocrisy involving religion, power and politics was the great evil, not adultery, homosexuality or any other personal issue. Wish more Christians would get the point, there. But Muslims and Jews do the same thing. Even some Hindus and Buddhists have turned fundamentalist and rioted and committed hate crimes. It seems to be a planetary virus, more than a problem with any one religion. >>If I leave this country, I will only have "rights" if they are given to me by another country or force.<< --The point is not whether you have rights or not, but that you are

willing to fight for the rights of others with the same passion as when you fight for the rights of your own political, ethnic or religious group. People argue over the nature of rights, missing the point that it is consistency, not the particular rights involved, that makes a difference. That consistency is the real foundation of morality in monotheism, and monotheists forgot it. Not just monotheists, of course. Communists forgot it too, although Communism probably isn't finished evolving. >>The common morality is based on who has the most power to enforce their views in this world.<< --The power exists in language. Those who use language for its intended purpose have real power, those who use it to deceive or manipulate eventually destroy the meaning in the words they speak, and then they fall out of power. >>Sadly , what "truths" exist on this planet are those the strong have

accepted.<< --That is a very postmodern view. It assumes that the power to dominate or censor is stronger than the power of consistency and truth. I believe it is only a matter of time. >>We may challenge them only if we wish to be a martyr in whatever society we find ourselves in.<< --I live in America. I can say what I want, and I am not martyred, unless I take dead silence or puzzled looks as "martyrdom". No reason to fear persecution for speaking the truth here, unless you end up with a lot of followers. Even then, you can put truth into humor like Jon , or gain the kind of power Oprah has, which does not trap her into martyrdom. We have it pretty good here. In Iran, if you speak truth, you can disappear. In Israel, if you speak truth, you can't get much political power and might face ridicule. Depends a lot on where you live, and how you speak the

truth you know. >>Truth is relative to one's culture and location as well as one's religious feelings.<< --Some truths are relative. Some are not so relative. Consistency is a truth that spans many truths. People can believe in whatever gods they want, as long as they are willing to extend the same rights to others that they demand for themselves. But if people are not willing to share land and power, then a group may use its truth to persecute or lock others out, which leads to instability and eventually, social earthquakes. >>We really have no means to make everyone regard our truth as TRUTH.<< --Any power in language comes from language, and from the social systems in which language is imbedded. Powerful people don't "make" people believe their truth. People respond to what is true in the words, although they may, for a

while, attach some untruth to the truth they hear, especially if the speaker says what the audience wants to hear, fearing reprisals for being too honest. >>My idea of G-d is that he is absolute Truth...not here on earth where every man has his own idea of what truth is.<< --God only exists if you attach the absolute Truth you believe in to your actions on earth. Otherwise, you contradict God, and where do you stand then? If there is any absolute truth here on earth, it is that no tribe can live in peace if it is not willing to go out of its way to make peace with other tribes, and that those whose power becomes too insular or paranoid are destroyed eventually. That's history's verdict. Perhaps we can overrule it and keep power while others go without, but I suspect that's no longer a viable path for humanity.>>Many people find themselves without rights...I just read this morning about

the 7 million slaves on our planet. Amnesty International would have no work if everyone agreed that everyone had the same rights....and even in this country, justice is often handed out by error or will...of those in power.<< --True. Amnesty International would also have more power if more people acted against slavery. As it is, we talk about slavery. The "Save Darfur" campaign may change that, since it is engaging the public in a media dialogue that may be more powerful than isolated conversations about how bad slavery is. Personally, I think the whole argument about reparation for slavery in America should be channeled into a crusade against slavery in the present. It is possible for a well-funded government to eliminate the mafia in a city, and it may be possible to do something similar with paramilitary gangs in places like Sudan. If the public demands a response, one will come. The words "Never again" hang in the air, reminding us

of the reality of the Holocaust, and reminding us that we cannot honor the Holocaust in any other way than by fighting genocide against anyone, anywhere, who is victimized by the same kind of fascist mentality that the Nazis represent. >>Claim any right for yourself you wish....but without the community behind you it will not be so.We cannot make demands we cannot force...either by rule of law or power itself.<< --Power is enforced through language. I claim the right of language, living in a nation of free speech and having access to a global media. Instead of waiting for a messiah to come and champion one religious group, young people will soon overrule the fundamentalism and xenopobia of their parents, and make peace in the world. One generation honors another by shaming it out of silence, and forcing the issue of consistency. Tribal, religious and political identities are products of nature, and subject to its

laws. Nature demands that mankind give up inconsistency on the issue of human rights. It will force us, one way or the other, to do the will of God, which is peace on earth. All other forms of religion are just words.

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Dan says: >>Well, as has been pointed out to me a bazillion times, the fact that a teaching is necessary doesn't make it true.<< --Very true. And what is necessary changes with circumstances. That which is necessary and untrue at one point becomes unnecessary and still untrue later on, and then there is much confusion. Some people truly believe that America will collapse if gays are allowed to marry or if Christians become a minority. It is untrue that a religion must attach itself formally to religious principles, in fact it may be a huge liability, but if it is viewed as necessary, it doesn't matter how true it is, in terms of raw power. But immediate, enforceable power is only a temporal form, unstable by nature. Every religion recognizes that truth, and political groups deny it, however much they pay lip service to God. >>"Rights" What are they? What sort of being do they have? Are

they observable? measurable? quantifiable? verifiable by mean of double-blind experiment, lol?. Justice - now that is something I can understand.<< --Where is justice? I don't see justice here... can you verify it by a double-blind experiment? lol? Oh, you're laughing at your unintentional irony, I get it. You might say justice exists in the execution of a criminal, or in the return of a purse to an elderly woman after the purse-snatcher has been permanently disfigured by steel-toed boots jammed into his face by an angry mob of decent, God-fearing citizens. In which case, I would say it's more a symbol of justice, and only to some, while rights exist in symbols of rights. Examples: a man freed from prison after a DNA test proves him innocent, a journalist in China freed by international pressure after being imprisoned for speaking the truth, or the willingness of enemies to abide by the same laws,

dissolving hypocrisy and double standards in conflict and making sanity possible. You could also say that justice and rights both exist in the form of language, like the Bill of Rights, laws against murder, and agreements that make justice and rights possible. You might believe you have a right to carry a gun in the United States. If so, that right does not exist floating in the air somewhere, but in the Constitution and in the agreement by many to stand by it. Someone who believes in the right to gay marriage would use the same logic. It's consistency that has a powerful effect over time, the willingness to agree on common definitions of justice and established rights. People use the word "justice" in ways that can vastly differ, for some it means executing women who have abortions or commit adultery, for others it means not being stolen from or killed without cause. It is the agreement that makes coordinated use of force possible, and it is

consistency that prevents the use of force from becoming a tool of bullies and dictators. Agreement is a form of social power, based in language. Consistency is a property of reality, enforced by a higher law than ourselves. Of course, humans like to represent their idea of a higher power, creating a lot of suffering that in my view is unnecessary. Would you like a bowl of justice? It's gooooood. __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Toni says: >>I have a problem with everyone demanding their rights.<< --Do you have a problem with people TAKING their rights? I don't. As long as they're nonviolent and consistent in offering the recognition of the same rights to others. Jews took the "right of return" and established the nation of Israel. The "right of return" did not exist, but the deep psychological need for a homeland, coupled with networking and political skill, turned that imaginary right into a real country. Palestinians are struggling with the same issue, an imaginary right that has been frustrated rather than reified by the world. Now, Holocaust denial is being used by Iran's government to counter the use of historical suffering among Jews to justify hard-line security policy, curfews and other harrassment of Palestinians. It is not that rights exist, but that if one demands rights for oneself, one must be willing to extend the same

rights to others. If Jews have a "right of return", then Palestinians must have the same right, or Israel's future will be undermined by the inconsistency. Iran will have the same problem, it must be willing to recognize the rights of Iranian Jews, Bahai, and other religious minorities, or the government will be undermined by its own inconsistency. It is possible for people to have many different truths. But inconsistency leads to collapse, eventually. >>And dear Lord, now people say they have a "right" to respect. Excuse me? I thought respect was something one earned in one way or another.<< --To say someone has "earned" something implies that he has some right to it. If you work at a company that promises you pay, you feel you have a "right" to be paid, and you sue if you're not paid. Rights are reified with actions. >>I admit dignity to the human being as such, but rights are

dependent on laws and social construction.<< --What is dignity, exactly?>>As for justice...well, it seems to me we never do agree, and even when we do, we do not practice it blindfolded. We do not seem to see the difference between justice and vengeance either. Now people demand "closure" and mean by that that the person who harmed them goes to jail...at least in this city...and receives the death penalty. Then they think they will have "closure" whatever that is????<< --I agree, Toni. Well said. It's the blindfold that is the problem. People disagree on what rights are most essential, but it's the inconsistency that does the damage.>>I also am tired of "it isn't fair" Who promised us fairness?<< --We can promise each other fairness. If we keep our word, it means something. If we don't keep our word, it means something. Nature doesn't

make promises, but humans do.>> Who ever holds the power, decides on what rights others may have.<< --At the moment, there is a lot of misunderstanding about who has real power. Much of what seems powerful in the world is really weak, and there are times when the pen really is mightier than the sword. It would be a mistake to think power is merely a matter of brute force. Words have power. The word "rights" has power, but not with everyone. Those who want to make the word mean something will act on it. >>If we could finally stop thinking "we have it coming" whatever it is.....and stop taking things for granted, we might learn justice and we might even consider allowing others to have the same "rights" we have.<< --I agree. The problem is, that is a philosophy that can only be applied to oneself, not to another. If you say, "I have no right to demand

anything" you might benefit. But if you say, "you have no rights" you push the problem outward, and that has consequences. >>Mankind is not going to change, nor become conscious anytime soon.<< --That's the spirit! Have you tried motivational speaking? Mankind changes when circumstances force a change. That's why slavery is now a crime, rather than an accepted institution. It's why women have the vote. People may become conscious and then backslide a little, but the progression over time is forward, not static. >>I would like us to be realists, and quit with the "should" for society or ourselves.<< --Realism is overrated. Much of what is considered "real" is only reified by enough people that no one person believes he or she can go against the grain of the crowd. >>Things are not going to get better and better

simply because we believe in "progress". Human beings may slowly learn all those things idealists and would like to see.....maybe. ..until then realism is the best stance.<< --Best stance for you, or are you dictating for everyone here? America wouldn't even be an independent nation if the "realists" had won out. A lot of people in power are "realistic" about power, i.e. cynical and willing to perpetuate dysfunction out of fear of being labeled "idealistic" or shot down by realists. We did not go to the moon on a rocket made out of realism. It was made out of imagination, reified and made physical by a dream. Even wars, something we tend to be very "realistic" about, begin with dreams and words. They don't just fall off a tree, they fall out of the collective shadow projection and identification with power and technolog, >>I* don't mind reformers or idealists or whatever, but we must begin with the

"possible" and not a future world when we all have miraculously changed.<< --Even pragmatic corporations know it's useful sometimes to throw out preconceptions and start with an unreasonable goal. It produces better products than "realisim", which sees only what is happening (and very little of that) and not what could be made to happen. __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Toni says: >>Sanity means to see things as they are, now. To see the world anyother way is in-sanity.<< --Sanity is being able to tell the difference between what's happening now, and what happened in the past. When the present is judged through the eyes of the past, transference blocks awareness and receptivity to what is presently real. Sadly, it's very easy to think one is being "realistic" while judging a situation in reference to the past, rather than to what's possible. The Middle East is a great example. Everyone there portrays himself as being "realistic" about power, and from all the trauma and horror in their history, it makes perfect sense for them to do so. It just results in insanity down the road. Often, what is "realistic" is really cynical, based on the belief that what happened in the past must repeat. Therefore, if one is betrayed or traumatized in the past, one must continue

fearing betrayal and trauma, eventually bringing upon the same kind of traumatic situation that made the past so toxic. Both Israelis and Palestinians have grown up with stories of suffering, horror and betrayal. Both sides are constellating the demons they see in each other's eyes, repeating history with tragic consequences. All the result of "realistic" decisions. Luther King Jr. pointed that out, and not many seem to have listened. I guess every religious, national or ethnic tribe needs its own messiah to show the way. But I wish they'd all listen to the ones who made it clear enough already, without having to share his or her tribal identity. A Jewish messiah would say nothing that hasn't been said by Buddhists, Christians or Muslims. An Islamic messiah would say nothing that hasn't been said by rabbis and bishops who understood the requirement for interfaith cooperation and reconciliation. But every group keeps waiting for its own messiah, so there's a

trickle-down effect as leaders emerge in each group who resonate to the frequency of the people who "got it" in other groups. Critical mass is not far.>>How about I say, no one is born with "rights" nature does not bestow rights upon us,we human beings give them to each other by a contract we make with our society. This isn't a "problem" it is a statement of fact.<< --I did not disagree with that particular statement. We have an innate drive to seek freedom, and to cooperate against common threats. Freedom and rights are themes that resonate, that accumulate power, and eventually prevail over tyranny. We cannot not do that, it's in our nature. We'll tolerate oppression by people "like us" (sharing our nationality, religious or ethnic identity) as long as we're afraid of some enemy, but no tribe tolerates enslavement or oppression by another tribe. The issue, again, is consistency. History is an engine for weeding out

inconsistency, that's built into the laws of nature. Tribes that cannot cooperate with other tribes against a common threat do not survive, they are taken out of existence. Tribes that oppress other tribes collapse as their elites lose touch with reality and the teeming hordes amass intelligence and tactics superior to theirs. At this time in history, tribes that insulate themselves out of fear have a tendency to disconnect themselves, become paranoid, and lash out with pogroms and suicidal civil wars. That is a compementary process to the sifting of tribes that are cosmopolitan, interfaith, secular and connected, bringing those tribes into greater power and driving fundamentalists and fanatics out of power. The process cannot be stopped, it is only a matter of how much damage is done by insular groups that detach from reality and go on crusades against other groups. Hopefully, things will change without nuclear or biological terrorism or another full-blown world war. Our

species can only take so much.>>I cannot "take my rights". I can expect to follow the traditions of my culture and expect to get paid for my labor...that is not then a right but an obligation on another. I do not have a right to grab what is someone else's in the name of justice.<< --If someone else has your rights, you might want to grab them back. I would. You can do it nonviolently, if you're smart. If you don't stand for your rights, you lose yourself and it can take a long time to get yourself back from cynicism and resignation, the "who are you to think you can change anything" mindset that is so pervasive and corrosive in our culture.>>Once again, we get nowhere is we decide how "society ought to function...nor how people SHOULD act.<< --Are you saying I "should" change my approach? I like my approach. It works for me. It seems to inspire people a little bit. Why

would I trade that in? >>Why not just understand that we human beings have a long way to go before we are conscious enough for all these noble enterprises. Preaching, I have learned never changes anything. Acceptance of what is...might.<< --Then accept my opinion, as it is. Agreed?>>I see those with power over others demanding their own way, and the powerless do what they are told.<< --Actually the powerless do what they're told, only until they form a plan to take their power back. The real issue is making sure the powerless take their power back before hatred is so strong that violent revolt leads to cycles of persecution and pogroms. We really are lucky we can fight for our rights nonviolently in the US. There is some persecution of pot smokers and polygamists and illegal immigrants and so on, but we're doing better than much of the world and we

should be proud of that, and work to do even better. >>"It is not that rights exist, but that if one demands rights for oneself...." Only if one has decided all human beings are equal...and not many have.<< --I have. That's a start. I know quite a few others who have. You need to stop watching TV. Real people are working for what matters in this world, huge numbers of them. Why be cynical? Be afraid, maybe. But cynicism may be premature.>>I have carried on this discussion with you in hopes that you would see that none of us will accomplish anything if we continue to tell everyone what they "should" do.<< --I acknowledge that you think I should change my mind. But will I? Stay tuned... >>Admitting where human nature is, in this day of the common era is wisdom, not spinning "shoulds " in the sky.<< --I spin my "shoulds" in the social web, in the form of possibilities. Not in the sky. I use the sky for visualization, not "shoulds".>>We must not have expectations of how people "should" react, but how they do react. That is why we study psychology.. .to understand our human race better...not to try to improve it except 1x1x1.<< --I'd say Oprah changes more than one life at a time. It really depends on how many people you know, how many you influence (of course, you influence everyone, one way or the other) and how much time and energy you have to raise your own consciousness and entrain others to raise theirs. But if you only speak to one person and make a difference, that may be a way to change the world, and everyone has their own way of being the change.>>I can not motivate another except by brute force.<< --I'm so sorry to hear that. Have you

tried vision, teamwork and incentives? I believe management theory has evolved a little since caveman times. >>What do you think teachers, parents and bosses do? Either threaten or use carrot and stick?<< --That's why our system is falling apart. Human beings will organize around hierarchical leaders for a while if there is an external threat. But in the modern system, threats must constantly be created or cultivated in order to justify the hierarchical structure that is based on stress, fear and denial. There are people who have learned to organize themselves in better ways, relying on the natural human need to contribute and to be part of a thriving collective. Some of those people can motivate millions without using force, and with incentives that are enjoyable and produce pride rather than envy. Again, look at Oprah. She mentions a book that changed her life, and millions of people buy the book,

changing their own lives, the life of the author, and giving hope to aspiring authors that a good idea at the right time can change the world for the better. Oprah doesn't have to threaten or buy anyone's loyalty. She cracked the code for fame and wealth, not by bullying her way to the top, but by inspiring others by allowing them to inspire her. Alternatives to the discipline-and-punish model is not only possible, but practiced and proven. Why is there even a debate as to which is the better way?>>The whole idea is to accept someone as they now are...no need to push them anywhere.<< --I'm glad you accept me as I am and have no desire to change my mind. Because it's not going to change until my current thinking proves wrong. So good so far. >>I will never convince you...you will not change human nature or get people to behave as you wish them to...That is realism. What is NOW.<< --Yes, Sensei. It's time for humanity to change. NOW. Learn to swim or sink like a stone (did I mention I prefer my platitudes in lyric form?). Nature is telling us, it's time. C. Lockharthttp://www.soulaquarium.netYahoo! Messenger: grailsnailBlog: http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/"The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads." -- Carl Jung"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Aird"LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS - NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE." -- Unknown __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Dan says: >>America will collapse regardless, as all regimes eventually do. The question is, when?<< --That's just the spirit and vision I've come to expect from American Conservatives. Just kidding. Some conservatives aren't like that. >>I had in mind in particular Dawson and those like him, who eschew religion in favor of their own pet faiths, but at the same time wish to rely on "universal human rights."<< --Is it your opinion that the universe can only make a verdict on human nature and culture if it's governed by a deity? If I loosen all the bolts in a car, nature will say, "Sorry, you aren't going to get very far in that thing". Same thing happens to societies, and there is no objective reason to assume a deity behind it all. Maybe nature just wants us to survive. Not forever, but for a while. Maybe we haven't loosened all our bolts. Maybe there's

time to change. But only those who take the risk to change are saved from the "dustbin of history" (kudos to Bush's speechwriter for that poetic and possibly alchemical metaphor) >>Jettison God, jettison rights - one is as "metaphysical" as the other.<< --How did one metaphysical concept become equally valid to every other metaphysical concept? That would only hold true if one is a thinking type with intuition as the inferior function, or a feeling type raised to believe certain religious groups or beliefs are contaminating influences. >>I say that justice exists when each gets "his own" - ie, what is suitable for him. Not that it is easy or even possible to bring that about - but that's the goal.<< --I think we agree on that point. Freedom of religion being an example. I get my freedom to worship any deity I want, or no deity, and you get

the same freedom, and if anyone tries to take that freedom away from us, we stop them. That is instinctive behavior, and very much in alignment with the "will of nature", with or without a moral deity behind it.>>Hmmm. ... that actually almost sounds too pleasant to be just.<< --The notion that justice always involves violent retaliation is an unjust concept, one that has oppressed millions and done so much damage to the world, it's a wonder we put up with it. We ought to put that concept to death, put it out of its misery and do what works instead. If fear of retaliation or punishment were enough to keep society duct-taped together, there would be so much "justice" in Iraq we'd be put to shame, what with all our understanding and tolerance. .>>But a "natural right"?<< --One that, if violated, destabilizes a social system, leading to collapse. Or one that all people want

for themselves, whether or not they're willing to extend them to others. "Do not what is hateful to yourself". >>But why not just say that it is prudent to allow free citizens to own guns, and leave it at that?<< --I don't think owning guns is a "natural right". But freedom is, and it may well be prudent to allow people to own guns, in order to protect their freedoms. I certainly wouldn't demand that all Iraqis give up their guns, they don't want to feel unsafe and at risk, although there's not much one can do about a suicide bomber with a vehicle. In the US, I'd say there's minimal chance of the government oppressing people to the point of armed revolt, and minimal chance of armed invasion by another military power. There is, however, violent crime, and I wouldn't deprive someone of a weapon if it makes them feel safer. An armed public is a deterrent to crime in a way the death penalty is not. It's

an immediate threat, invokes uncertainty, and delivers "punishment" immediately and without appeal. Drawn-out court cases, violent and soul-numbing prison environments and other delayed punishments do not work, are extremely inhumane, and produce more, not less crime. So I make a crystal clear distinction between self-defense and punishment. If you have to kill someone to stay alive, you have my permission. If you advocate killing people for crimes they committed years ago, there we disagree.>>Perhaps marriage will once again become something for the elite - could be worse, I suppose.<< --How could that possibly happen? If people don't trust the government, marriage becomes more of a social or religious institution, which it SHOULD be. Why would the government be qualified to decide who should or shouldn't marry? If it were up to me, I would give tax credits to people raising children, married or not. I would not allow

secular law to define a religious institution. Different religious groups have different opinions on gay marriage, and no church should be forced to perform them. But religious groups that value love over dogma should not be forced to STOP gay marriages, because that is a violation of religious freedoms. And yes, that also means polygamy is a religious institution and not the government's business, unless someone's rights are being violated. Forcing kids to marry is a violation of right. Adult, consensual polygamy is none of my business, and none of the government's business. I believe my view is consistent and would reduce tensions over links between government and religion. Trying to force one moral code on everyone only works if the code is based on the notion of consent and the need for voluntary contracts to be made without interference. >>Heterosexual shacking has already lost most of the shame attached to it (though I do note that many

people still describe their shack-up partners as "fiance's", although they may have been together for many years, with no real plans to marry - that suggests at least a residuum of shame)<< --The problem with shame is that it distracts from doing what is right. Is it wrong for people to "shack up"? Only to some. Again, none of the government's business. Priests can judge all they want, although it's hypocritical and ironic given the teachings of Jesus. But the government should not be in that business. I simply don't CARE if being married is right for someone else or not. I need to know what's right for me, not bully someone else (with or without the force of law behind me) into adopting my moral code. >>I will say this - there would appear to be no argument that can be made in favor of "gay marriage" that could not with at least equal validity be made for polygamy.<< --I agree.

My view is consistent -- adult consensual behavior is not my problem, and it's not the government's problem. No one has the right to tell anyone they must marry against their will (ok, they can say it, but not enforce it), and no one has the right to tell anyone they must not marry the person they love. Polygamy may or may not be harmful (I suspect it's only harmful if it involves forced marriage or child marriage), but alcohol is harmful and we don't ban it, nor should we. Some things must be up to the individual. You know, the freedom thing. What our nation was supposedly based on, back in the day. C. Lockharthttp://www.soulaquarium.netYahoo! Messenger: grailsnailBlog: http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/"The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads." -- Carl Jung"If you can't be a good example, then

you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Aird"LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS - NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE." -- Unknown __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Dan says: >>Easy divorce has certainly been a disaster.<< --Actually, I hear it's the difficult divorces that are hardest on the children. Paperwork may be the least of their problems. I'm sure we could agree, if not on whether people should be legally or socially punished for falling out of love and following their heart or sanity out of a marriage (it's not like people just leave marriages because they have a low attention span), on the need for maturity and mutual understanding, inside or outside of marriage. It is hostility, blame and loyalty games that make divorce ugly for kids, and all of that can happen inside a marriage, and frequently does before it leads to divorce. Children need to know that everyone sees everyone, including them. If there is hostility in a marriage or a breakup, the kids absorb the energy and get scared, feeling something is deeply wrong. That wrong is

not necessarily divorce, it is more likely a product of people fighting and punishing each other, unable to see the other person because of the pain and sense of betrayal. I think adding shame and blame to the issue only feeds the pattern of retaliation inside and outside a marriage, making one partner wrong and the other righteous, and the kids feeling lost and alone, unable to take sides and stuck in the middle. Imagine how that experience might affect a child's understanding of justice -- as a punishment that divides the family and kills a piece of everyone in the process. Is it a surprise that we are collectively obsessed with blame, punishment and making other people wrong? In a way, I agree with you that divorce could destroy civilization (I don't think gay marriage could, although it might up the bar for lavish weddings). But I'd like to widen the issue, and make it about divisions in the heart, in neighborhoods and in the world,

whether those divisions are a product of difficult marriages and divorces, or social segregation, marginalization of the elderly, abandonment of ethics, elitism, inappropriate self-interest in business, the two party political division, the "culture wars", or the ridiculous lack of knowledge many Americans have about the Middle East, and vice versa. We've been collectively divorcing ouselves from each other. Even difficult marriages can be less toxic than some of the anger over politics, bullying and secrecy on high levels of government and business, or death threats against a Rabbi for wanting to include a Menorah in a Christmas display at the airport. That last one reeks of irony... a lot of Christians seem angry (in some pretty un-christian ways, some of them) at the "political correctness" of people who want Christmas displays to be inclusive rather than exclusively Christian... the trees are a pagan artifact, noted... at least pagans are

represented by default. But death threats are the ultimate form of political correctness. What kind of tunnel vision does one have to develop in order to consider the Rabbi or airport people "politically correct bullies" but not to recognize and be outraged by death threats and racist comments directed at the Rabbi? Hypocrisy, anyone? I remember Jesus not being real happy about that sort of thing. Perhaps this will teach Christians to be a little more Christlike toward their political "enemies". Turn the other cheek, even. I get a little suspicious of a nation that claims religious values are a requirement of civilization, but refuse to actually follow the teachings of the religion they're valuing so conspicuously and zealously. But the star represents Bethlehem, which has specifically Christian significance... and the word "Christmas", which doesn't offend Muslims, although the number of checkpoints one has to go through to get

from Nazareth to Bethlehem, does offend. It's weird what we get outraged by as a society and what we can look away from comfortably. At least there is some shared outrage by conservative and liberal Christians alike at genocide in Darfur. That's inspiring to me... Catholics, protestants, secularists, all united not out of a shared fear of Kerry or Hillary Clinton, but out of a deep humanitarian outrage over ethnic cleansing and mass murder. I think we're improving our game a little, we divided Americans and earthlings. __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Dan says: >>Only a deity (or other personal being) can "say" anything. Nature "says" things only metaphorically - it doesn't really say anything. There is just causality and that's it.<< --That's why nature gave us God. The voice of nature, in a human-like form (yes, it can actually take the form of words heard in the brain, but then so does our inner imaginary voice, and the two can become confused). Ever wonder why God allows tribalism and genocide and then turns around and enables people to unite against tribalism and genocide? We haven't fully distinguished the God of humanity from the half-God of nature stumbling through the process of becoming fully human. When Moses murdered Midianite children, he believed he was following God's will. What he allegedly did (if we trust the Bible) was more the will of God's shadow, back when God had serious shadow projection issues. I think Jung wrote some

stuff about that, but I haven't read much of it.>>Again, absent a deity, nature does not "want." It is dead, just as the moderns assume.<< --"Dead"? You're calling a massive, miraculous tangle of living, breathing plants, animals and human beings, with even the dead bodies feeding life processes and even the most dead of dead things alive with energy, gravity, quantum puzzles, color, form and texture DEAD? What is your mind doing to you?? Open your eyes. Nothing is "dead" in the sense you're using. You're projecting fear of death ONTO nature and thinking it's dead, not superior and saved from nature like we think we are or need to be.>>My scare quotes were to indicate that I was using "metaphysical" the way moderns typically use it - to mean something completely made up and unreal" --The computer I'm typing on was made up and once unreal. Now it's real. Don't be so

quick to dismiss the power of myth and metaphor. Jesus made up parables about unreal people, and those parables contain not only valid concepts, but were considered by some to be the foundation of Western civilization. Pretty damn cool, for something Jesus made up. >>(don't forget that moderns say that everything that is, is natural, such that it is even meaningless to say that something is "unnatural")<< --I think that's a bit like calling everything "food", since everything ends up eaten by something, including planets eaten by suns, black holes, etc. I'd use the word "natural" as distinguished from technological or manmade. Humans are natural, they didn't create themselves from scratch according to their own problem-solving algorithms and capcity for cultural information exchange. My computer is part of the universe, and in that sense is "natural" (maybe there should be two words for this... it's

like "Jew" as a religious, then an ethnic, then a cultural term, without consistency). But my computer is manmade (or womanmade, not sure which) and unnatural in that it has components which won't degrade in the same way or require the same treatment as natural waste in a compost heap. >>Nothing could be less "instinctive. " Instinct "says" :-), you will worship and obey the gods of the tribe, or we will eject or kill you.<< --Not quite. Nature says, "If the group is uniting against an enemy, pull in with the crowd or you'll get hurt by both sides". Culture says "Allahu Akbar" or "Islam is a Satanic religion". We instinctively USE religious symbols to perpetuate tribal schisms, but only to the point where the division backfires and unity is required for survival. It's instinctive for enemies to overcome their divisions in order to prevent disaster or defeat by a shared enemy. Which leads to some pretty interesting

behavior when religious groups that are deeply divided by symbols suddenly become allies in a campaign of some kind. Protestant conservatives who thought Catholicism or the US government was the Beast of Revelation seemed to have little problem showing Christlke brotherhood toward Catholics and toward the US government, when the enemy was Kerry or Islamofascists. In effect, the world is being invaded by types of warfare that are unbearable to human beings, because they unermine the goals of their instincts. Instincts want survival, of the individual and the group that protects the individual. If tribalism and the instinct for war makes survival impossible for everyone, what happens? Everyone unites. Doesn't matter what religion they believe in, what political idelogy is their sacred cow, what they hate about Ann Coulter or Hillary Clinton, or whether they watch Fox or CNN. Nature may say "unite, or die" as the damage done to

civilians by terrorism, nuclear or biological weapons and gobal warming is felt by more and more people, and some will experience the voice of nature as the voice of God or Satan, depending on whether it feels good to withdraw shadow projection or threatens one's sense of specialness, superiority and rightness. The same thing happened when Jesus upset the status quo, requiring Jews, Romans and others to re-evaluate their relationship to shadow and to their enemy. "Love your enemy" was, and still is, a radical teaching, rejected by conservative establishments almost universally. Enemies are united in their tendency to project shadow and escalate entanglements produced by shadow. Extremists on both sides of a conflict will poison both sides with political correctness ("If you love your enemy, you're a traitor and you'll get hurt" is one of the more extreme forms of PC, practiced by people on many sides of many conflicts) and draw the masses into wars that do

not serve their natural, instinctual self-interest. At some point, people on all sides of the "culture wars" and the "clash of civilizations" (talk about scare quotes!) will unite in explling extremism and the divisions they use as vehicles for their own power. That doesn't mean everyone will give up their religion or culture or language to assimilate into a global melting pot (that only happens with intermarriage and relaxing of social boundaries), but it does mean it will no longer be possible to assume God hates the same people we do, or to inflame fear and hatred in crowds the way political and religious leaders have when it served them. >>Most people don't know their own interest.<< --That's one reason they attempt to judge or control the interests of others. >>If I pay my bills on time, that is just, and it has nothing to do with retribution, violent or

otherwise.<< --It is just because you are not making the company pay for your own use of energy. Justice does not have to be violent, and in fact violence rarely produces justice, and often backfires and produces more injustice than the original offense.>>Nietzsche argues at length that such violence has contributed positively and even necessarily to the development of man. Is he wrong? Are we sure?<< --Probably everything, maybe without exception, ends up producing SOME positive consequences. The issue for us living, judging beings is to find actions that produce more good than harm, and that is not always easy. One reason God says, "Let me judge the person. Love the sinner and condemn the sin". The problem is, even people who believe in God will judge the sinner while excusing the sin on their own side. When an Israeli settler commits a hateful act toward a Palestinian, many

if not most Israelis immediately focus on the last act of hatred by a Palestinian extremist. If each side judges the other to be "evil" rather than condemning acts of hatred by ANYONE, what happens? Escalating shadow entanglement, leading eventualy to ethnic cleansing, suicide bombings or some other atrocity. Young males are especially prone to proving their manhood by falling into the shadow field, and females are prone to directing the rage of males outward so they don't fight each other, making peace by displacing the consequences of hatred. It's one of the most toxic patterns in human culture, derived from natural, tribalistic impulses, but accelerated and equipped with modern machinery, media manipulation and psychology. >>Speaking of Iraq, I have been reading in the media arguments to the effect that the Iraqis are worse off now than before Saddam was deposed<< --Probably true, but not something

the Bush team would have considered when it would have affected decision-making. We can consider it now, but we have to act from where we are. Iraqis are suffering and we promised to help them. We may or may not be able to make a difference militarily or diplomatically. It may require something on the civilian level to pressure governments into changing their policy and plans. Saddam is no longer the problem, and his trial is for the most part entertainment. Putting him to death will change little, as death is no longer a punishment for guilt in Iraq, but a punishment for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Same thing can happen in gang neighborhoods, whether or not the death penalty is used against drive-by shooters. If you're going to die young anyway, why not prove you were the baddest on the block and do some damage to your enemy, or your enemy's children, in the process? Wish we had more psychologists in Congress... aside from

media psychologists, I mean. If the psychology applied at high levels is based on manipulation and marketing rather than conflict resolution and shadow integration, we get lots of niche marketing and focus-group tested language, but it's always a leader using somone else's words in a way that is calculated to get emotional responses rather than thinking in the audience. We haven't yet gotten to the root of the problem, still on our quest to kill shadow by removing some group or another from the equation. >>I am reminded of Plutarch's statement to the effect that the people will always trade liberty for physical security; 'nuff said.<< --Agreed. When people are afraid of being misled, they tend to attach themselves to one leader and reject all other sources of information, while the leader brands all competition as "appeasers", "traitors" or "fools". So they give up liberty, hoping the leader will stick it to their

enemy, if not make the public safer.>>Secondly, I am reminded of the American civil war, fought because of chattel slavery, a tryannical practice.<< --Some say slavery was only an issue that was pulled into it, one reason among many. But the campaign against slavery, although it took thousands of years for the world to agree (more or less) to end it, did succeed. The work of scattered individuals who listened to conscience eventually coalesced into a political base strong enough to force the issue. Tyranny collapses when the experience of the oppressed finally shows up in the awareness of ordinary people whose habitualactions support the oppressor. >>Should we have foregone the war and accepted the tyranny in order to preserve peace and prosperity?<< --I'd say it just depends. I would not force free elections in Pakistan. Musharraf is infinitely

better than some of the alternatives. He is a pragmatic authoritarian leader, as opposed to a dogmatic one. A pragmatic tyrant will say "Do what is required for the country to survive, or else". A dogmatic one will say "Do it because God says so." If the tyrant is doing what really is required for the nation to remain stable, that may be preferable to a freely elected dogmatic tyrant who wants God to destroy the infidels, and believes God is putting him in the driver's seat.>>In the words of the philosopher Glenn Fry (I think it's Glenn Fry), the wolf is *always* at the door.<< --The wolf is always at someone's door. If it's always at YOUR door, you either live in a really crappy neighborhood, or you haven't dealt with shadow. >>Who wants to mess with fifty million armed men who will live free or die?<< --Good point. Although, Iraqis have loved

their guns for a long time, and fear of getting shot doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent there. Partly because so many people are shooting, you get shot whether or not you're shooting.>>I will also, if necessary, kill someone to protect my property, with or without your permission; this due to recent change in AZ law.<< --It would be due to a decision you make in your mind, not to AZ law. The change in law will only give you more ammunition to convince yourself you're right to shoot. And I would not punish you, although I might spend some time talking to the trespasser's family, and perhaps send you photos of his grandmother, so you know that all desisions have consequences beyond the immediate solution to a problem. If it were up to me, I would not kill someone unless I believed my life, or somone else's life, was in immediate danger and the only reliable form of defense available were

to kill. I would still have to deal with the pychological effects on myself of making that decision, and that might take time, so I gravitate toward alternatives.>>If I ran up a phone bill twenty years ago and then skipped town, don't you think I should pay it now?<< --Should, yes. Or do something in the present that would do as much good. Sometimes justice travels a strange path before things are resolved. You can't bring the dead back to life, and some people believe the only positive action that can be taken is to take the perpetrator's life (oddly, we feel cheated when he take his own life and delivers justice after delivering suffering). But there are ways to carry justice forward that are saner, and I think every religion hints at that possibility. Reconciliation between Israelis and Arabs would be justice. What's happening now, tit for tat and escalation, is not justice, but it's done with "justice" as an

attached label. Injustice tends to replicate over time with perpetrator and victim roles swapped, which is also a problem. >>You have property (old money) to protect, you want to strengthen the family with good alliances, you have money for a nice wedding (middle class types here), you want protection from abandonment, etc. you get married. otherwise, you just shack up. Just like the old days.<< --Right. So let the rich marry to protect their assets, and suffer the deadening effects of a marriage made for ulterior motives. I'd rather be married for love, companionship, etc. I have no money, no assets to protect. So human bonds mean quite a bit to me, and aren't just arrangements made to protect havings. >>Love in a marriage is nice as lagniappe, and often occurs, but it is not necessary to marriage.<< --Love isn't necessary if you want to get married. A gay man and a gay

woman can marry each other legally, as some conservatives point out. An immigrant can marry to get citizenship. Some call those "sham marriages". I wouldn't judge them for it, but really, I'd rather marry someone I enjoy being with. Being married only because your boss might think you're a bad person if you get divorced, doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me. And my first commitment is to caring about other people, not protecting my own ass, so fear of being looked down upon isn't really on my agenda. If I'm in a marriage, it's because I love someone and care about her feelings. She'd be hurt if I left. Why would I care if Jerry Falwell thinks divorce is evil? Would anyone feel good if their mate said, "I don't love you, I love someone else. But for the sake of our marriage, which is purely for convenience and conformity at thi point, I'll remain married to you."? Honesty isn't compatible with that kind of marriage. I'd put honesty first, so that my mate could find an

arrangement based on love, something she'd value a lot more than my commitment to conformity or pressure by law. To me, that would be the more moral decision. And I'd let the gay man and gay woman marry people they love, too. I'd rather they be happy than put on a show for society's approval. >>Both exist for a political purpose.<< --If marriage is purely political, of COURSE it's going to unravel at times of political polarization, mistrust of leaders, and economic instability. It's a fragile foundation. Lesbian couples, on the other hand, marry generally for love, and tend to have marriages that last longer than the average Protestant fundamentalist. Catholics do pretty well too. If people want to promote marriage, study marriages that last without coercion. >>Good morality is not based on consent, but on justice.<< --If you come into my house and take my TV

set, that's theft. If I invite you in and give the TV to you as a gift, it's not a crime. The key difference is consent. Justice exists because consent exists. >>Yeah, like their children - the ones who, for example, get sexually abused by the concatenation of "step-fathers" that move through the house of the (quite literally) tax-fattened, slattern mother. I see it every day.<< --"Tax-fattened, slattern mother"? If you see them in the course of your job, get another job. You're not the right person for it. But you are right that step-fathers are statistically more likely to abuse step-children. And Iike your poetic phrase, "concatenation of step-fathers". But consider one of the puzzles faced by the mother: if you're not married, you can be preyed upon, but if you don't have sex with men you're dating, they are likely to move on, feeling pushed away and tempted by easier "game". To make matters worse, some men judge

you for your past, making you feel like you have no options but to scrape the bottom of the barrel, to settle for a guy with a job, or one who isn't too critical. If you were to find yourself in her shoes, what actions would you take? Not asking here what actions YOU would take, but what you would do if you had her history, and were seen as she is seen by others. Easy to say, "Get a job" to someone who keeps losing opportunities because the boss says "Jesus, another tax-fattened slattern. Do we even have a cubicle big enough for her ass? Get someone else." Some people say Sodom was destroyed not because the Queer Eye guys drove around in a chariot giving makeovers to straight men, but because time was money, money was blood and blood was cheap. We're treating human beings as if they are wasting our time, and then they bleed, and then we blame them and throw them out of our minds for being such a bloody waste of time. >>Jesus

was apolitical. Religion is very political - that's its job. The hypocrisy, as you call it, is totally necessary.<< --Hypocrisy unravels and backfires by nature. It just takes a little time for truth to catch up with lies of convenience. Religion is political, and Jesus was very political. He did not advocate armed revolution against Rome, knowing he wouldn't last long that way. He did point out the hypocrisy of religious leaders corrupted by politics, and that's why he's still hanging on that cross thingy. It's a reminder to all of us, "Don't fuck with the old boys' club. We'll nail you." The truth fucks with everybody, and that's why we view it as expendable, and why it comes back like a moquito to drain us of self-certainty, and why we must resist truth at all costs -- it will weaken us, shame us and invite reprisals by our enemies and rivals. Stamp it out. Out! Out, I say! Why isn't it working? What do you mean I'm a liar?

You're a liar! Where's my gun? Isn't hypocrisy FUN?> No one has the right to tell anyone they must marry against their will > (ok, they can say it, but not enforce it), and no one has the right to > tell anyone they must not marry the person they love.>>I can't go along with that.<< --Which part? That no one has the right to force somone to marry, or that no one has the right to tell people not to marry? You do have the right to tell people not to marry, and I have a right to tell you you don't have the right to do that. But neither of us has the right to force people to marry, which is probably a good thing. >>Prudence imposes limits, but in "theory" (as they say) there is no reason not to ban alcohol.<< --But I'm guessing that trying to ban alcohol isn't as exciting an issue to many conservatives as trying to ban gay marriage. Any reason

why? Alcohol is implicated in domestic violence (the step-father you mentioned earlier is probably an alcoholic), drunk driving deaths, and numerous divorces. If the gay couple down the street gets married, they're probably not killing anyone or breaking up YOUR marriage or anyone else's. So it seems to me you have a bit of a perspective problem here... if I were to ban either alcohol or gay marriage, I'd put alcohol MUCH higher on my list, because of the damage it can cause or aggravate. Of course, the law tells me I can't smoke pot, and that's never stopped me before. Really, ethics are internalized, they're not a product of pressure by law. Peer pressure can make a difference, but I'm not sure I'd want to be deeply involved with groups that want to ban gay marriage and drink a lot of beer. Everyone drinks vodka in Ukraine and they drive like maniacs, but they tend to oppose gay marriage. Very strange, what culture and habit do to the

mind. >>The freedom thing, as I see it, is about living according to law you helped make yourself (even if only by representation) , free (and this is the big thing) from foreign domination.<< --"All enemies, foreign and domestic..." Not just foreign domination, but I agree with you. Freedom involves living by the laws you are willing to live by, which gives maximal freedom without enabling people to use that freedom to dominate others. I think we're both very "American" in that way. Freedom is our banner, and we need to keep our word and represent the spirit of freedom. We can't bully others into being free, but we can inspire them. Our culture appears worldwide, and in some of the remotest parts of the world it's not all that shocking if someone shows up wearing a t-shirt with some American band or brand logo. We really should be using that power to inspire people to take their freedom back from

tyrants, rather than trying to occupy anarchic hellholes after removing a dictator who holds sectarian or ethnic tensions in check. Man (and perhaps it is man, more than woman, given representation ratios in politics and on corporate boards) is not quite wise enough to judge the world, even by God's standards and with godlike technology. >>And that could certainly include laws against alcohol and other drugs, fornication, usury, gay marriage, and a host of other things. Freedom is not do-your-own- thingism.<< --Well, I'm pretty sure you're not going to get a fornication ban through legislature. Gay marriage, maybe, since most Senators aren't gay and don't plan to be. But fornication... I dunno, I think you might run into serious hypocrisy issues. The freedom to fornicate is not guaranteed in the Constitution, at last not named specifically as a right, but that freedom is protected by the

hypocrisy-backlash effect. Someone endorsing an anti-fornication bill would almost immediately be exposed by a hooker or ex-lover, tainting the bill and leading to its early demise. Jesus invoked this principle too, when he overruled a stoning mob before it could kill a woman accused of adultery. He said, "He who is without sin, cast the first stone." Brilliant move. The first guy to throw stones is always the one with something to hide. So there are ways to protect freedom that don't involve a formal, legal process. Jesus didn't challenge the adultery law in court, he simply saw a woman suffering and afraid, and did what was most effective and efficient in saving her life. That invokes a higher law, one most people in power and most followers of power don't understand. Still works, though. C. Lockharthttp://www.soulaquarium.netYahoo! Messenger: grailsnailBlog:

http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/"The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads." -- Carl Jung"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Aird"LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS - NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE." -- Unknown __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Toni says: >>Talk all around each case as you do, it is full of assumptions, judgments, shoulds and coulds. When you speak for others you have no idea.<< --I'm going to ask you to hold that thought, and allow it to have an effect on your conversations with others. This debate does not have to end with me, and I have some other things happening that are starting to cut into my email time. Merry Christmas, Toni. __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Dan says: >>What I mean, of course, is that it is generally better if parents are "encouraged" by strict divorce laws to go ahead and tough it out instead of divorcing. "Staying together for the sake of the children," this used to be called in better times.<< --Better times, for whom? If I were a child, I'd be hurt to know my parents stayed together not out of love for each other, but out of fear of hurting me. I'd feel guilty. It would ruin my concept of marriage. Let's not forget that those marriages that stayed together without love produced kids who grew up so disillusioned with marriage that they went to the opposite extreme, then back, and so on. Doing aything out of fear of what people will think or fear of hurting someone whose needs totally replace your own, eventually leads to burnout. I'd rather my parents be happy, together or not together, and I think it's most important that kids know they are

loved and taken care of, whether or not the parents can stand living together. But if protecting marriage is your first priority, then by all means, support with your time or money any marriage counselling program that works, so that people with no money can get the help they need to stay together. Don't just use the issue to bash liberals or liberal beliefs, as some conservatives have. One beautiful irony of the gay marriage debate is that conservative Protestants have one of the higher divorce rates. Perhaps the same righteous indignation that energizes the religious right is not terribly conducive to good communication in marriage? >>Of course, for this to work, it presupposes a basic decency on the part of the parents that is these days evidently often lacking.<< --Or maybe our entire social system is just so full of anger and indignation that we no longer

know how to listen to each other. Hence, failed marriages. >>Falling out of love is irrelevant.<< --To a thinking type. Not everyone is a thinking type, and not everyone shares your belief in loveless marriage. >>Following their heart is irrelevant. What matters is duty.<< --Marriage is not quite the same as boot camp (insert obligatory joke). The problem here is that if you were to be honest and say, "I am in this marriage out of duty. I feel nothing for you, but be reassured I won't leave you, because I don't want to be one of those lousy, no-good bums who leave their marriages", your spouse might not feel so impressed by your sense of duty. If it >>The answer, it seems to me, is to bring up children not to behave badly, so that, as adults, they will not behave badly.<< --That's a great idea. Unfortunately,

a lot of parents who believe kids need to be "good little girls and boys" behave violently, verbally or physically, toward their kids in attempting to teach them manners. That doesn't work well. Kids imitate the actions of their parents, and they imitate the language of their parents, but the two don't have to be consistent. Good parenting is more than having a set of beliefs about what it means to be good... it means being good, and it's so easy to justify abuse under the banner of "discipline". >>It is just this sort of flippancy about one of the two or three most important problems currently facing us (vastly more important than global warming, for example) that makes me inclined to despair of this issue, and just to circle the wagons.<< --Circle the wagons if you want, but you'll just find yourself out of the loop. You could always join one of those underground militias that bunker in for Armageddon because they see

the world as such a corrupting, sinful place. I'll accept that you feel divorce is more of a problem than global warming... perhaps you could start a program to develop floating, solar-powered marriage counselling centers? >>Oh, mercy. I will only say that ethics requires elitism. Abandonment of elitism puts us on the road to social disintegration.<< --If that's how you want it, fine. I'm the elite. I think faster than you, and I am connected to dozens of others who collectively have more influence than you ever will. How does that feel? I'm prepared to be equal to you, but if you push for elitism, what makes you think *your* people will be the elites? Rethink your position, because if elitism is the game, the players who win won't be the ones wearing your team shirt. Fortunately, the people who would even remotely qualify in my mind as "elites" don't believe in elitism. They're a bit wiser than that. Elitism is ego. Real power exists in social networks and the quality of information they channel. Individuals only surf on the power that existed before they arrived. Anyone who realizes that is likely to give up elitism, and work toward better information distribution and social software. Alpha males who think it's all about being king are disempowered by free distribution of information, because when they're wrong, everybody can see it. J>>Regarding the Middle East, it is for the elites to understand, and to lead the people.<< --That's how we got to this point. Dictators thinking they knew what was best for people they had no personal connection to. Those dictators gravitated to positions of wealth and power, and the United States supported many of them with money, weapons and collaboration in regional power games. Therefore, we are hated. Not because of our freedoms (Arabs like American TV and

music as much as we do) but because of our elitism and unwillingness to support popular democratic movements in the Middle East. We feared giving up tyrants in Arab nations would lead to chaos. Then we removed Saddam (after supporting him against Iran) and there was chaos. Tyranny builds up pressure. In the US, after we broke from England, we did a lot of nasty things, owned slaves, killed indians, fought each other. Democracy is better because it harnesses decentralized power, the opposite of elite power. When we have supported elite power, it's backfired. Now we say democracy must come to the Middle East. And that may be true... but it's going to be messier than it would have been if we hadn't been so elitist in our foreign policy.>>All the more reason for the family to be a refuge from an (inevitably, forever and ever amen) uncaring world, don't you think?<< --It's those without families I'm concerned about. I have

a great family. Not worried about myself. >>You are attacking a straw man. One worthless anthropos threatens a rabbi, and suddenly he is representative of Christiandom? Come on.<< --It was several death threats, and if they had come from extremist Muslims, what do you think the reaction would have been? There are Christians who actually "walk the walk", love their enemy, forgive debts and so on. I just don't meet a lot of them... instead I meet people who CALL themselves Christian while insulting their opponents, working for material gain, or accusing secularists of destroying civilation. >>The gods have to support the city. Introduce strange, foreign gods, and who knows what will happen?<< --Democracy? Freedom of religion is one of the first basic rights acknowledged in the Constitution. I think I can get behind that freedom, and defend it from all enemies,

foreign and domestic. I believe people who serve in various institutions of duty take an oath to that effect. Good for them! But I like your "foreign gods dilemma". Almost like the introduction of foreign species to ecosystems that can't handle them. But I think xenophobia cannot be blamed on religious beliefs, it is a reaction to the fear of being displaced or suffocated by people who don't share your priorities. That can happen between two groups allegedly following the same deity, like Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, or Sunni and Shia Muslims in Iraq. Even with the same deity, there are arguments about what that deity wants, and who should have power in said deity's name. It's not about gods, it's about which group gets to use which gods to enforce their will and their agenda. The Founding Fathers seem to have understood that problem and took steps to prevent it.>>It is not weird to acknowledge that we have enemies, or to be suspicious of those who

look like them and come from the same places and follow the same faith.<< --But it is weird to think your immediate emotional reaction is necessarily reliable. Most people have racial bias, probably most of it unconscious. That does not mean they are going to endorse racism or make it into law. We have enemies (that is, people who want to punish us for our sins, real or imagined), but we will lose against them if we don't learn enough about Islamic and Arab cultures to distinguish potential allies from potential enemies. We Americans tend to be ignorant about other cultures, but we learn fast and have the capacity to change our beliefs when they no longer serve us. At the moment, most terrorism is probably carried out by extremist Arabs and/or Muslims, but racial or religious profiling will only produce terrorists who use unexpected carriers, planting bombs on unsuspecting old ladies, or whatever they come up with. It won't work for us

to get paranoid about anyone wearing a burqa or carrying a quran. That will just tell the terrorists that they're doing a good job, since their goal is to turn ordinary Muslims against the US, convincing them that we don't care about their needs, don't respect their gods, and won't make peace. We've been giving terrorists a propaganda advantage, and shame on us for that. C. Lockharthttp://www.soulaquarium.netYahoo! Messenger: grailsnailBlog: http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/"The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads." -- Carl Jung"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Aird"LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS - NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE." -- Unknown __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Dan says: >> The thing is, the criminals is supposed to lose his freedom, his agency. He, having proved himself a natural slave, is to become a slave in fact - subject to our will, not his own.<< --That mindset would necessarily lead to more crime. I don't want anyone to be my slave. I want people to learn from their actions, and that does not happen if you take away agency. Instead, you produce criminals who blame society for their circumstances rather than learning from their mistakes. Believe me, criminals aren't going to fear you if you hide behind the authority of the state and punish them from a safe distance. >>When he takes his own life, he exerts his own agency and cheats us.<< --"Us"? Speak for yourself. I get no pleasure from a criminal being put to death, or killing himself. Either way, violence wins over humanity. >>Hence he must be prevented from suicide.<< --"Must"? Where does this "must" come from? I must have missed the memo.>>Have you been married? Do you know the answer to the question, Do I look fat in this?, lol.<< --The correct answer is "to me, yes" if you actually think she looks fat. The wrong answer is, "No, of course not". That produces women who don't know if anyone is being honest with them, therefore they have to ask over and over, driving men crazy. Not that it's easy to be honest. Hypocrisy is rampant. Trying to spare someone's self esteem with dishonesty only leads to lower self esteem later on, so the real purpose in lying is to prevent your spouse from seeing you as a bad person. If you're projecting shadow, you can't tolerate being put in the "bad guy" position, but that creates new problems. >>Catholics do well precisely

because Catholicism frowns on divorce.<< --Protestant conservatives also frown on divorce. But they have a higher divorce rate. It's not the beliefs. It's something else. The most consistent predictor of divorce is the male not accepting influence from the female. Perhaps there is more of the feminine in Catholicism, and more fear in men of accepting the influence of women among Protestant males. It's not enough to condemn divorce. People condemn a lot of things. It's just words. >>But theft is unjust regardless of consent.<< --If I consent to give you something I own, it's a gift. Consent makes a huge difference. It's possible for people to cosent to be punched repeatedly in the head. They call it boxing. Try that on the street without invitation, and you're in jail. >>But the first thing I do is avoid bad men - if that means celebacy forever, so be

it.<< --Yes, avoid anyone with a "Bad man" tattoo on his forehead. Of course, you know that "bad men", as you call them, almost universally project shadow onto other "bad men" and then attempt to save women from the other bad men. It's not nearly as simple as you seem to think. >>I finish school - GED if necessary.<< --Good teachers and mentors are important. It's finding one that takes work. Some people cannot pass a GED on their own, without a good teacher. Reduce teacher/student ratios until students can reasonably consider their teachers to be mentors, and you'll change the system. >>Overall, I adopt the habits, attitudes and values of the WASP, patriarchal, Connecticut upper-middle- class circa 1948. When I do, things get better in a hurry.<< --Better for whom? Patriarchy can be toxic

for some, and a lot of people don't feel very welcome, no matter how they dress or talk, in white upper class culture. It's always been possible for people to say, "If everyone was just willing to act like me, things would be great". That's never been a viable solution. Which things get better when you, personally, act like a WASP, and which values matter most in getting which results? >>Need a start? Watch the Huxtables on afternoon TV, and resolve to be as much like them as possible.<< --Yes. It's a wonder Brady Bunch didn't teach the 60's generation to behave, isn't it?>>Ethics = "habits," so in a sense you are right. But law (among other things) inculcates habits.<< --I believe that relying on habit for your ethical foundation is unethical. Law can inculcate rebellion, if it is inconsistent or

discriminatory.>>The "sexual revolution" was a freakin' disaster. Don't think I'm against it, though.<< --The more disastrous elements of the sexual revolution were a consequence of the extreme conformity and materialism of the 50's. Extremes constellate extremes. If you want people to have healthy relationships, stop making them everyone else's business, and give them access to counselling when they need help resolving conflicts. Working multiple jobs also erodes marriages, so it's good to have a lot of free time to work on the relationship and bond with family. Not everyone finds it so easy, espcially now with a flattening global economy.>>By this reasoning, anyone who ever smoked pot can't be against drug bans now. Yuppie parents won't warn their children against drugs because of the fear of "hypocrsiy," lol - the liberals' mortal sin.<< --I will note that you value

hypocrisy as a tool (one I believe backfires over time, destroying the immediate advantage of using it). But it's perfectly consistent to say, "I smoked pot, and enjoyed it, and I want you to know the health consequences of smoking any substance, so that you can make an informed decision. I don't expect you to do everything I've done, without knowing that there are risks." That's what I would say if I had kids. I wouldn't lie, and I wouldn't resort to hysterical claims about the dangers of drugs. Kids know that alcohol is more dangerous than pot. They've seen people drink, they've seen people smoke pot. They see the hypocrisy of lawmakers taking money from the tobacco and alcohol lobby while telling kids that pot is a gateway drug (alcohol and tobacco are THE gateway drugs, according to researchers). I have no problem with anyone using any drug as long as they aren't violating my rights in the process. I am consistent on the issue, and consistency is a requirement of

authority, or authority ends up a paper tiger, getting no respect and using fear to try to buy it back.>>When I was kid I street raced on occasion. If I now tell my nephew that street racing is stupid and wrong, am I a bad 'ole hypocrite?<< --Street racing carries a risk to the driver and to pedestrians. That remains true, no matter who has done it. So it's consistent to say, "I was stupid once and drove way too fast because I wanted to beat some other kid, and I put people at risk in the process. My advice is not to be as stupid as I was, I want this family to learn from mistakes". There is no hypocrisy in that position. Hypocrisy is condemning what you do yourself and refuse to be honest about, not conemning mistakes you've learned from. When conservative Protestants condemn gay marriage but are soft on straight divorce, that's hypocrisy. And it's almost guaranteed that they'll be soft on divorce, so as not to scare

away the sizeable number of divorced churchgoers who might switch congregations as a result. And of course, if the boss gets a divorce, it's his business... don't want to lose any money by condemning what the boss does. The underlying issue is not which moral code is the one and only correct way to live, but consistency. Consistent codes survive, inconsistent ones breed rebellion and shred the social and political fabric. If we consitently excuse the behavior of people who benefit us financially or politically while loudly condemning the behavior of political opponents or groups we don't have any connection with, things fall apart because of double standards. Authority ends up with no real power, and religion becomes a political tool devoid of authenticity or spiritual gravity. C. Lockharthttp://www.soulaquarium.netYahoo! Messenger: grailsnailBlog:

http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/"The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads." -- Carl Jung"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Aird"LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS - NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE." -- Unknown __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Toni says: >>Please have a joyous and happy Christmas. We are so blessed in a land without bombs falling or starvation beckoning.<< --We are very lucky. I have a feeling this Christmas will bring a lot of questioning about the balance of materialism and compassion in our culture. Maybe we'll even rediscover the meaning of "peace on earth", not as a holiday cliche, but something deeper. Merry Christmas (I use that greeting only because I can't spell chaunakk...haunik....channika... aw, hell. Merry Christmas!) C. Lockharthttp://www.soulaquarium.netYahoo! Messenger: grailsnailBlog: http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/"The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads." -- Carl Jung"If you can't be a good example, then you'll

just have to be a horrible warning." -- Aird"LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS - NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE." -- Unknown __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Toni says: >>Those who actually are the "elite" must hide from the general public so not to be stoned.<< --Probably true. "Elites" are generated by social networks, and elitism cuts people off from learning they desparately need, by isolating them from those who have some knowledge or connections and use their "elite" status to insulate themselves from the rest of the world. If those "elites" gain political power, they can do a lot of damage because they are so out of touch with aything or anyone outside their social web. Real elites are people who think and feel deeply. There's nothing special about them, except that their eyes and/or hearts are open. And they do tend to hide, knowing what happens to people who see too much and speak without holding their tongues. >>You have no idea of the conditions others live in and how it affects their

judgment of "getting ahead" in the American sense. It is middle class values that you have been inculcated with from earliest days.<< --I just spent a month in Ukraine, without working toilets or hot water most of the time. My values are a mixture of middle class security and poverty level resource juggling. I've spent a lot of time with people who have money, people who have no money, and people who don't care one way or the other about money. Let's not make assumptions about ourselves, here. >>There is little of that in the ghetto's and "inner city" because it is to most a "hopeless situation" and they see few possibilities of success.<< --What they see is that thinking long term doesn't make a person in that environment much safer or happier, and that those who are happy and empowered are often those who live in the moment. They also face a constant barrage of potential

threats and intrusions into their attention span, which makes academics more difficult and prevents clear thinking about complex, emotionally volatile circumstances. The natural gradient would be toward short-term evaluation of meaning, with community bonds difficult to keep alive because of the polarization between "moral voices" who judge and "rebels" who value freedom, and the inevitable conflicts over who gets to be boss and who has to adapt to someone else's game. There is no way money alone could change that, but changing communication flow and addressing short term and long term values without being judgmental or preachy about it can make a difference. Poverty is a social problem, amplified by economics. It's not purely a result of having no money, but of having no hope, as you said.>>Only your "superiority' in attitude to be a success would make you envision all people as people who know, judge,have the same outlook as WASP.<< --By "superiority" do you mean a higher quality of information processing, or a feeling that one is "better" than others? Sometimes people get very nonspecific when using words like "superior" and aren't clear about what it means to be superior, in what areas, at what time. It does't help to be a superior golfer if you're playing chess, or vice versa. Superiority depends on goals, which depend on context and values. Are there superior values? Yes, if you have goals that require a certain set of values to become possible. Are there superior ways of teaching value? Yes, and they're in very short supply, in poor and rich neighborhoods alike, although rich neighborhoods can afford a few top-notch teachers and programs that address the way kids really learn. The difficulty is in teaching teachers to teach value. >>Perhaps a job teaching in the inner city schools or doing social services there, unjudgmentally will teach you that hopelessness

is ramped...and there is no one to encourage many many youths.<< --I spend a huge amount of time with people who do that kind of work. Hopelessness is systemic, we contribute to it when we cut each other off from communication, resources and opportunities. We live in a very competitive society in which people in general, rich and poor alike, are trying to "take care of number one", and that inevitably leads to hopelessness among those whose neurology predisposes them to communal cooperation, teamwork or avoidance of people rather than win-lose strategy. The way to give hope to somone is to approach them as an equal human being and offer free information exchange, help with whatever needs to be done, and connections to people and resources. It is only social stratification that makes that kind of help difficult to find or keep around. >>Your preaching is only to other WASP's As Dan correctly said:""If everyone

was just willing to act like me, things would be great". That's never been a viable solution.<< --That was me who said it. I don't preach to WASPS, but to anyone who is paying attention. My values are based on social dynamics and personal experience, and I've never been much into middle class job competition, so my experiences are not at all typical of middle class people. I'm more of a hybrid, somewhere between middle class academic culture, poverty level resource management and the culture of retired peace and reconciliation volunteers. I'm also heavily influenced by inernet intellectual subcultures, which tend to be a mixture of classes, not solely middle class. Don't judge me by your perception of "middle class", and I won't judge you for judging me C. Lockharthttp://www.soulaquarium.netYahoo! Messenger: grailsnailBlog:

http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/"The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads." -- Carl Jung"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Aird"LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS - NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE." -- Unknown __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Toni says: >>I remember and adapt much of our Jewish heritage, but I could not in faith forget my somewhat Christianized environment. I did have to give up literalism altogether.<< --Good decision. I respect anyone who makes the transition from literalism to allegory without losing the meaning. Religion means something, but not the division of mankind into faith groups, not literal miracles or prophecies, and not moralizing. It takes some emotional and intellectual work to get out of that trap. Congratulations!>>I celebrate Christmas as a reminder that peace and goodwill is possible...not worldly peace, but inner peace which is rarer than secession of violence.<< --If you detach inner peace from worldly peace, you might miss the point of inner peace. If spirituality were about serving one's own need for peace, there would be no such thing as religion. Nobody would

be a Jew, a Christian or anything else. >>I remain a proud member of the tribe, except I am what many would call a secular Jew.( Not G-d help me, A Messianic Jew" as the term is now used by a small bunch of people who understand neither the Jewish faith nor the Christian.)<< --I have no problem with "Messianic Jews" except that all Jews are Messianic. If I were into labeling people, I would call them "Jewish Christians". I think the resentment toward Jewish Christians is both unchristian and unjewish, and they should be free to believe whatever they want without losing their status as Jews. If a person can be a secular or atheist Jew, then one should also be allowed to be a Christian Jew. It's only fair, and religion is very much about fairness, whenever it addresses morality, economics and justice. Messianic Jews often understand both Judaism and Christianity, some of

them better than you do (statistically likely, anyway). If you look down on them and lock them out, you'll miss out on some good people and good ideas. Blending faiths, interfaith marriages, conversion and multi-faith tendencies all contribute to a deepening of faith, whenever they don't produce a watering down of faith. As long as humanity is divided into tribes, those who live in two worlds will suffer persecution, seen as traitors. Messianic Jews are treated as traitors by some Jews who do not understand the meaning of Judaism. Some Christians treat Jews as traitors, for the same reason, and it's unchristian for the same reason.>>I doubt any Christian congregation would want to claim me. I perhaps see Jesus Christ differently than they.<< --Always a good sign. It takes courage to stand apart from the herd and speak honestly. Most people stay in church but remain silent, troubled but not willing to risk

argument.>>So wish me both...we celebrate both since my oldest daughter (after 13 years of catholic schooling and upbringing) and family, once aware of her heritage became a committed Jew...which I encourage and applaud.<< --What has she been taught a committed Jew does, in terms of relating to the world, to other people, to family, etc? I'm guessing there are different ideas about what it means to be a "real Jew" just as there's an argument in Christian circles about what a "real Christian" does in relation to war, politics, poverty, etc. I find those arguments about identity revealing and more interesting than arguments about what to do or who gets what... the question is, "Who am I, who are we, and who is the Other to us?">>No people of the Book ever endorsed complete materialism, but do find teachings that finds possessions "good" as long as one is not attached very much to them, not a

problem.<< --As long as one's possessions are in good shape, there's no problem. It's when things have to be sacrificed that priorities come out. For example, we all know that walking, carpooling and public transit are an alternative to SUVs that eat a lot of gas, alter the climate, and prop up dysfunctional dictatorships that harm our reputation as a nation. But how many people love the independence, feeling of security and sense of control that comes with having your own environmentally-controlled, massively heavy, tinted-windowed tank? Economics is all about relative value. It is when economies collapse or business as usual runs into serious obstacles that spiritual values come to the foreground. What does it mean to be a "real Jew" or "real Christian" or "real Muslim" in a world where small actions by one group can have consequences for other groups? It would not work for each group to take care

of itself at the expense of everyone else, and as the world gets more interconnected and power more evenly distributed, religious identities will be challenged and likely unergo an evolutionary leap or two. Those who derive their sense of specialness and security by belonging to one group looking down on another will have serious problems, no matter what they believe about God.>>I do not worry about name tags...indeed I doubt either Jews or Christians would claim me.<< --Sounds like you're in a good spot. Harder for people who belong solidly to one group or the other. >>Even the great Catholic Scripture Scholar, E. Brown , as well as others, denies the authenticity of the Nativity Narratives.<< --The trick is to be able to question the historical accuracy of scripture, without losing the symbolism. Symbolism is important, literalism is expendable. But for a

lot of people, giving up literalism means giving up meaning altogether. C. Lockharthttp://www.soulaquarium.netYahoo! Messenger: grailsnailBlog: http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/"The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads." -- Carl Jung"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Aird"LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS - NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE." -- Unknown __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Toni says: >>Once you have been persecuted because you are Jewish, then you will have a right to tell Jews whatever you wish. First walk in their shoes.<< --I already have the right to tell Jews whatever I wish. I can tell ANYONE whatever I wish. Isn't freedom of speech a gift? Once you have been persecuted for being a Messianic Jew, judge Messianic Jews. >>Your opinion of Messiahnic Jews is fine...it just isn't the jewish one and it is a contradiction in terms.<< --Which Jew in particular determines the "Jewish opinion"? I'd like to ask this person myself, if he's got some authority to speak for Jews as a mass. Or are you speaking from your own opinion when you say Jews can't be Christian on top of being Jewish? If a Jew can be an atheist and still be Jewish (ethnically or

culturally) then by the same logic, a Jew can be Christian. If "Jewish" refers only to religious Jews, then a lot of people currently calling themselves Jewish would have to sever themselves from their culture and history, having given up religion altogether. There are plenty of religious contradictions between Orthodox and Reform Jews, but since Israel is a small place and Jews a historically threatened minority, I suppose it's ok for them both to consider each other "Jews, but maybe not as Jewish as us." But if that excludes Messianic Jews (again, all Jews are messianic, it's only a question of whether they think the Messiah already showed up or will appear in the future, or both), that seems unfair to me, it would hurt me if I were in their shoes, and prejudice against them seems very much against the spirit of pragmatic tolerance and acceptance of debate that I admire in Jewish tradition. Don't take out of Judaism the things I most appreciate about Judaism,

all that's left is ceremonial get-togethers and ethno-networking, if you take out the parts about extending justice to all mankind and speaking truth to power. Granted, it's easier to put up a Christmas tree or Menorah than it is to oppose a genocide or treat all people as equals, but could we get together as a species just once for something other than symbolism and ritual? Maybe the current generation of young people, who are more likely to judge people as individuals than by their ethnicity, religion or nationality, will overcome the darker aspects of religious identity, and rediscover the meaning behind all religion, which is unity in the face of threats to the tribe, with the boundaries of the tribe expanding to include humanity, and the threat being recognized as systemic and transpersonal. As our species wobbles on the brink of Godlike technological domination, it will have to learn peace, and all religious identities will be pulled,

painfully if shadow is projected onto other groups, to converge on some common truths and possible agreements for living sanely in a world where tribes have only symbolic, not real, boundaries. >>Please try to refrain talking about fairmess and justice and what Jews "ought to do".<< --Jews ought to brush their teeth, or they'll get tooth decay. I am not a dentist, so you should probably ignore what I just said. But what if it's true that Jews, and everyone else, need to stop punishing "traitors" who blend faiths, skin colors or cultural symbols? What if that's the only way for the species to survive? I'm not a Muslim, but I'll tell a Muslim the same thing. I'm not a Christian, but I think Christians should love their enemy. I won't send them to hell for disagreeing with me. Free speech, again. >>You are so far out of your element that I will not answer.<< --You are answering. And you have no idea how far out of my element I am.>>However, I didn't explain my histrory for you to comment on, agree with or disagree. It is mine.<< --There are always two histories: history as it happened, and history as it is remembered. Everyone's history happened in the same reality. All histories are intertwined and connected. All spoken history, personal or tribal, is a mixture of references to what really happened and stories about what it meant that it happened. The objective reality is what really happened, regardless of how you remember it or tell the story. >>I do not open myself up for someone who doesn't even know me to judge..nor comment. I was purely allowing you to see reality from my spot, not yours.<< --How kind of you. It might work better if you see reality from someone else's spot

first. Imagine being a Messianic Jew. You don't have to understand their beliefs, just that it's their identity, and if you tell them they're not Jewish, you're cutting off half their identity. How does that feel to a person? Any person, not just a Jew. I don't mind if you insult me, but I've met some Messianic Jews who were really hurt by the rejection they experienced from Jews who regarded them as traitors to Judaism, as some kind of spy for the Christians. It's a cruel game, no matter who plays it, and it's not limited to one religious group but is a universal pattern of identity politics. It hurts interfaith couples and their children most, so some true believers compromise by discouraging interfaith marriage, by enforcing social segregation. That is not a viable solution. People are going to intermarry, there will be more and more Jews married to Arabs, Jewish Christians, Jewish Buddhists, Muslim Christians and every other combination you can dream up. If we treat

them all as traitors, shame on us. They're the ones who are in a position to teach peace, rather than demonization, victimized outrage and ethnic cleansing, so typical of the last century. __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Toni says: >>So since I cannot change your mind, I will change , once again my heart.<< --I'm impressed. Merry Christmas, Toni. Changing my mind isn't impossible, it's just that only I can do it, and I only do it when it makes sense for me (most humans are like that, if you've ever tried to change minds that aren't in your own skull). If you aren't changing someone's mind as fast as you'd like, it's a sign that you're not explaining what you believe in a way that touches the other person in the way your belief touched you. That's why people who are terrified of hell get only amused smirks from people who don't believe in hell. It's why a Christmas tree or menorah or facing east while praying can be so important to one group and meaningless to another. The problem is, there will never (I hope) be a time when everyone believes in the same symbols and requires the same formalities

as a show of respect for their faith. But people share the same need for meaning in their lives, and faith is one way of finding meaning. If they fight over the symbols, they'll miss the point of faith, and destroy the meaning in their own faith by violating principle for symbol, as when people who believe in "Holy land" fight over it, or treat each other unjustly in order to maintain control of it. The meaning in Judaism, Christianity and Islam cannot survive the onslaught of holy warriors demonizing, stereotyping and politically marginalizing each other from power. That's how religions have died in the past, and the ones that survived managed to make an evolutionary leap out of chaos into some higher order that made moral and political sense. Islam won't save Shia and Sunni in Iraq, unless they find a way to transcend differences and return to the meaning of Islam. Christianity won't save humanity until it learns that Muslims, Jews and atheists can be Christlike enough

to be in the "family of Christ". Judaism won't save Jews, unless they represent the spirit of justice for all human beings, and are not overshadowed by the mechanized cruelty of the Israeli occupation. Iranians have to represent Islam in a way that is not overshadowed by the politically driven mullahs and Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denials. There are two ways out of species suicide: a global religion (unlikely) or a fusion of faiths into a movement that transcends the branchings of monotheism and paganism and restores human dignity and equality as the basic moral principle and the closest thing to an earthly representation of God's spirit. Judaism began with liberation from slavery. Jews, when they are being truly themselves, work toward the liberation of all people from tyranny. Buddhists do the same. Christians do the same. Muslims, when they're authentically Islamic, do the same. There is a fixed point that defines faith, and it is

not a ritual or holiday or a prayer in any one language, it's the basic human impuse to seek freedom and to treat others as one would like to be treated. When people are consistent in expressing that fixed point, religious differences become unique expressions of culture and history, rather than points of division leading to bloody chaos and absolute intolerance of compromise. >>You don't need to fight me any longer<< I would never fight you, Toni. But I'll disagree with you if I happen to think differently about an issue. There is no reason to be "politically correct" on email forums, you can say everything you think, and I believe that's a good thing, something very new for our species. Disagreement is not a bad thing, unless people attack the person instead of the idea. >>if I can just remember to love you instead of reason with you....that reasoning seems totally

useless....<< --Reasoning is a useless tool for changing people's minds, unless you're on the side of reason and you are able to step into the other mind and see what it sees. So about 75% of the time, trying to change minds is useless. But you can always love someone, if you stop thinking you have to change them in order to make them worthy of love. C. Lockharthttp://www.soulaquarium.netYahoo! Messenger: grailsnailBlog: http://shallowreflections.blogspot.com/"The most dangerous things in the world are immense accumulations of human beings who are manipulated by only a few heads." -- Carl Jung"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning." -- Aird"LOVE PEOPLE AND USE THINGS - NOT LOVE THINGS AND USE PEOPLE." -- Unknown __________________________________________________Do You

Yahoo!?Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

[Guest guest]

Dan asks how depriving criminals of agency would promote more crime. Answer: by destroying the capacity for making responsible decisions, making reparations impossible, and eroding mercy, without which a society eventually fragments into warring clans. Every neighborhood in Iraq is a gang neighborhood, for that reason. The death penalty is not a deterrent in gang neighborhoods, because whether one is or isn't involved in criminal activity, one risks death on a daily basis simply by existing, and the fear of death goes numb when people find outlets for power after feeling powerless. Criminals tend to be people who are disempowered in society's normal games and use violence to re-empower themselves (changing the rules to suit themselves), and the prison environment encourages gang organization and power trips, not introspection and transformation, so it becomes part of the problem. The way out is to provide criminals with role models they

feel accountable to, which may include some coalition of family members, experts in a field of interest, or people to teach skills that make playing society's normal games bearable. As long as we throw criminals in the tank and forget about them, they'll feel toward us exactly as we would in their position, and act accordingly. The world is creating an underclass of angry young men and women, and we are insane if we think we don't have to approach them as human beings but can keep disposing of them as problems. Politicians in the US and Iran both use appeals to vengeance and fear of predators to gain applause and keep themselves under a veil of untouchability. When you're calling for someone's head, you feel invulnerable, because you're really not dealing with that person at all, just using him as a prop. That pattern ties members of the criminal class to people who are calling for justice but without a sense of what justice really means. Justice is resolution. It's not

escalation, no matter how satisfying one step in the cycle, an execution or long prison sentence, may feel on a temporary basis. It is very difficult for anyone, including a person guilty of violence, to change himself while under threat or pressure to conform to a pecking order. Something else is needed, if we want to really address the problem of violence and crime, unless we prefer the rush of adrenalin when we hear about someone being executed, that rush being part of an avalanche of stimulation that leads others to commit violent acts while we watch from a distance, calling for blood. We deny our own agency, and everyone else's, pretending the pattern we're all a part of is how it's supposed to be. >>Doesn't matter what we want. Some men are slaves by nature.<< --By nature, or by indoctrination? Children are naturally curious and rebellious, God bless them. They tend to grow out

of it in proportion to the punishment attached to being an individual and taking individual responsibility for decisions. If responsible behavior is punished and risk-taking and domination are rewarded, the results are predictable, and I don't think they need to be chalked up to genetic nature. Germans are not Nazis by nature, they went through a fascist phase based on centuries of indoctrination with antisemitism and authoritarianism, fear of contamination, and perfectionism. The perfectionism is still there, but in the auto industry where it belongs. Whether Germans are perfectionistic by nature or by cultural habit, it's clear that they aren't inherently "evil", and I doubt anyone is born a slave, or born evil, or born to be anything but curious and experimental, qualities that can be adapted to just about any goal from robbing banks to building skyscrapers.>>Very many people cannot learn from their actions, at least not in the way I think you mean. Like

horses or dogs, they are to be trained (not unkindly), not educated<< --I know a little bit about the reinforcement methods used with animals. The most accurate and motivating method is called clicker training, and it's based entirely on positive, noncoercive tactics ("negative reinforcement" refers to the absence of painful stimuli used to reinforce positive changes in behavior, although many people misperceive it as punishment after an act). In contrast, punishment and coercion tend to backfire when they're not effective, and to get less accurate and more stereotyped behavior when they work in the short term to get compliance. Every human being CAN learn from his or her actions, but only if the right environment is present. While under threat, attack, accusation or demand, people tend to lock up and resort to habitual, almost ritual responses. So if you've always dealt with attack by freezing,

you'll freeze when attacked. If you've always dealt with accusation by saying, "Fuck you, I don't have to listen to you", you'll continue that pattern while being accused. It is when the environment relaxes and provides enough space and silence for introspection to develop that people really change. Prison is sometimes that environment, and sometimes not, so it gets inconsistent results and high numbers repeat offenders. Then we conveniently say, "They don't want to change, or can't change" and our hands are washed clean of the environment we helped criminals and politicians create. Never assume that what people can't do in one environment at one time can't be done ever, anywhere. A lot of kids with learning difficulties have been thrown out in the same way, it was just too expensive or inconvenient to figure out how kids really learn, and those who didn't learn in the ways that were taught were regarded as unmotivated or flawed. It's a bad pattern, whether we apply

it to criminals or kids. Often the results are related.>>In a sense, to the degree that "society" has not inculcated them with the right habits, attitudes and values from the get-go, they are right.<< --The problem is, society often says one thing and does another. We tell people not to use violence to solve problems, and what do we do as a culture? Of course, people who feel unsafe are going to buy guns, some of them are going to shoot pre-emptively, some of those with guns will be addicts and do something stupid to prevent massive chemically-deprived suffering, and some will use the immediate power that comes with holding a gun to feel powerful after being thrown away by some person or group. We know all this will happen, and we know that when we use violent rhetoric to "solve" problems, we teach criminals that society is really a dog-eat-dog pyramid, not upholding any kind of virtue or righteous authority. Criminals

are just doing what everyone else is doing, with a relaxation of rules about who is or isn't an appropriate target. We try to contain the bloodlust and rage of crowds by channeling it into state-sanctioned executions. How well does that work in Iraq? 80 people died in addition to Saddam, and the only one whose name we will remember will be Saddam's. The media is full of real and simulated violence, and as long as the crowd enjoys it (they watch the same violent, deviant programming in Southern Christian neighborhoods as they do in nasty old Hollywood) the crowd gets more of it, real and simulated. When we give people who show virtue as much attention as those who imprint their faces and names on us with violence, violence will taper off. When we start seeing criminals as people who are afraid rather than evil, the purpose of crime, which is to appear unafraid and confirm one's ability to stay on top to avoid becoming prey, will be undermined and crime will also taper off.

We keep cycles going, and then absolve ourselves of responsibility for them, and that has never worked and never will. We live in a violent world because we've never wanted to look differently at what violence means, and problems that can't be looked at honestly are never solved. >>In American society, for example, the Hustables are the example. Failure fully to inculcate Huxtablism results leads not only to criminality, but to things like, for example, the Katrina mess.<< --Is there a black undertone to this example? The Huxtables are a model family, and a great example, I agree. But what are the real factors that punish kids who imprint on the Huxtable model and reward immediate dominance or self-interest? If every kid who acts like a Huxtable were rewarded with money, attention, and respect, I imagine Huxtability would be as popular as basketball among the "inner city" kids whose color we aren't

mentioning. >> If your dog poops on the carpet, it is not its "fault" (it is beyond, or rather below, good and evil), but yours, because you did not train it<< --The whole approach of fault-finding makes some problems impossible to solve, especially when the "problems" are people. I don't care whose fault it is. I only care what actions I can take or encourage others to take that would make a difference. More blame isn't going to make a difference, blame and shame have become so widespread that they no longer have any discernible impact on people's actions. When one thing isn't working, try something else. >If people haven't got enough sense to get out of the way of a class-5 hurricane with three days notice (I could walk to Baton Rouge from New Orleans in three days, and I am an overweight, sedentary man of a certain age), it is because of lack of requisite

training.<< --I suspect his suffering won't be much consoled by accusing him of not preparing. Our entire culture has failed to prepare for global warming, preferring the immediate sense of security that comes from driving a huge car. Katrina was similar, people just didn't take the warnings seriously because they assumed they were hysterical or only given to prevent lawsuits. We don't listen to people who talk about global warming either, for the same reason. We think they're saying the sky is falling, and we think they're wrong. I don't think all the (color unmentioned) people in New Orleans were much stupider than society in general. We're taking a lot of warnings as if they were overblown, all of us. Perhaps it speaks to the lack of credibility on the part of authority, we don't listen when authority tells us we need to change, we stick to our guns, or our property, trying to stay the course. >>Then why blame the "victims," you ask? Because blame is part of the training ( I never said that politics is without a certain tragic element). Your dog cares if you blame him.<< --Who trained YOU to think that way? That's one of the LEAST effective (in the long term) reinforcement methods. Yes, a dog will do what it takes to avoid having a displeased owner. But people have higher expectations than dogs, and even with animals, positive reinforcement is more effective and motivating, and the results are generally much more accurate when the behavior you want is complex or subtle. With humans, the focus on punishment, rather than resulting in a generation of young men and women adoring their punitive mentors, results in a generation of young men and women rebelling against those who used manipulation, coercion and punishment to control them. Welcome to the 21st century, Dan. You can't rule today's kids with an iron

boot, because they're smarter than you and better at analyzing and responding to threats, they outclass you because they've been training for it on video games, while you've just been sitting there judging them. For you, at least, the "discipline and punish" model will result in your isolation and a sense of powerlessness over a tide of chaos, not an orderly world where the Huxtables reign as role models. Not that I blame you.>>Criminals of the violent -as opposed to the doofus - variety, fear only the armed.<< --They tend to fear having a reputation as weak. They believe that backing down is impossible, because it will lead to their own victimization. When they have no power to respond (being fired from a company that doesn't see them as a person, being rejected from a relationship, or being talked about by a group), they take whatever action allows them to feel in control and in power. They will back down if outgunned.

Then they will feel ashamed for having backed down and given in to fear, and then they will try to repair the shame by taking control in some area. The less and less control people feel over their jobs, relationships and social status, the more crime. So pull your gun, if you're in a situation where someone needs to be intimidated out of taking unhealthy actions. But if that's your ONLY response, you're doomed, and if your mindset is the one that guides our political and social system, we're all doomed. Fortunately, I have faith in people, including Americans, to solve problems the right way when all the wrong ways have failed. Now, if shame were such a useful tool, here is where I'd shame you for having such a stupid, wasteful, fearful and short-sighted mindset. But I wouldn't do that, because shame just makes people dig in their heels and try to outclass you for shaming them. You see that kind of thing in protests, when people for or

against whatever end up shouting "shame slogans", getting nowhere, making the world a more hostile place, and not solving any problems.>>It's not a question of pleasure one way or the other, and violence is a part of humanity - not s strictly deplorable part, either.<< --Violence is a response to boundary violation, and all animals with boundaries that can be threatened are capable of violence if it suits their ecological niche. Humans included. But much of what we see as natural, even praiseworthy violence, is really short-sighted and a result of cultural indoctrination or political correctness. The "honor code" that tells young males they'll become prey if they back down or show weakness results in much more violence than backing down. It's a risk-management strategy, and humans are notoriously bad at evaluating complex risk factors, especially when short term and long term risks have to be evaluated at the same

time. So kids get into shooting wars because they can't back down, and then we say they're violent kids who should be thrown away. We too are afraid from backing down, and once we've committed to punishing criminals, we rarely see a better way to reduce harm. It's an animal response that is deliberately and systematically cultivated, cutting off all other avenues of action. We keep calling people weak if they love their enemy or believe there are nonviolent ways of resolving conflict or dealing with tyranny. It takes a lot of suffering to prove current thinking doesn't work, and only then do people invest in better responses. Again, look at Iraq. Everyone's so afraid of backing down that they've backed themselves into a corner, feeling forced to use violence where violence is clearly counterproductive to their interests. That environment has been systematically cultivated, it's not something people just do by nature.>>Justice demands that he forfeit his

agency. Suicide is an act of agency. Therefore justice demands that his suicide be prevented.<< --No, YOU demand that he forfeit his agency. Justice does not demand it, and I don't demand it. Instead, I demand of myself that I find a way that works and preserves my own conscience. I cannot side with the stoning mob, yelling, "Kill him, he deserves it!" If I did, I'd be giving in to peer pressure, fear or shadow projection. Instead, I'm willing to talk to criminals as if they were real human beings, which does not mean approving of their bad decisions, but regarding them as decisions made with flawed preparation, respecting their agency and ability to learn from mistakes when those mistakes are presented clearly, without the distorting filters of punitive retaliation or fearful attempts at manipulation or control. I don't want to control criminals. I want to give them other options. If that makes me a bad person in your mind, that's fine

with me. I see your mindset as being no less toxic than some of the attitudes I've seen in the criminal class. In many cases, the mindset was passed on by an authority figure who couldn't control himself, who was hypocritical or projected his own shadow onto his kids, who then decided society just works that way, having numerous examples of hypocrisy or betrayal to point to. Criminals believe that society is willing to lie, cheat and steal to control them, just as they lie, cheat and steal to feel independent and in control of their own fate. Proving that it's in their interest to play by the rules means proving that the rule-makers aren't just playing the same games they are, from a different position. That can be difficult, especially with people who have been repeatedly betrayed and assume any kind of lecturing or moralizing is one more attempt at putting them in a position of weakness. Those who dominate fear being dominated, and society's fear of being dominated

by crime is an exact mirror of the widespread feeling among criminals that if they don't stay on top, they'll be roadkill. The toxic mindset is social darwinism, with or without the cover of morality, authority or religion. >>So the answer to my question is no, you have not been married, lol.<< --Yes, I'm married. >>Your argument assumes that most women are rational. They are not (neither are most men).<< --Everyone has the ability to think rationally, and the ability to act on lines of reasoning that are less clear under analysis. Everything people do makes sense, some of it logical in relationship to stated goals or beliefs, some of it goal-oriented but not as obvious. What men and women do a lot is stereotype each other and make bad decisions after doing so. Men who think, "Women are irrational" will act in ways that provoke women to act more irrationally.

Women who think, "Men are pigs" end up creating more pigs. People co-define each other in relationships whenever one person needs the other's approval or cooperation. What most people lack is true independence, the ability to be okay with or without the attention or approval of others. >>It also assumes that the question, Do I look fat in this?, is really a literal quest for information, rather than meaning "Do you still find me attractive?, Do you still love me?"<< --Right. So the culturally-ingrained willingness of women to speak in code pushes men to respond in code, rather than using straight communication. It's like an arms race. Sometimes you can just decide not to play. It depends on the balance of dependencies and the willingness of one side or the other to stop using code and speak honestly, and ask honest questions. "Do you still love me" is an honest question, and "do I look fat in this"

is an honest question, but if one question is disguised as another, it produces confusion and erodes relationships as much as it protects them. >>How could we live without our lies and self-deceptions? It doesn't bear thinking about.<< --I think you're just being dramatic there. You'll survive without self-deceptions. You just haven't had that proven to you, so you wait for those deceptions to be stripped away by your environment instead of preparing ahead and removing them yourself.>>Polite fictions exist throughout society to avoid or ease friction.<< --That would make a great rap lyric. Better than polite fictions are rituals designed to communicate non-threat and willingness to cooperate, without resorting to convenient lies. The function of polite fictions is to de-escalate threat when dealing with groups not immediately related. There are other

ways to do that, besides lying. But societies tend to be politically correct by inertia if not by nature, and social fictions are one form of political correctness. Woe to the ones who talk straight. >>I say 'How do you do?" when I feel like saying "Leave me alone!" Do you really want to fight all the time, esp. with your spouse?<< --That implies you have no agency or control over your own emotional state. Which leads others to believe they too have no agency or control. And so on... How about just changing your state of mind so that you can show geniune interest, and then get on to other things? That's one alternative that becomes possible when you accept real agency. Easier to accept agency for others than for onself, or to deprive others of agency rather than using one's own. That's why (in addition to fear of crime) we keep trying to deprive criminals of

options. It's therapy for those of us who feel controlled by our own minds. >>Catholicism forbids it (except, in certain cases, as a strictly legal exercise), makes it a mortal sin to remarry.<< --Like that's going to stop anyone. Love feels right, and authority feels wrong when it tries to control expressions of love. Of course people will rebel against those kinds of rules, which are designed to work in small groups of men, many of whom are gay and have no reason to worry about marriage. What works for an all-male priesthood will NOT work for everyone, and the Catholic Church's authority is undermined by sticking to those rules. The reason Jesus said remarriage was equivalent to adultery was to emphasize that adulterers were not necessarily more evil than men who found legal ways to get around the rules and be with whatever women they wanted. But who cares why Jesus said it, if you can use the letter of the law to

dominate over other people, while covertly doing whatever you want. In any case, if I wanted people to respect my authority, I'd never tell them they couldn't make their own decisions about marriage. That's a recipe for losing authority, as the Catholic church has discovered. Or having religious authority married to political authority, which leads to persecution and loss of respect for authority, as Iran has discovered. >>In the eyes of God, per the RCC, you are married for good, legal status notwithstanding, and if you marry another, you are guilty of adultery, period.<< --Of course, God doesn't necessarily judge as we do. God may determine that it's necessary for someone to divorce his wife in order to marry someone who is a better fit, enabling a higher level of spiritual cooperation as opposed to habitual duty. But that assumes God actually has a plan and the same flexbility and insight that a

good king or general would have. Perhaps there are many who don't really believe in God but believe it's necessary to pretend one exists, which makes organized religion perpetually at odds with the actual will of God. One reason organized religion needs Satan as a foil... if religious people realized they've made laws and scriptures into idols, they'd freak out, fearing punishment by a vengeful deity rather than assuming said deity is on their side against an enemy. My deity, which exists somewhere between fiction and reality, acknowledges that divorce can occasionally free up people's energy and is worth the emotional pain. Emotional pain is not a primary concern, except to people who want to maintain control over relationships and fear separation out of proportion to what separation means. There is also the irony: if we loved everyone as God allegedly does, we'd have less need for absolute, secure marriages, having the ability to adapt to

change in relationships by forming new relationships on a constant basis. People who love everybody tend to be less faithful, not because they're bad people but because they have less dependency and less fear of being hurt by one person. Ironically, the New Testament regards marriage as a somewhat inconvenient arrangement that makes spiritual progress more difficult, dividing one's attention. Today's "family values" people don't seem to be reading the Bible, but their children do read it, and they are learning how often authority uses scripture to its own advantage, rather than staying with the spirit and meaning of the faith. The more Christian and Muslim parents clamp down on their children ideologically or physically, the more they'll rebel and find faith outside the lines drawn by previous generations. It's happening in Iran, where religious authority keeps banning popular media, and in the US, where children of conservative evangelicals are becoming environmentalists,

gnostics or freethinkers. Curiousity and experimentation, unlike repression and paranoid hierarchies, are natural. They erode authoritarianism after a few generations. That's why we have democracy -- we know the king has to die, and it's easier to leave him a graceful way out, without bloodshed.>>I should have thought that the best predictor would be how easily divorce is to obtain.<< --Divorce is always easy to obtain. There may be sacrifices one has to make in order to leave, but as soon as the heart says it's time, people leave. Or they cheat. All that happens when you make divorce difficult is that people start noticing the wealthy or well-connected have an easier time making the arrangements. It would make more sense to focus on amicable divorce as an alternative to hostile, chaotic divorce. But we tend to do what makes us feel more in control, not what actually works to make life easier. >>Almost everyone who has been married more than ten minutes has thought that he/she really could not take it any more. Surely it matters how easy it is to act on that thought/impulse.<< --That puts people in the position of children, and that leads to rebellion. People are responsible for their actions and for cleaning up after their actions. If you want people to be faithful, make marriage look so rewarding that nobody would want to trade it for the pain of turbulent attachments. If you just try to make divorce look bad, you won't save marriage, you'll just turn it into a political institution rather than an arrangement that works for the people involved. >>How about, "Divorce and remarry, and you will know the unending tortures of hell." Do you think that would be effective, assuming that the person believed it?<< --Does that actually work? It

doesn't work in the American South, where Christian conservatives have a higher divorce rate than agnostics. It doesn't work in Iran. Why on earth would you use fear of hell, one of the LEAST effective tools for changing people's behavior? Just because it feels good, feels absolute and certain? That's not a good reason. Fear of a real blowtorch might get some temporary compliance, but that kind of motivational strategy has never worked well. We've gotten so used to using fear to control other people that we're living in a world practically defined by fear. Oops. Try something else? Is it time yet?>>But consent is not the foundation of justice or government.<< --I'm not so sure about that. I've read some documents, some regarded almost as holy, that mention "the consent of the governed". Without some kind of consent, no government survives. It's usually a question of whether the consent is

coerced or given to people the public trusts. Consent is a huge part of law, it's the determining factor in theft and rape cases. I don't see any way to talk about justice without also talking about the right to self-determination and consent. Watch what happens to governments that lack real consent from the governed. >>Modern political philosophers were lying, for their own ends.<< --Politicians lie for their own ends, whether disguised as philosophers or priests. Philosophers don't lie on purpose, they take the hemlock, whatever price gives them truth and a clear conscience. If you use philosophy for political ends, you destroy meaning in language, and then have to wade through a morass of postmodernism and cynicism, the use of language as a blunt instrument rather than a lens to illuminate what matters. Good postmodernism doesn't pretend to be safe, bad postmodernism is

practiced in the name of God or some national ideal. Bad postmodernism regards religion as a necessary lie, rather than a source of heartfelt faith. Bad postmodernism lies to the young, and then the young take revenge by abandoning the ideas that have been used as tools for control. >>It's simple enough: for starters, they do have tattoos, often enough.<< --I'm sure a high percentage of the prison population has tattooes, but it does not logically follow that people having tattooes is a "bad sign". I've had quite a few friends with tattooes who were very ethical and had nothing to do with prison or gangs. You'd be getting a false sense of comfort if you made judgments based on the presence of tattoes, unless they are specifically gang-related. >>Motorcycles.<< --It sounds like you're trying to feel safe by filtering out a lot of people. Jay Leno rides

motorcycles. Motorcycles are hugely popular right now. Associating them with crime is ridiculous. Motorcycles do represent freedom, so of course they'll be popular among people who have been to prison and lost their freedom. You're using a common logical fallacy, that if most members of a set are in another set, that the reverse must be true. Venn diagrams help with that.>>Rule out any guy with any one of these traits, and the woman is a long way toward avoiding bad men.<< --People go to bed with the options they have, not the options they want. Those who have options and are aware of them, take them. Those who take bad options believe that's all they can get. If you look down on women who make bad choices about men, what are you doing? You're telling her, "You're no good. Why do you keep choosing bad men" and the metamessage wins over preaching. Tell them they're making bad choices all you want, but if you want to

help them, convince them they have access to better options, and prove that access is real, that they won't just get rejected (again) by the better option. >>Of course, using my scheme you might get a fairly large number of false positives, but what's wrong with that?<< --Depends on how badly a person needs to choose. What skills would enable young women who have experienced repeated rejection that they can hold out for better men, men like the ones who rejected them, but who won't reject them? False positives are bearable if you have a lot of opportunity, not so easy if you have no sense that opportunity exists. >>In my obsevation, low intelligence and criminality are positively correlated.<< --Of course. People who are perceived as stupid are often told they're stupid, and eventually they give up. They do whatever gains them respect, and

if they are consistently humiliated in academics, they go to auto mechanics, music, or crime, depending on what environment enables them to feel confident and in control. I would *never* tell a criminal he's stupid. That would be the absolute stupidest possible thing to say. I'd tell him he has a different learning style. People labeled "stupid" are often kinesthetic learners who have a block in visual or auditory processing. That can be worked around or changed, but only by exposure to the notion that what the world regards as stupid isn't necessarily stupid, just different. Kinesthetic learners (like W. Bush) can be very good leaders, as long as the people around them are ethical and present good information. I wouldn't call Bush "stupid", and I wouldn't label anyone else that way. It's stupid. >>Where are all these excellent teachers supposed to come from?<< --I could name about 20 retirees who would make

excellent teachers. They're there, they're just not being encouraged. Maybe some kind of tax incentive for mentors would work better than assuming all teachers have to be trained for years to do what they can do naturally. >>No point having a mentor if he can't teach, or teaches the wrong things.<< --That's why it may be necessary for programs to connect the right mentors to the right kids. Without such programs, odds are it won't happen. >>The notion that every child can learn just as much as every other child if only given the right "resources' is nonsense, and the reason why "no child left behind" is doomed to fail.<< --If every child is given the *same* resources, some percentage will fail. If every child were given the *right* resources, it would be entirely different.>>If you were a first class mechanic,

would you rather work on Ferraris, or Yugos?<< --Whichever paid better, probably. >>Some ways of life are objectively superior to others.<< --My way is better than yours. Thank you for giving me permission to say so >>Those few with minds of peculiar structure will have to look out for themselves.<< --Social darwinism, again? Okay, if you insist... "look out for number one" is one of the most common axioms among criminals, working class or corporate.>>And not all rebellion is just. Usually, in fact, it isn't.<< --Just about everything we believe began with an act of rebellion, an idea spoken against the grain of the time. If it were not the case, we'd all be following the same tribal gods that were killed by monotheism. >>Most counselling is crap. That said,

you minimize conflict by prescribing roles. If everyone knows what the man's job is, and what the woman's job is, conflict is reduced.<< --That's not what research says. Rigid roles lead to divorce, not better marriages. Rigid ideas about authority lead to rebellion. It's necessary for people to find more elegant ways of dealing with conflict, rather than repressing it with rigid rules until it explodes. Counseling is as good as the counselor, generally. >>You won't fight over who is to do the dishes and who is to drudge off to the factory every day, if those questions are already a pre-answered matter of social consensus.<< --But they're not, and never will be. There will *always* be disagreement about roles, and disagreement about how to reward or punish those who color outside the lines. If society could all agree on ANYTHING, it would simplify things, but you

go into life with the society you have, not the society you want. Living in imaginary castles doesn't make people safe, and it's leading to more conflict, not less. Now we have churches slandering and gossipping each other (against the teachings of Jesus) based on differences of opinion about gender roles or marriage. One conflict suppressed, another created. That's how it works.>>You, I , Pat Buchanon and Phyllis Schafly are in agreement on that point.<< --A stopped clock is right twice a day. Glad we agree on something.>>I note that here you also give your child implicit permission to break the law.<< --You just lied about me. I gave no such permission. Instead, you equated something I said with an excuse, which shows both fear and a willingness to falsely accuse others of things they have not done. You might want to take it back. >>When he calls you from jail, whom will you blame?<< --If someone calls me from jail, I'll do whatever I feel would lead to the most positive results. Blame may be irrelevant. I might bail him out just to prevent the possibility of being hurt in prison, depending on the level of violence at the particular prison. But the decision would be based on likely consequences, not blame. It is recognition of consequences that changes actions, and blame often stands in the way of an accurate assessment of consequences. If people are piling on artificial, manipulative consequences, they may obscure the consequences that are most likely to produce change. >>I hope they haven't seen people smoke pot.<< --Smoking pot isn't a problem. Alcohol can be, depending on the individual. Kids are going to see people smoking pot, and they're going to see the hypocrisy of lawmakers being paid

with tobacco and beer money while putting pot growers in prison. It will undermine respect for authority, same as alcohol prohibition. Everyone still drank, they just had to know the password to drink in clubs. Focus on actual consequences of behavior. If you drink and drive, you could kill someone and have to live with that for the rest of your life. If you smoke pot, you probably won't have a lot of problems. Kids see reality better than adults, often, and they notice hypocrisy too. >>But no problem with their violating the laws, apparently. Fact is, tobacco and alcohol are legal substances.<< --I don't follow all the laws, because the laws are not always rational. I follow laws that protect life and limb. If you want people to respect law, give them authority worth respecting, or don't complain when people break the law as it suits them. I won't call the police on people smoking pot. I'll call the police if someone

is getting violent and nobody there can handle it. There's a difference. >>Lobbying is legal, too. Don't like it? Change the law.<< --If a pot farmer lobbies too well, his name goes on a list and he's investigated. Diminishing respect for authority is a natural result. You forget, we live in a "managed democracy" where people who smoke pot can't openly talk about it for fear of losing their jobs or some other reprisals. If everyone could talk openly and freely about pot, it would end up being treated no differently from alcohol, perhaps with fewer restrictions due to the minimal damage done by pot relative to hard liquor. If law were consistent, it would judge acts by their consequences, not by what is politically fashionable or who is cowed into silence. >>You can't countenance law breaking with regard to drugs, and then object when the kid steals a car - at

least, not if you would avoid "hypocrisy," lol.<< --Sure I can. I don't advocate following all laws, I don't believe law should be an idol. If you were Chinese or Iranian, I would advocate violating some laws in the persuit of freedom (reading banned books, for example). America itself violates international law, destroying respect for international law, and then uses international law as justification for punishing those who violate it (selectively). I hardly think my hypocrisy is as corrosive as that of the government. Your hypocrisy says, "Respect the law because it's the law" and then you undermine that respect by supporting laws that can't possibly earn the respect of the people. I prefer mine to yours... mine says, "Break some laws, as long as you're not hurting anyone else. But even if an act isn't illegal, avoid it if it hurts someone." Gossip can be hurtful, but not illegal. I discourage it for reasons other

than respect for law.>>How about, "It's stupid, it's wrong, don't do it." Will that do?<< --Not if you have to manufacture consequences to prove it's stupid. Jumping off a cliff is stupid, and anyone can see the consequences. Smoking pot is not necessarily stupid, any more than drinking beer. You can say it's against the law and talk about what happens if a person is caught, but that may focus them on finding ways to avoid getting caught. Focus on consequences that are likely, and explain them without moralizing, if you can.>>It would be hypocrisy to condemn gay marriage while being gay and married.<< --It's hypocrisy to condemn in public what you are doing in private. However, one can always talk about consequences, no matter what one is doing. It is not hypocritical for a gangster to discourage people from becoming gangsters, many have done so, and it does help. >>It would be hypocrisy to be hard on divorce, while retaining the prerogative to divorce oneself. That's why they're soft on divorce, I expect. Better to be hard on divorce, and forego divorce themselves, imo.<< --Yes. And who will forego options they might want for themselves? Easier to be hypocritical, and wait until respect for authority dies. __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Dan says: >>How can one destroy what was never there?<< --You're saying criminals are genetically incapable of making responsible decisions? I have to disagree, based on the criminals I've known. Most people in prison make responsible choices all the time, it just takes one or two bad decisions to undo a run of good decisions. Maybe we've known different criminals, in different contexts. If I were charged with controlling criminals, I'd probably have some unhelpful beliefs about them, given the utter stupidity of charging humans with controlling other humans and all the stress it causes the controllers and controllees alike. >>Speaking for myself, if a loved one were murdered, the only "reparation" I would accept would be the life of the murderer.<< --If you were willing to take that life yourself, I would probably find it easy to forgive you. But

I won't participate in *systematic* killing of that type. Self-defense and simple, animal rage are easier to tolerate, since they come from an authentic, biological impulse to lash out at what threatens one's own biological boundaries. But when it gets to the point of systematic revenge, some machine-like qualities of culture come in, and I'm much less comfortable with that, especially when people start moralizing and grandstanding, talking about how they'd like to torture people who have earned the label "evil". There's a game in that, and I won't play it. Play it yourself, if you are willing to take responsibility for the game.>>Mercy is fine, but mercy requires repentance. More bluntly, mercy must be begged for.<< --I think you may be confusing mercy with sadomasochism. Mercy is the recognition that your enemy is no longer a threat and that seeing him as a human being rather than an obstacle or danger is permissible

and/or worthwhile on any level. I find it worthwhile to understand people well enough to feel merciful toward them even if they haven't repented. In terms of politics, it is only my job as a voter to support policies that will lead to greater public safety and lower the systemic risk of violence. It is not my business to force people into repentance, to take revenge for crimes that are not mine to avenge, or to push others to harm those I see as harmful. Although I can see how it might make some people feel safer or more certain to talk about punishment and "breaking the will" and all that fun stuff that might be better suited to a Mel Gibson movie. >>Further, while extending mercy may be gentlemanly, I am not certain that justice requires it.<< --Take it up with Christianity. Personally, I think Jesus got it right, and so did Gandhi, Luther King and some others. I can't prove they were right.

Follow the role models you are willing to be responsible for. I am willing to be wrong in following Gandhi or Jesus, and I am willing to be as responsible for taking that path as they were, although I have no plans to die in the process. As I said, self-defense is permissible in my frame of reference. Revenge is not, unless there is somehow a loss of free will in a state of animal rage. That's always possible, and I wouldn't punish someone for taking immediate revenge on someone who has hurt someone close to them. I just won't advocate that kind of thing as a system, as a fixed way of responding to violence. It doesn't work, and I don't feel it's right. >>Pity - "compassion" has somehow become the prime moral virtue, and out of compassion comes mercy.<< --Compassion is something you either experience or repress. If you repress it, you are likely to repress shadow as well, and then you will

constellate shadow around you, so that you can judge it from a "safe" distance. But that distance isn't really safe. Repressed shadow can magnetically pull you into conflicts you can't win. I prefer to openly experience compassion, it is no threat to me and it has made me a lot smarter about people, including people I would otherwise fear. You couldn't pay me to give up my compassion for people you are proud to feel nothing for (I think you're repressing more complex feelings toward them, but I can't prove that either). Compassion is a sense, giving it up is like giving up an eye or a thumb. People who repress shadow fear compassion, for the obvious reasons.>>Iraq was already warring clans, held together as an erstatz "nation" by a series of strong men, the most recent being the tyrant Saddam.<< --True. Instead of tribes finding an organic balance (religious unity, some kind of mass movement, etc) all that

energy was repressed by the dictator. Similar problem in Yugoslavie. Eventually the strongman loses control or is killed, and inevitably, the repressed conflicts rise back to the surface, along with paranoia and a lot of hurt feelings itching for revenge. And all that chaos justifies another strongman taking power, having no idea the trap he's falling into. Everyone thinks taking control is a noble and glorious thing, until they are pushed into compromising every value in order to retain control, eventually losing control anyway, but with no dignity left. We probably shouldn't forget what colonialism did to the Arab world, dividing up real estate along lines that were anything but natural for the cultures involved. It would have been better if we'd left Iraq immediately after invading, if we insisted on removing Saddam from power. But "we broke it, we bought it" and we'll probably break it some more before finding anyone willing to buy it

off our hands. We're a clumsy giant. >>Now that the tyrant is removed, I suppose they will fight it out for dominance, with the "coalition of the willing" trying to impose order. Forget democracy, Iraq is clearly not suited for democracy. The Kurds may end up benefiting the most, esp, if Iraq splits up for good.<< --Agreed about the Kurds. Iraq may be suited for democracy, but not necessarily on the terms of a foreign superpower. Democracy has to take root because it's needed and wanted, and people do want it eventually, once they figure out why it doesn't work to keep trying to take power to prevent others from getting it with no common system under which to form coalitions and represent themselves. America had to go through some messy periods in its persuit of democracy too. Terrorism was practiced against the British. Slavery was accepted as normal. We may feel superior for our fifty or so

years of relative racial equality and fair treatment of women, but I'm not sure we're really in a position to judge other cultures, until we decide what sort of culture we want. A lot of Americans seem to want something in the gray area between a Christian fundamentalist theocracy and a colonial power. Seems kind of regressive, if you ask me. But it's bettter than Hillary Clinton, right? Fear the liberals hiding under your bed, and do what the nice man with the Bible tells you. Everything will be ok. >>I was impressed that the Iraqis executed Saddam right now, and not after 147 appeals.<< --Did you watch the video? I hear it's available for public viewing. What amazes me is how many cases are overturned after lengthy appeals, sometimes only after a journalist or some advocacy group publicizes a case enough to get DNA or other evidence looked at. Our system is so flawed, I don't see how anyone could argue for the death

penalty, regardless of how they feel about it morally. It's one thing to think criminals deserve death. Another thing to accept an unbelievably messy and inaccurate system as the means of delivering death to the deserving and undeserving alike. >>As far as I can see, though, when thinking about the death penalty, its effectiveness as a deterrent is a trivial consideration, if not altogether irrelevant.<< --I'd say we have very different values. For me, public safety is the primary concern. If it doesn't make me safer, then it's not working. A temporary rush of relief (or is it closer to excitement?) when a criminal is put to death is not enough to justify the expense, if it is not an effective deterrent. There are people who believe that if everyone had a gun, crime rates would go down. If that proves true, then I would be far more accepting of that idea than the idea that putting people to death is

a good thing even if it doesn't make the public safer. >>Is political life a game?<< --We've certainly turned it into one. Sometimes all people are thinking about is winning. That's part of our culture, we're primitive that way, adolescent. The common good is just now being taken more seriously, because of all the damage done by ignoring it over the last few decades.>>I haven't got any power, have you? I don't resort to violence.<< --You resort to rhetorical violence, advocating death in some instances. Talking about crime can be a disempowering experience, leading to a lot of verbal violence on the part of nice, decent folks who are proud of being so nonviolent. Where you and I might differ from someone on death row is that for us, being disempowered means something different. If being insulted means becoming prey (true in some

neighborhoods), that kind of disempowerment has a totally different meaning than if your circumstances mean being insulted carries no real threat. If losing your job only means having to find another source of money, it's not all that disempowering. But if losing your job means losing your identity, that's another matter. People attach different significance to the same events. You have to look at what things mean in the frame of reference of the person you're talking about, rather than assuming that what is disempowering to him is meaningless because it carries less significance for you. In fact, it can be disempowering to assume your frame of reference has priority over his. It can be interpreted as arrogance, and if it comes with moralizing or threats of punishment, watch out. >>But by power, here, I am going to assume that you mean the "power" to become middle class. Job skills, social skills, "education, " etc.<< --Power is whatever power is to the individual. For some, education is real power, while money is just a tool. For others, having a lot of money means more. In prison, having a reputation that keeps people from taking advantage of you may be a necessary form of power, depending on the level of violence in that prison. People will kill to keep that kind of reputation, if they think it's the only option. You really have to ask questions to find out what kind of power matters to people, rather than assuming what is power to you is power to them. >>The answer, imo, is education in the older sense - education in character, to a regime. In our case, universal (well, near- universal) Huxtablization. The Huxtables represent that to which nearly all Americans should aspire, and should be taught to aspire.<< --I have no argument with the Huxtables. I'm wondering how you

feel it's best to teach people to Huxtablize themselves. Is there a machine that does it?>>Do you find modern life hard to bear? I should have thought it was almost unbearably easy. Even if you fail, there is a "safety net."<< --I find modern life very easy in terms of physical safety and comfort. Those are not the only things that make life meaningful or bearable, though. We have it easy in some ways, but a lot of young and older people find aspects of our culture difficult to live with, even though they may enjoy an overabundance of french fries and relatively cheap gasoline. >>They need to be made to understand that it is their own damned fault.<< --It's your own damn fault, Dan. I'm wondering how much success you've had with that idea... is this something you've really experimented with, have you changed lives? Give me some idea of what you say to the people

we're gossipping about here, the ones you say must change.>>We destigmatize unwed motherhood, even subsidize it with welfare (hence also undermining the work ethic), then wonder at what we get.<< --I hope you're as much against corporate welfare, because that may affect more people than an unwed mother trying to raise a child. Do you feel stigmatizing people is going to make things better? Don't you think perhaps it was the focus on shame that led to so much shamelessness? Seems to me if you try to shame anyone, you're likely to get rebellion, because shame is a form of attack. It's like biting people and wondering why they keep slapping you. >>The answer, it seems to me, is to re-stigmatize bad behavior. We need to resume using the "scarlet letter." Salutary terms like "slut" and "bastard" (in its literal sense) need once again to become respectable, and used seriously by respectable

people.<< --Fuck you, you insensitive prick. >>A young man needs to know that, if he gets the girl pregnant, he will marry her and support her, and if that interferes with his dreams, too bad.<< --I'm not going to join the marriage police, sorry. Shame them yourself, and then deal with it when they tell everyone they know what an asshole you are. Or, take an active interest in an actual unwed mother, give her access to parenting coaching and other useful things. I don't see much value in shaming people, unless they are so attached to you that they are willing to do anything to regain your approval. Unless you have that kind of bond with someone, don't expect shame to work. It might make you feel morally superior and safe from the wrath of the herd as you direct it to attack those you feel are in the wrong. >>We need, in

short, to return to the sexual mores of the 90's - the 1890's.<< --You and Bin Laden both want that, and neither of you will get it. Too bad. >>If we can't or won't do that, then I guess we need to build a prison on every corner and fill 'em up..<< --I get the feeling that talking about criminals and unwed mothers is almost fun for you, an opportunity to make absolute-sounding, punitive statements. But all I can say is go and interact with them in person, and then tell me what you said to them that changed their lives. >>Why should I deal with him as a person at all?<< --Because objectification is viral. Deal in it, and you get infected. >> (I note that these days thepro-abortionists don't deny that a fetus is a human being - they deny that is is a person.)<< --The notion that abortion is murder would be aborted almost immediately, if a state equated abortion with murder and punished the woman and the provider with life sentences or the death penalty. "Abortion is murder" is a slogan used because it looks good on a bumpersticker, and sounds powerful and absolute. But in practice, it would be overturned by the large marjority of Americans, including a majority of the people who use the bumpersticker slogan. What works rhetorically does not always work in reality. And really, I don't think "Abortion is murder" works rhetorically, it doesn't make people think or feel, it's more of a bandwagon, something to rally around. >>How is execution not a resolution?<< --For whom? I don't feel anything is resolved by it. Violence continues, after the people who carry it out become victims of the same program.>>Well, then that is a problem, since

the "pecking order," as you call it, is perfectly natural to human beings, who are not created equal in any meaningful sense.<< --Are you assuming the pecking order as it stands is the most natural one? What if the current pecking order is maintained by decaying systems of power and influence, and something new is emerging, a new pecking order? Social Darwinism is fun, until you get eaten. >>I'm not sure what you have in mind, but I will see that there are worse things than some violence and crime - and equality of condition so as to eradicate envy would be one of them.<< --Eradicate envy? What idiotic utopian scheme is that? Envy ruins lives, but I can't think of any way to eliminate it by law. Although I don't think if envy disappeared that it would be worse than violence. I don't hang out with a lot of people motivated by envy, it's a disempowering emotion that leads to a lot

of imitation rather than creativity. I prefer creativity, which happens more in groups with low envy levels.>>Many children will, by their nature (the child is the father of the man) grow into adults who will need to be ruled for their own benefit and the benefit of the city.<< --Dan, has the modern world gotten so threatening and chaotic for you that you have to live inside ancient books? You'd be right along with a lot of Christians and Muslims there, but it seems like another disempowering strategy... sure, you can quote Plato to criminals, but does it get a better response, or do they just think it's pretentious? >> "Do your own thing" is a disastrous presecription.<< --So is "Do my own thing", another popular favorite. Seems to me there is a pair of opposite stupidities, one erring on the side of disconnection and the other on the side of clamping down on

difference. Neither works.>>In dealing with many individuals, you might just as well hold a dog or horse responsible.<< --Comparing humans to animals is an ancient form of objectification, preparing them for slaughter. I like animals though, it doesn't work with me. People are animals, and with any animal, understanding motivation and meaning makes it possible to get along. Trying to control an animal by attacking him or her is not generally a good idea, especially with humans, who are smart enough to bite back long after they've been bitten. >>Lacking prudence or the capacity to look ahead, it make no sense to aks them to be responsible.<< --There are brain diseases that make foresight impossible, but I doubt most criminals are afflicted with that kind of problem. More likely, they have the ability to think ahead, but only in contexts that are low-threat,

and since so many contexts are in the high-threat category (especially if any social interaction is seen as an opportunity to gain power or lose it), the ability to think ahead just shuts off. But a lot of violence is a result of complex game theory, among people who have been taught that backing down is equivalent to becoming a victim. It makes rational sense to "lose control" in certain contexts, and then the act is mislabeled "unthinking". If someone kills someone else in prison, it may not be an act of animal rage at all, it may be an attempt to gain safety by developing a reputation for meeting threats and not backing down. So I really disagree that criminals don't think ahead. They do in some contexts, and not in others, like everyone else. They just have more high-risk contexts, where you and I don't have to respond to every threat to our ego as if it were a threat to our life. We're sitting at computers, not much threat here. >>One's nature is

more along the lines of what one is meant to be, as per, for example, jungian psychology.<< --Meant to be, according to whom? It seems to me you spend a lot of time classifying people, rather than dealing creatively with them to make their lives and yours better. I don't know what you do offline, of course. Maybe you're one of those people who goes into the streets and changes the lives of at-risk youth by teaching them chess or something. If so, good work. >>You are insinuating an association between Aristotle's "natural slave" (of which I speak) with evil (of which I did not speak), I suspect for a rhetorical purpose<< --Discussions of crime and punishment often go into "evil". Apologies if you have no concept of evil. What the hell is a "natural slave"? There are people conditioned into accepting compromises that put them in a position of little power... but I don't think

many are born that way. It might be a great justification for someone who wants to weild power over others though, to consider those others "natural slaves", ripe for the picking. Not that you'd do that kind of thing. The belief has been used that way, historically. I don't see much use in it. >>Promiscuous curiosity and experimentation are grossly overrated, in my observation.<< --That just means you're not a thinking type, a musician, an artist or a poet. Or a philosopher. However, I believe it's possible to evolve your type, if you don't mind making some new mistakes. But if you're comfortable being very linear and analytical (a "natural slave" to an intuitive with an understanding of power), that's fine with me. >>Yes, I think I remember that distinction from Psych 101, many years ago, but thank you for reminding me.<< --By any chance, was that an attempt

at rendering my point "juvenile" without really addressing it? Or are you really grateful for the reminder? Even basic points are forgotten in ideological debates, and it's true that any Psych 101 teacher or student who really cares about the subject will understand why shame doesn't work well as a tool for changing behavior. But did you catch that point, or dismiss it out of hand?>>As a practical matter, it is not clear that everyone deserves everything, but in any event - in my observation, the best thing one could do to help many children is to take them away from their parents.<< --Might depend on who is taking them away. I've met a few kids who had to deal with horrible foster homes after dealing with horrible parents. I wouldn't give up on family too quickly, although if it were practical, I might argue for live-in therapists or some kind of supervision for some families. That would be expensive, and we're

used to letting cheapness take priority in dealing with human beings. In contrast, if we're out to build a bomb, only the best materials, spare no expense, etc. But humans aren't worth it. Funny species.>>We tell them, or should tell them, to obey the law.<< --Which law in particular? I generally agree with "When in Rome, do as the Romans do", following local laws. But there are some laws I have no problem with people breaking. The people I've known who broke anti-pot laws were by no means rampaging criminals. There is no slippery slope. Some law abiding people are absolutely vicious, too. But it's ok for you to say "obey the law". It's just that not everyone will, and you might have to get used to disappointment. I would not tell someone living in China to obey all the laws, because breaking some of the censorship laws may be a necessary and moral violation. The idea that law has innate authority is just not reality...

law has real power and meaning when it's based on shared ideals, and we live in a society which has, somewhere in there, an ideal of freedom, and our legal system is somewhat arthritic and politically motivated, not quite in the spirit of the nation, and that's part of why some things aren't working. >>It's all about the law, and none about what *you* think is just - that is what we should tell them. The law can use violence, where you can't - it can also levy taxes and fines where you can't. So what? You don't rule. What's the conceptual problem?<< --The problem is, law is overruled when it no longer represents the spirit on which it was founded. When the law is used for personal gain, applied inconsistently or hypocritically, it crumbles and eventually law enforcement only attracts people who are in it to be above others, to abuse the position or make themselves feel superior. After that, some

new arrangement must be found in the natural order, as opposed to the artificial order. Our laws should be based on the principles of fairness, a level playing field, personal freedom, diversity and safety. If it were true to those principles, there would be no problem. Rebellion is a natural consequence of hypocrisy. People don't trust the authorities. There are reasons they don't. >>Feeling unsafe is just good reality testing.<< --Perhaps. It's what that feeling does to your thinking that may be a problem.>>But it isn't - where do you get this idea?<< --I said "we teach criminals that society is a dog-eat-dog pyramid". That's how we treat them. We don't trust them to change, and we really want to push them to the bottom until they become prey or "natural slaves". Those who are most violent learned it in the most violent ways at home, where the authority of the father was

dysfunctional, hypocritical and cruel. Those who got no mercy when they broke the rules end up learning how to set the rules themselves, and their rules reflect the severity of the rules they were given. Objectification is viral. That's the lesson. Treat criminals like they're human. You can still resort to self-defense if you have to. But not against an object, against a person.>>You so often leave me with the "so what?" response, although I usually try not to express it.<< --You don't have to make the connections I'm making. Your approach is very axiomatic and linear. "The law is the law. You broke the law. Now you pay". Intuitives don't think that way, they find it a bit machinelike and alienating. Not that you're stuck with your approach. I just don't expect you to change it, without some kind of dramatic failure, and there's no way to clearly fail when judging people from a distance, especially people society fears or

wants to punish. It takes decades for people to figure out why it fails, and only after a lot of suffering that seems unfair, and a lot of blaming others. >>We remember Saddam because Saddam was a somebody (a bad somebody, perhaps, but a somebody) and the others are nobodies. So what? we remember the extraordinary, not the ordinary.<< --So does regarding a dictator as "somebody" act as an incentive? What stops us from at least looking up the names of the others who died, as we remember Saddam being executed for killing a lot of other people whose names we don't remember, or want to remember? The whole thing is strange to me... if we pay so much attention to Saddam for what he did to ordinary Iraqis, why don't we seem to care about those Iraqis? Is our sense of outrage more to make ourselves feel righteous than to avenge victims?>>Agreed. Huxtables.<< --You really dig the Huxtables, I get that. >>We have not yet determined that a violence-less world would be good.<< --Your values are strange to me, Dan. Isn't the whole notion of using violence against violence that it will result in less violence overall? That assumes violence is worth fighting against, as something unwanted. Otherwise, why bother? >>I don't know what you mean by a "black undertone." The Huxtables are black, the Katrina victims were mostly black. If the Katrina victims had been mostly white, the lesson would be the same.<< --If the victims were white, I think they might be blamed less for their own misfortune. I don't discount the influence of racism, even in a country where political correctness has driven racism underground and forced it to beat around the bush. I don't think all problems in black communities are due to

white racism (anti-white racism may be a growing problem too), but to discount racism altogether seems a bit too easy. People aren't just stupid, they don't just get flooded because they have no sense. They get flooded because they have a complex thinking process in the face of vague warnings. "They warned us last time about a big storm and nothing happened. Who trusts those guys anymore?" Or "If I leave my house, someone's going to rob it and I won't be there to defend my property". Or "I have nowhere to go, and I'm not about to spend a few hundred bucks on a hotel just to ride out a storm." Katrina didn't take people by surprise (ok, maybe it took FEMA by surprise, but their thinking may have been just as complex) but people make decisions in hindsight a lot better than they do in realtime. Everyone can say, "Why didn't they just leave when the storm warnings were given?" But then we're all ignoring warnings about global warming, which if accurate will make Katrina look

like a lawn sprinkler.>>One assume. So how do we bring that about?<< --Focus on kids who achieve with integrity, load them up with gifts, and then create a system whereby any kid who achieves in the same way will get that kind of reward. Or focus on the bad, pump lots of money into warehousing criminals, and say "atta boy" when a kid achieves academically. If it were up to me, I'd train kids for capitalism by giving them rewards equal to the work we demand of them. The idea that kids owe it to adults to achieve is ridiculous, just an excuse not to invest any real money or effort into incentives for achievement. >>Praise and blame are the tools with which one brings up decent human beings.<< --If you're objectifying them, both the praised and the blamed will turn against you. You just can't pretend human beings can be trained with shame and praise and expect everything to

turn out well. It won't. Guaranteed. Not if one group is objectifying another, trying to have moral authority over another, or using shame as a tool. >>But I will not willingly succor his suffering until he acknowledges, publicly, that it was his own fault, and he resolves to do better in future. I want to hear some mea culpa's. I don't want to hear any "you owe me's."<< --Funny, because that paragraph is full of "you owe me's". What do you expect to get in return? His situation may be more complex than "it's all my fault", and while you can reasonably ask him to do better in the future, you'll ruin any possibility of that happening by oversimplifying and using him as a target of shame. He'll see you as someone trying to dominate him, he will assume you're a hypocrite, and he will feel disempowered by your shame barrage and then find some way to get back at you. And I won't blame him for doing so. I'll feel bad for the

both of you, but I won't be shocked.>>Oh, come on. There are hurricanes every year. Usually they peter out without damaging anything that anyone cares about, and nobody notices.<< --A lot of people thought exactly that when they were warned about Katrina. So they stayed home, and got flooded. Too many warnings and people tune them out, assuming the messenger is crying wolf. So I don't think what happened in New Orleans was a product of thinking much different from your own. Warnings can be ignored, and often are. >>We remember the extraordinary.<< --Many extraordinary things happen, and different ones are remembered by different people. We tend to assume that what we regard as extraordinary, everyone does, and that what we don't notice can't be extraordinary. But attention is not a passive process. We remember what we remember for a reason. >>Climatologists can't predict Atlantic hurricanes one year in advance, but I'm supposed to get all in a tizzy about their dire predictions for world climate fifty years from now. We shall see what we see.<< --I wonder how many people stayed in New Orleans, saying, "Well, I don't think it's going to get much worse. The warnings were overblown, as usual.">>I have ridden out a hurricane warning or two (never class 5 with a mandatory evacuation, however), but had I been wrong, and my house blown down and my life endangered, I would have blamed *myself* and not you. That is what I call "taking responsibility. "<< --I don't see how blaming yourself is taking responsibility. Blaming me wouldn't be responsible either. Taking action to prevent future problems would be responsible. Blame alone doesn't do anything, and is often counterproductive.>>A

problem with hurricanes is that, if they don't come, and you evacuate, people break into your house and steal your stuff. That had a lot to do with it.<< --Right. I thought you said the Katrina victims had no one but themselves to blame, and now you're portraying their decisions as rational. But I agree, there's logic to bad decisions, and understanding how the brain deals with risk and warning is much more useful than laying blame after the fact. >>Blame is not to be used alone.<< --But often is used alone. That's why shame works much more reliably in families, where there is a long-term bond, rather than one or two interactions between strangers. But in families, it does a lot of damage too, when one family member takes on the scapegoat role and gets blamed as part of the narrative of "who is good, and who is not". A lot of criminals take on shadow, it's what they're given, it makes

society afraid and gives them a little bit of their power back, and it's the only role they're given easy access to. It's not surprising that society's shadow ends up carried by a class of people, and we have an easy out -- we can say it's their own damn fault, even though part of what they're carrying came from outside themselves. That doesn't mean they don't have to make better choices, we all have to do better if we want our civilization to survive, but everyone has to stop projecting, and not everyone knows how, including those who enforce the rules. >>You are attacking a straw man. The Huxtables are my model.<< --I said I have no problem with the Huxtables. They aren't the ones using shame as a tool. >>I appreciate the flattery, but it is really not up to me whether there is chaos or not. I don't have that kind of power, one way or another.<< --What if

your decisions were connected to the decisions of all other human beings, such that you could not absolve yourself from the outcome? >>I might be willing to go along with the idea that random firings are imprudent and bad for the republic - but what to do?<< --I'd cut some of the connections that enable large corporations with a lot of money to buy legislation and special protections, and find some way to allow small businesses to compete fairly. Otherwise, family farms will disappear, small businesses will fade out as a pathway to the American dream, and everyone will become a "natural slave" to Walmart, to a handful of executives with incestuous ties to politicians. Adam would be pissed. It's not that capitalism is too free and needs to be restrained, but that capitalism isn't really free, the playing field isn't level, and the outcomes are not in keeping with the principles of the people who came up with the

whole idea of free enterprise. Random firings, in a truly competitive system, would result in those companies dying off and new ones gaining ground, treating their employees as human beings and caring more about the customer. Maybe the system does work, but there's a lag, a delay between bad decisions by executives and the consequences. >>Perhaps if we had a little less creativity and experimentation, things might be more stable.<< --Now you're being way too general. Do you mean experimentation as in finding creative ways to kill people (the CIA and the Pentagon are delightfully creative and experimental in that area) or experimenting with music, relationshps, philosophy and other less violent persuits? >>Meanwhile, you can't solve this problem by "empowerment, " because people differ in their natural ability to use power well.<< --I question

whether it's all about "natural ability". Education does make a difference, and a huge part of it is matching the right teacher with the right student. The right environment makes a huge difference, and blaming the individual for mistakes he makes in an environment designed by and for mistakes doesn't do nearly as much good as finding what works and making it available. Part of the problem is that instead of helping people use power in healthy ways, it's more fun to shame them for using power in bad ways, which prompts them to regain their power by shaming back, endlessly. That's not so much natural as a really bad form of cultural indoctrination.>>For shame to be effective, it has to come from the right source. The criminals you spoke of are shamed by their weakness, yes?<< --Possibly. Shame does have to come from the right source. If you're trying to use shame as a tool to change people, even if the changes you desire

make perfect sense and are right to want, you're not the right source, and you won't get results. But people tend to use shame the way they were taught very young to use shame, and it's one of those drilled-in patterns that can only be changed when one recognizes the need for change and stops justifying.>>Is that what accounts for Napoleon or alexander? "Boundary violence?"<< --People who need that much power are intoxicated by the notion of having ALL power, which signifies a fear of a slippery slope loss of power. In places where people are either predators or victims, people choose the option that doesn't terrify them as much, usually the option that displaces fear onto another victim. Hitler had to have ALL the power that was there to be had. He just didn't realize the price attached to it until he was locked in.>>The key is not to get rid of honor, but to manage it well.<< --What if the people managing honor don't know what honor really is? A lot of people think honor is equivalent to never backing down from a stand, even if it's the wrong stand. That one does a lot of damage, and it's not an honorable thing to do, at all. Language has a tendency to pull people into paradox that way. In seeking honor, a lot of people have dishonored themselves. So maybe it has to be managed the way shadow has to be managed, by transforming one's view of it within. >>Why, I wonder, do you always assume without argument that the higher is derived from the lower?<< --Levels are not separate in nature. Higher develops from lower and vice-versa, and there are many variations and tangled hierarchies along the way. I'm not sure what you're referring to in my post, though. Human ego likes to think higher is absolutely higher, but that's a safety thing, the need to escape webs of interconnection that

threaten to dissolve identity.>>It is not clear to me, but in any event, I agree that pride should not be allowed to overcome prudence. It is not clear, however that Bush is a prudent man.<< --Bush is a "man of his word". A man who must be seen as righteous and moral, who cannot handle criticism or disagreement and who makes sure his social group reflects only what empowers him to make confident decisions. He's not evil. He's just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he can't break out of his need to be righteous against evil. To lose that position would mean feeling evil himself, and like most people, he's not going to enjoy feeling like a bad person, and will justify his decisions so that others look bad instead. It's pretty much what everyone is doing, he just has more power to make a mess with it.>>Again, "natural" does not equal "spontaneous."<< --Nature lives in

this moment. Language lives in memory, in a frozen time that is not natural or real, but that can appear more real than what is currently happening. Nature overrides ego because ego gets trapped in languge, in its own justifications and axioms, its categories of self and other, good and evil. Nature just keeps going, and language is the tail thinking it's wagging the dog. But occasionally, nature and language align, and words mean something. Luther King's speeches came from nature, that's why they were so compelling. Same with Jesus. It's not that everything they said was true, but that the source of their language in general was natural and fully present, rather than abstracted and axiomatic. >>Imo, justice demands it.<< --I'm sorry justice makes so many demands of you. It seems not to make all the same demands of me. >>But it is not a matter of consensus, of who demands

what.<< --Unless you live in a country where law is made by lawmakers representing a public consensus, or a set of elections. Law is not identical to justice, for that reason. That's why I don't mind people breaking some laws. They're not necessarily just laws, but consensus laws produced by a system that doesn't represent a real consensus. >>Justice, like good government, does not proceed from consent of the governed.<< --Saddam would agree. But he's dead, so let that be a lesson to us. I wouldn't want to be a leader without the consent of the governed. >>There is no such thing as "conscience. " There is only prudence, practical wisdom. I don't claim to have it. Few people do have it.<< --I disagree. Conscience exists. Prudence also exists, but in a different part of the brain. It's easy to shut off

conscience when it's seen as weak or unproductive, but that carries a backlash, and I'd rather keep conscience around. >>I am willing to be civil to them.<< --Does that mean civil outwardly and inwardly or civil outwardly but attacking inwardly? Criminals can be very sensitive to people's "vibes". If you're judging them while shaking their hand, they're going to pick it up eventually, as if you shouted it. >>"Everybody does it" is a slavish way of thinking.<< --I agree. One of the functions of shame is to exploit the need to be like everybody else. That's one reason it backfires. At a certain point, people who are shamed discover that being a monster saves them from being like everyone else, and that can become a source of pride. Another example of paradox: shaming people can lead them to become proud of the acts that get them so much attention,

because nothing else gets that kind of attention and singles them out as uniquely frightening and powerful. >>You can hardly embrace Darwinism without embracing Social Darwinism.<< --I haven't met any scientists working in evolutionary theory who took social darwinism seriously. It's a straw man, used by people who don't read enough in the field, or who read only in order to debunk rather than understand. Evolutionary theory incorporates kin selection and social cooperation. The best genes don't get passed on if the group has no ability to defend itself from other groups, so individual fitness and group fitness have a relationship. It's not every man out for himself, which would have led any tribe to die off and killed the genetic line. It's more about benefiting group survival in a way that benefits oneself. Darwin would be puzzled by the use of his name to support a concept that goes against

the science he helped establish. >>Darwin referred to Herbert Spencer (somewhere in _Descent of Man - , don't have the reference in front of me now) as "our philosopher. " The "enlightenment" mongers have sown that wind, and now we reap the whirlwind - speaking of hurricanes.<< --Darwin's favorite philosophers are not by default the favorite philosophers of evolutionary scientists. In science, the teacher is not revered, and his mistakes are recognized and corrected. It woudln't matter if Darwin were a polygamist or ate babies. You can't attack a branch of science by attacking a famous figure in the field. That's what religion and politics are for, attacking the idea by attacking the person. In science, you test the ideas, and ignore personal flaws. Which of Spencer's ideas did Darwin like or disagree with, in particular? >>That is like saying that everybody has the ability to understand nuclear physics, or to compose great symphonies.<< --Nobody has the ability to understand nuclear physics. But people can learn what is known about it, if the information is presented in a way they can process. Usually, people give up trying in areas where they make too many mistakes or end up on the bottom of the totem pole relative to others. But that's a motivation problem, it comes from trying to learn something in a way that doesn't work for you, and then assuming the problem is that you lack natural ability. There's a lot of good work being done in learning styles, and there are reasons why kids who can't learn from a teacher speaking or a textbook can learn through educational video games or other media. Physicists and mathematicians have a visual thinking style that's very different from the mathematical symbols on paper that people see as an end

product, and a lot of people make the mistake of thinking they have to get all the symbolic math before they can understand what the math is describing. That's one reason physics and math are fields most people "aren't naturally good at". They're trying in the wrong way, because nobody has taught them how to think like mathematicians, as opposed to writing down symbols like one. I'm always skeptical of easy categorization of human beings, usually it's more about feeling right/wrong than about how people actually learn. >>Human beings differ in their taletns, clearly and distinctly.<< --Put so broadly, who could disagree? People find some things easier to learn some things than others, and they're more comfortable making mistakes and experimenting in some areas than others. But is that an issue of natural ability, or of motivation and self-esteem? If everyone could compose a symphony, maybe we'd all

feel ashamed that we haven't. So declaring that only a select group can do it makes it feel less painful to see how little we're doing in that area. A lot of kids in school decide at some point, "I'm no good at math", or worse, "I'm no good at academics". They take your "natural ability" idea, apply it to themselves, and have a good reason not to try. Trying doesn't work either, if they're trying to learn in ways that work for others but not for themselves. Either way, there are justifications for giving up. >>You will note that I said that most women, like most men, are irrational.<< --People are irrational in situations where it is rational to behave in irrational ways, or in situations that evoke fight or flight responses that don't make sense in a world where fighting and fleeing both fail. There is rationality behind irrationality, if you look for it. >>How do you now that it is "culturally ingrained,"

whatever that is? I presume it means "taught." Fine. Women are taught they must be thin to be attracitve - but everybody everywhere wants to be attractive. That is not taught.<< --Wanting attention is not taught, it's instinctive, almost without doubt. Wanting to be thin is culturally ingrained, taught in so many ways that it's impossible to see them all and disagree with them on even footing. By "ingrained", I mean that it takes a lot of energy to go against the grain, to disagree with culture as if it were just an opinion and not a force.>>You seem to think that human beings care nothing for pride, or should care nothing. Where would we be without our self-deceptions? How could an ordinary person even tolerate life?<< --Pride can come from many sources. What happens often is that people are afraid of losing their pride, and then they act out of fear, which leads to shame. The

problem is really attachment. Give up attachment, the idea that you MUST be or do anyting, and it's not a problem. You still need meaning, but meaning can come from many sources too. >>Put it this way - everyone wants honor, few deserve it. How to cope?<< --One way is capitalism, when it works. Allow people to excel in so many different ways that there's something for everyone and nobody has to kill the king to get power. Honor is just attention, dressed up as something more noble. Whatever gets attention is, by default, honorable, and that means a gang that rewards a willingness to kill enemies will determine that the only honorable course of action is to kill enemies. To redefine honor is to go against the grain, but sometimes you have to go against the grain to survive. If we get hooked on honor, if we have no choice but to sacrifice everything for it, we'll lose honor after losing everything else. That's happened so

many times throughout history, it's amazing we still get sucked in. But when everyone tells you honor means taking a stand and never backing down, we do that, even if the stand is wrong. Going against the grain means being regarded as a traitor, which brings shame. Using shame as a tool in any context is part of that progression. >>I might make an OK rapper, but would make a better TV evangelist. I missed my calling.<< --Would you be an evangelist out of a sincere belief in Jesus, or a need to use Jesus as a tool to control the herd? Jesus warned about such people, didn't he? >>Polite fictions *are* convenient lies.<< --Lies break down eventually. That should be accounted for, or one is dishonored by his willingness to lie in order to gain power or control over others. >>Name three. name one.<< --are

you really saying the only way to maintain order is to lie? I don't think that's true. I think lying can be convenient, but there are so many ways to reduce friction without lying, why resort to one tool?>>I have some agency over my own actions, that's all.<< --How do you determine which actions you have agency over? If you're like most people, trial and error. You find it easy to change some things, hard to change others, and there's no absolute way to decide either way. >>For better or worse, the church held its authority for many hundreds of years. I believe that it is science that is killing the church.<< --It's the hypocrisy of authoritarianism that is killing the church. The message of Jesus is revolutionary, and no institution can build itself around that message and develop a rigid hierarchy without the irony splitting the whole thing apart and

fragmenting the church into countless divided sects. Science is just doing science. The worst use of science is in building more and more destructive weapons, not countering superstition and dogma in religion, something truly religious people do anyway. Jesus was not a Catholic, it's silly to think the church could hold onto authority without losing its religion. >>Soon, though, science will succeed in undermining the political conditions necessary for its own existence, and then we will see what we see.<< --What conditions are necessary for science to exist? Information flow and some people free enough to experiment. I don't think either will disappear. What will disappear is the notion that one group can control other groups. It backfires too often now.>>No. I doubt that god judges at all. I don't believe in particular providence. God doesn't care who wins the Army - Notre Dame

game.<< --If you believe in God, does God oppose slavery? My god did, and I don't even have a god. It opposed slavery anyway, and won. Pretty good for an imaginary friend. >>Not among good children.<< --You don't think "good children" will resent adults for pitting them against "bad children"? Perhaps their best revenge will be to befriend the "bad children", to think there isn't so much wrong with them, and to question the categories. >>Christian conservative fundamentalists (protestants) don't believe one goes to hell as a punishment for actions. You're either "saved" by personal faith in JC, or not. You don't go to hell for particular sins, as you do in Catholicism.<< --It's all pretty silly to me. You go to hell when you objectify yourself or others, it's that simple. The more people need to control, shame

or punish others, the further they go into hell, usually without realizing they're in hell until something goes wrong externally. Belief in Jesus isn't what saves, but the willingness to release self and others from judgment. Jesus said pretty much that, but I don't get the sense that Christians listened in great numbers. Organized religion operates on shame and control more often than not, and dies from it. >>Worked in the Middle Ages. Jung says so.<< --Well, if Jung said so, it must be true. What is he, Mao Tse Tung? What makes you think that what worked in the middle ages would work now? Any evidence, aside from nostalgia? >>Life made sense, he says - your purpose was to get to heaven or to get to hell. Now, life makes no sense to many people.<< --That's a great argument for finding ways to make sense of life that don't involve religious

dogma or threats of hell. Not so great an argument for reviving fear of hell. It never worked very well. Even popes did things their religion said were offensive. Fear of hell just doesn't work, and never really did. >>Why try something else when there is nothing wrong with the old way, or any reason to think that the new way will be better. the "new way" hasn't even examined its ends, as far as I can see.<< --The old way gave birth to what we have now. Why idealize it? Slavery only ended in North America a little over a century ago. Idealizing the past is only possible if one has tunnel vision, or some idealistic mythology about the past that's more fiction than truth. >>I am reluctantly compelled to conclude that certain of the American founding principles and teachings are deeply flawed.<< --You can always move to

Iran, where religion is frequently used to keep people in line, with almost continual use of shame as a tool. You might fit right in I kind of like American ideals, I just wish we'd live up to them more. >>I believe you are educable.<< --That implies that you are the "teacher" and I'm the "student". If you invoke the "I'm going to teach you a lesson" frame, you'll get transference. Don't try that with anyone with a history of violence. I hope you're educable too, for your own sake. >>It has been suggested that, had Socrates been thirty or forty instead of seventy, he might have accepted exhile or escaped to start over in another city.<< --Possibly. No way to know. I think he was sincere in general though. He didn't care if his teachings disrupted the status quo. It wasn't his job to care about being politically incorrect. His job was to ask

questions, including ones that led down dangerous paths, and he did his job pretty well. >>If you don't use philosophy for political ends, philosophy beomces impossible.<< --Just be aware of when the tail is wagging the dog. It's normal for humans to adjust perception to fit politics, and that can lead to blindness and chaos, not to mention degradation of meaning in language. >>The people hate philosophy, because it challenges the ancestral, the old gods.<< --People like to sacrifice to the known. To change is to wonder if the sacrifice was ever appropriate, and once you start sacrificing for a cause, you get locked in, unable to backtrack. It's a trap based on brain architecture and social dynamics, not philosophy. >>If forced into enlightnement, they will kill the philosopher, just as Socrates

says.<< --Forcing people to do *anything* is a good way to get killed. Socrates didn't use force, though, except the force of questioning. Socrates was a victim of political correctness. >>Some people, like professor Dawkins, for example, haven't gotten this and ignore it to their peril.<< --I don't like how Dawkins belittles religious people (not sure how often he does it) but I think he'll be fine. I doubt anyone is going to shoot him. >>I am making rules useful for people without prudence, unable to make subtle judgments, in order to aid them in avoiding mistakes.<< --Are you doing it successfully, such that people change their actions in positive ways? Moralizing is easy. You just have to talk down to people and see them as needing your teachings. But teaching in a way that leads to a

change of heart or change in behavior is a different skill. It doesn't matter what rules you teach, if your style backfires. A lot of religious people make that mistake. They say, "They hate me because I tell them they need Jesus". No, they hate you because of your attitude toward them when you preach. >>As I said before, a high number of false positives seems acceptable to me, given the circumstances.<< --Would you feel that way if you were one of them? It's easy enough to make rules that don't affect you. >>I would like to have a motorcycle myself, although it has been forbidden :-)<< --I give you permission to have a motorcycle, no matter who else forbids it. >>and think how many men would shape up if women adopted my principles.<< --Well, sure, if women refused to have

sex with men who fight, men would stop fighting and there'd be peace in the world. Getting an entire gender to do anything at the same time might be difficult. >>Whatever happend to "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle," anyway? I always sort of liked that.<< --I think being overly dependent on anyone else's attention is a bad idea. That's the issue between men and women, each is adapting to what the other does to get attention, instead of just putting attention on value, regardless of other considerations. >>LOL! And I have a "different" golfing style. Tiger Woods isn't *better*, he's just *different*.<< --Right. He's different. He's part of a game system that defines "better golf" in certain ways. But that game didn't come from heaven. It was defined by people, and people give each other attention for doing things they see as better

than other things. It's incredibly artificial, but there's something real behind it, namely the neurological process of learning to do anything more accurately over time. It's the process that has meaning, not the ranking. Lots of people put Tiger Woods on a pedestal, but he's the one playing the game, and anyone playing with the same level of concentration is on his level, even if their golf game isn't very good. Where language goes wrong is when people use words like "better" without context. Better at what? Better in what ways? One person is not objectively better than another, unless someone decides what game they're playing and how to rank moves made in the game. Those systems are generally artificial, and the word "better" is extremely deceptive when used too loosely. >>No child left behind. All have won and all must have prizes.<< --Sounds like you're really into evaluating and ranking

people, in general. Is that safe to say? Would it shock you that some people don't care as much about doing that, and that there is nothing wrong with them? >>Typically low in one is low in another, although perhaps not *as* low. The kid with an 80 VIQ and a 120 PIQ is very rare, in my experience.<< --More ranking and evaluation... it's all the evaluating that will make one of the next few generations rebel. I would. >>Based on his SAT's, his Wechsler IQ should be around 120 - top 10%. He might not be smart enough for his job, but he is not stupid.<< --I'm trying to imagine how it would be useful to hold a number in my head while interacting with someone... still trying. If I'm talking to a kid, I'm not all that concerned with how the world has ranked him or what number has been tattooed on his psyche. I'm interested in how he learns, and how to adapt

what he has trouble learning to his learning style. It works. They learn. I haven't met anyone yet who couldn't learn. But if I were stuck in a system that constantly ranks people and assigns them numbers, I doubt I could teach much without going crazy. >>And who will progam the programmers?<< --We're at a point where people may have to program themselves or be victimized by programmers who think they know what's best for everyone else. Maybe that's a good thing. I think that's closer to real responsibility than following rules or obeying orders in a hierarchy.>>Regardless of resources, I can't learn to be a good golfer, never mind a great one. I lack the talent.<< --You lack a mindset that would make it possible. Saying to yourself, "I lack the talent" is a perfect way to drain yourself of motivation to achieve. Not surprisingly, millions of kids feel the same way about

academics. They conclude they lack the talent. Good teachers say, "Bullshit. Whatever you've been told by others, you haven't failed with me, and I won't let you." >>Thanks to feminism and other pernicious doctrine undermining the prescribed roles. It's not difficult to stir up trouble. That doesn't make it good.<< --You know, I think you really might like Iran. Have you thought about making the move? Oh right... prescribed roles didn't work there either. Nevermind. >>Belief that one is unjustly used leads to rebellion.<< --Agreed. And objectifying or shaming anyone causes them, almost without exception, to feel unjustly used. So they rebel. Not too complicated. >>Sorry, but I am under the impression that smoking pot is till against the law.<< --Just to make a point, I will now go smoke pot. And you won't stop me. Nyah,

nyah.>>Pot smoking was never too acceptable, even when legal.<< --Pot smoking was never acceptable? Which people are you hanging out with? I know people in their 60's who smoke pot. It's legal in a few places now, and the sky hasn't fallen there. Relieved?>>Known any stoners? come on.<< --Many. Are you stereotyping pot smokers now? Might as well stereotype people who drink beer. I can't think of any quality that beer drinkers or pot smokers all have in common, they are both very diverse groups. >>Experienced statesmen can't stave off nuclear war, it is the innocence of the uncorrupted children that will do it.<< --Cynicism won't do it, that's for sure. Cynicism can only repeat history. It knows nothing else, and allows no other options. >>Ah. Yet you blame me, and even demand an apology,

when I say the very same thing.<< --Try to remember that if I "shame" you, it's tongue in cheek. I don't actually do that to people. >>You don't get to decide which laws you follow. When you do, you make yourself a criminal. You are not the decider. Sorry.<< --Oh, no. I smoked pot today. I'm a criminal. Now what will I do? I know! I'll hang out with other criminals, since you don't want me around. >>A pot farmer, as opposed to a would-be pot farmer, is an habitual criminal. Of course he is investigated.<< --Labeling him a criminal makes it easier not to care what happens to him. >>If I smoked pot, it could ruin me. So I don't smoke pot. Simple.<< --You are such a delicate flower, that smoking pot would ruin you? Or do you mean you'd get drug tested and lose work?

>>All of this amounts to saying that you are right and the law is wrong .<< --Some laws are wrong. I'm not always right. Neither is the law. >>There is no such thing as international law.<< --Or domestic law. It's all just words on paper, with a few people willing to use force to enforce the words. You reify one law, and not another. International law is no less real than the law you accept as real, although you're less likely to see international law enforced with guns. >>That said, you appear to demand perfection, and when you don't get it, you appropriate the right to petty tyranny to yourself.<< --I'm being a petty tyrant by smoking pot? Weird. >>It's not up to Joe Lunchbox, or you, or me, or my nephew, to calculate consequences in this fashion. I have a

tendency to break speed limits, I have been doing it for more than thirty years, and no bad consequences have ensued. I'm still in the wrong.<< --Whether you are right or wrong, speeding kills people and I wouldn't want to see you hurt someone and have to live with that. Screw the law, the law will only give you a ticket. Slow down for your own safety and that of others. Speeding is worse than smoking pot, by far, in terms of statistical damage to life and health. But if the law is all you care about, ignore what I just said, it wouldn't sink in anyway. __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Toni says; >>Maybe the use of compassion is wrong in this vein, and empathy might be better, sympathy or pity.<< --Words have different meanings to different people, even if they agree on using dictionary definitions. "Pity", for example, can mean either compassionate action or self-righteous "helping" behavior, which are totally different things. Empathy doesn't have too many negative connotations, and I think your definition of compassion is pretty good. People suffer along with others, regardless of whether they want to, there are parts of the brain designed for that kind of entrainment and co-experiencing of events, and when compassion is painful, people tend to shut it off by having no face-to-face contact. They walk on the other side of the street rather than looking into the eyes of the homeless, or argue from a safe distance to punish harshly people they never have to face. Once face-to-face

interaction is established, empathy is much more difficult to cut off, and compassion is the natural result. Enemies don't just fear each other, they fear that the Other will be humanized, resulting in conflict between defense and compassion. It's a way of avoiding guilt.>>It is not an emotion that one expresses and then goes about one's daily business.<< --Compassion does prevent some people from getting anything done. Some of them find a way to make compassion their life calling. Others try to isolate themselves or channel compassion into one person or a family, to avoid being flooded. >>If you are suffering WITH someone, real genuine love is part of the term, and we are suffering along with the one who suffers.<< --Ironically, that can lessen suffering, when a large part of it is caused by feeling misunderstood, alienated or cut off from

human compassion. Suffering with others can heal them, and it can be so rewarding that it's not suffering at all.>>I do not see compassion as merely "mortal virtue" Compassion is beyond morality and in the spiritual realm for most people.<< --I agree. Thinking of it in terms of virtue can become an obstacle. A lot of people react against "self-righteous pity" instead of asking if compassion can come from a more authentic place than the desire to use other people's pain to glorify oneself. A lot of conservatives reacted against what they felt was a self-righteous form of compassion in liberalism, without introducing real compassion themselves. That was a mistake, especially since much of liberal compassion is genuine and makes a real difference when practiced. Context also matters. I've met Christians who had great compassion for suffering and contributed a lot of their own money and/or time to help, but who felt nothing

for people they believed "deserved consequences". I believe cutting off compassion based on someone "deserving" harshness is a product of shadow projection and repressed shame, more than a way of serving necessary norms and rule systems. It's hard to prove that, but people connected to feeling or intuition tend to see it more easily than people indoctrinated into a "rules are rules" ideology. >>Seeing others as human beings, , does not in itself remove the threat of danger...<< --Not always, but it does avoid triggering violence in many cases, and can completely change interactions with people who are "in the wrong". The opposite, seeing them as objects, has a consistently negative effect. I would not recommend that anyone view anyone else, however innocent or guilty, as an object. Self-defense does not require it, and repressing compassion for an enemy can be fatal, inducing him to go

further down a dangerous path, and making life more dangerous for oneself at the same time. >>it is man's "inhumanity to man" that is the universal problem, so seeing someone as a human being as he is prepared to mug me, does not lessen the perceived threat.<< --I'm not sure it's inhumane actions that are the core problem, but the lack of a process by which the damage done in the past can be overcome by both offender and victim. Without such a process, both tend to repeat the past, both continue to suffer, and nothing changes. >>Mercy, my friends means unconditional mercy...it isn't measured by the size of the injury, nor is it given only when others ask for forgiveness. That isn't mercy, just justice to forgive injury.<< --Mercy takes different forms. For someone coming from a military or martial arts perspective, mercy is the recognition that the

battle is over, and that repairing social relationships can safely begin. On a spiritual level, it may be unconditional. That takes a certain level of insight or a feeling connection to something beyond the fear of death. There is no requirement that mercy be given when it's clearly dangerous to do so, although there are people who will sacrifice their lives for the spiritual message it sends.>>WE cheapen our reactions to the troubles of others because we do not put ourselves in their shoes. I see no reason for a pat on the back for anyone rendering justice....that is what human beings are expected to do...and that is moral.<< --Agreed. Often, there is shadow projection along with the statement, "I would never put myself in that position", absolving oneself of compassion. Without shadow projection, I'm not sure that statement is possible to make. >>Also when discussing criminals wouldn't it be

necessary to separate "wrong-doers" from sociopath?<< --Sure. Most criminals are not true sociopaths, they are people who are unable to adapt to society's strange system of double standards and moral paradoxes, who make mistakes out of frustration or a need to regain self-respect after being humiliated or judged. Sociopaths experience reality differently, and it's good to be able to tell the difference. Not as many people are able to work with sociopaths, I don't know how many people teach the skills needed for that. >>People go to prison for non violent crimes and can be redeemed by love and understanding.<< --In the case of victimless crimes, there's no need for redemption. In cases of property damage, it makes more sense for some kind of reparations system to replace prison time whenever possible. People are more open to that idea now that they've seen the

results of the old way and are getting tired of it. >>Sociopath couldn't care less about how you felt about them...or do I read different books than you do?<< --Hard to tell whether sociopaths put up a wall because it's the only option available to them (if you were a serial killer, would you trust anyone enough to tell them how you really feel, or even be able to admit your own feelings?) or if they have no capacity, conscious or unconscious, for empathy. Either way, dealing with sociopaths is not easy, because they tend to be smarter, or at least able to jump from one frame of reference to another. They aren't going to be interested in moral norms, obviously. >>Some people may well deserve the name "evil" I sure wouldn't make blanket statements or judgments, but I do know evil exists and people may perform it.<< --If you define evil as the

ability to treat people as disposable objects, then it exists. Often, the word has fuzzy mystical connotations that may be more fiction than reality, and people have widely differing perceptions of what evil is, and whether a person can "be" evil or whether only actions can be labeled evil. >>Done some reading on the subject , and our insufficient, deficient prison system, almost always filled with the lower economic classes and the uneducated need lots of work.<< --True. Throwing people away as problems is coming back to haunt us. People are recyclable. Throwing them out is wasteful. >>I do agree that society killing someone is beyond the pale. A great way to teach our kids non violence! If people actually want revenge to get "closure" they need understanding , love and therapy.<< --Agreed. The notion that giving someone a "taste of their own

medicine" leads to closure is more of a popular fiction than a reality. Some victims do feel some relief when an offender is put to death, but I suspect they are reluctant to talk about the more complex emotions involved, under social pressure not to feel anything outside a certain acceptable range of emotions. I've met several victims of violence who understood the perpetrator far better than the system, but who felt there was no outlet for their perception, only a system that uses victims as tools to shame offenders. >>, I beg you, use the appropriate words for description so I may understand what you are really saying.<< --I use words that mean something to me. Everyone does. I try to use words people can relate to, but you can't please everyone, unless they give specific requests. >>I would really believe it , if experience had fashioned your views. Like if you or

some family member you love would be threatened by violence by other human beings...really threatened with great danger.<< --On what basis are you assuming I have no experience behind my views? Yes, I use big words sometimes. That's because I read books. But I also interact with people in person, and I haven't talked much about that here because I don't know everyone here personally. I've met Alice, but that's about it. >>Or you were on the front lines...that is when compassion is usually really practiced when someone kills or wounds a friend or comrade.<< --I would not expect everyone to have compassion in moments of severe stress or fear. Brain chemistry changes so dramatically in some situations that compassion may not even be possible, although it's impossible to say whether it is or isn't. >>Do you actually believe you know their suffering?

both of them? That is pretty rarified company...and yet we really never know how we will behave until we are tested.<< --I didn't say I knew what it's like to be crucified or shot. A lot of other people could tell you that story better, having experienced something like it. But I understand why Jesus and Gandhi did what they did, and what state of mind they had to be in. They weren't thinking about the suffering they would face later, they were following the gradient of power and compassion where it led, and anyone can do that, if they are free of other constraints and obligations. >>Oh well, I have spoken from the heart, and all is my considerd opinion only.<< --Your humility and openness are appreciated. __________________________________________________