What concrete examples can you give for your own life in which you and the other person involved have separated feeling that a conflict has been resolved?
So on the basis of your speech and logic I could tell you what is immoral and wrong about your own thinking and behaviour. So would you understand if I told you that the way you present your arguments and ideas is absolutely wrong and you damage your fellow world?
Well, then I do that herewith: I think it is completely wrong to give my son such a world view and tell him that his teachers without exception and one hundred percent are the vicarious agents of a thoroughly evil system and that they do evil to him - because they are too stupid to recognize it - and alienate him from me.
I think it is completely wrong to suggest to him that the teachers and the school are making me a weak and powerless person who, because she has nothing to oppose this, as a result makes my son a weak and speechless victim. Who makes a judgment about people like the teachers right from the start, who suggests to my son that his mother first of all makes a verdict without knowing the convict or having heard him. Second, she presumes not only not to hear and respect anyone personally, but to place all people of a profession under general suspicion. Thirdly, she presumes to spread this general suspicion as righteous in the world and to believe that her own superior moral concept justifies it.
Not only would I pretend to be exploited and a victim of the system, I would now want to inoculate my son with this self-pity and resignation. I would misuse my son to pass on my imagined powerlessness to him and want him, because I did not have enough courage myself, to resist this evil that I portrayed as generalizing. I would put my frustration as a mother on his shoulders because I would never have had the good experience that a conflict means really listening to the teachers and not judging them. It wouldn't let me set foot in school, but it would boycott everything. I would suggest to my son that I was not only a cowardly and selfish mother, but also that I would leave him alone and that he would think that I was not interested in his life.
According to your logic, I would have to file a complaint and defend myself against compulsory schooling and do everything in my power to prevent my son from going through the state school system. In your opinion, there are no alternatives. Not a view that can move away from yours.
I could say to you on the basis of your rationality: I consider all this completely immoral and wrong. Even dangerous. Not only have you failed in your self-imposed duty not to harm other people, but you are part of the problem you condemn. What would you say if I told you that you were deeply violating my code of ethics?
Instead, I invested time and energy, and I could feel that my controversial confrontation with a difficult teacher could make a difference. We didn't separate as "ah, we love each other so much now," but as peers who went through a tough process. I have chosen the alternative, others may choose the fight, still others bundle their energy into activities that have an indirect impact on the systems and so eventually everyone will create change through time.
If you really believe that it is done with such simple accusations as you pronounce them, then you are much more similar than you believe to those you consider powerful.
So where can you prove that besides talking, you're fighting a fight? Have you filed a complaint with the court that you do not want to subject your children to compulsory schooling? Do you have children? Where's your evidence that if you don't want to fight, you're done with the system and live a self-sufficient life?
As long as you cannot present me with a credible event that has taken place in your life as real, where you can tell the good that you think you are carrying into the world as knowledge also in a good end of an encounter, I consider your argumentation to be superficial.
Have you been able to settle a concrete dispute? Were you able to help someone from your immediate environment stop insulting other people and thank you for reflecting on how they were about to intensify the conflict? Were you able to actively help someone negotiate rationally rather than blaming emotionally?
In any case, I have long since understood that you would like to behave morally and there is nothing wrong with that unless you are a judge.
You see, it's not that easy. You are a beneficiary as well as a critic. You have to deal with the paradox of being both alike and finding your way in it, which requires situational interaction with individual people.
This is a rather drastic depiction of my words. I described facts that cannot be denied, and you say I've done a wrong? I did not insinuate that you must be angry, or that you are a powerless victim who leaves your children to the wolves.
I acknowledge that the teachers are well-intentioned... but this is of little value if they don't know the difference between right and wrong. Healing is required, but this cannot begin until the person realizes they have a problem. Pointing out that problem is not an evil, it is a necessary first step toward uplift.
I have described the reality of the situation. I'm not telling you how to react to it, other than that it must be openly acknowledged. If you can devise a loving way of changing their minds, that's great, but in the meantime you and your family ARE being victimized, whether you choose to call it that or not. You and your son are being coerced to participate in this system, and people who use coercion never do so for your benefit, they do it for their own.
Personally, I always seek to resolve conflicts by finding common ground in what's undeniably true. You know how much luck I have with that? With most people - hardly any at all. With others - 100% success. It doesn't work is when people don't value Truth. Many are more concerned with their own circumstances, their own feelings and opinions, and with remaining in good standing with cultural norms. On some level, they don't even accept the notion of Truth at all - they think their opinion trumps everything.
I don't have an opinion - I'm describing what undeniably IS. Would you refute it? Would you say it's not so black and white? There are certainly many factors to consider, but there IS a reality, and that reality is these people are acing in an immoral capacity, regardless of the good ends they have in mind. Those ends do not justify their means.
I'm not sure why you take offense to any of this, or why you would judge my words based upon anything about my private life. A message must be judged upon its own merits, not upon the merits of the messenger. Either what I say is true, or it is not. If it is not, it should be rather easy to explain how it is not. If it is, it behooves you to accept it and figure out how to cope with it.
Truth is only dangerous to falsehood, deception, and denial - to all else it is a benefit. I always seek to resolve things peacefully and rationally, yet I find that others become angry and irrational when their worldview is challenged. It's rooted in fear and insecurity. I cannot make decisions for others; all I can do is present accurate information and argumentation to support it, and encourage them to face uncomfortable realities with grace so we can help each other move forward. Unfortunately, I am not often met with willing partners in this effort.
I really do not so much care about my government or people who rule me. I care for direct interactions with teachers, state officials, policemen, judges, bosses, clients etc. etc. wherever and whenever I meet them. Situational.
When I was unemployed and the man behind the desk began to suggest "what we now must find out for you... " I said to him: "Listen, I know that's your job and I thank you. But I am very well aware of what I want and what I don't want for my working life. I make it easy. I have an idea and a plan. I prefer not to hear from you so often and instead appreciate when you give me job offers which match exactly what I have in mind."
I was witnessing him breathing more easy and relieved that I took the burden from his shoulder to pretend that he could guide me. The state is not my father and neither my mother.
My bank refused to give me credit when I needed three rents from them for my new landlord. I went there and set it clear. So they gave it to me.
My boss wanted to exclude me from staff meetings and I told her that I was there to learn something and not to look from the outside. So she afterwards included me in the meetings. She actually made a joke about me, as I was crossing the borders of my profession and poked my nose into matters for which I was not responsible. My answer was: "But that's why you hired me. You know that I do care for the people and the company as a whole. I get into trouble and that's the way it goes." At another time I disobeyed and said I won't do a certain task as I did not see it as my responsibility. We respect each other, I work there now for seven years.
A colleague wanted me to do her inconvenient work and I told her she should do her stuff and not bother me with it. We became very good colleagues after all.
I insisted to get another job at a place I really had loved to become a part of. They told me: "Impossible. You do not bring the required education and the city binds us to this requirements." I said: "Fine, than hire me as a freelancer and let's try a few hours a week." They agreed and actually created a fully new position for me. I work there for six years.
I rejected a job offer at a rich finance company, where I could have my company car, cell phone, bonuses and leading my own marketing department. I was not interested, finance bores me to death and I am not a friend of high finances.
Police stopped me on my way to my family, two hours away from my town. They told me the back lights were broken (both!) and gave me an escort for the rest of the way, which were about 30 kilometers.
Another occasion, it was in the middle of the night, I was grumpy as I gave my friend a ride to his work and then lost my way in the city and ran over a stopping sign. The officer stopped me and I gruntled at him that I can't find the damn way and if he knew the directions. He gave them to me and wished me a good night.
I could go on and on.
You see, you always speak of authenticity but nowhere I can feel nor sense it in what you describe as true in your life.
Of course, I was traumatized, insulted, being taken advantage of, disrespected and accused of whatnot. But that doesn't mean I am a victim. Of course there are forces I cannot influence. But I prefer to interact within the systems I can get my hands on.
Now, is there anything similar you can tell ME?
I know you're looking for personal anecdotes, but I don't think and talk that way. I prefer to speak of philosophy, principles, ideas. My own life is one in 7 billion and utterly uninteresting. I'm concerned with things of a higher order, and I seek to be one small expression of that. To find the stories you're looking for I'd have to go digging around in my past, which I find unbearably boring and profoundly distasteful.
I found a video I think you would like. I'm working toward embodying the spirit of this woman's perspective (even though I resent having to), because I recognize it as necessary and wise:
How can you be a small expression of a higher order, when you cannot recall personal events in which this order showed itself in practice? Practice doesn't mean to talk with people about failures in reference of a higher order. It means to practice to overcome your own difficulties in interactions without bothering them with theirs or those of third parties.
Are you saying no matter where you worked, where you were embedded in a family or social system you did not make a difference? How then can you explain that two facilities with the same proportions of staff and the same tasks (like hospitals, for instance), can create such different outcomes in the view of the people? If it not were for the different people in the system with their personal histories? Imagine yourself as a radiate part of the system from where everything and everybody around you is being influenced by what you do or omit (think and feel). From you it's being transported to the next and from there to the next, and so forth. Are you saying no matter if you have a bad day or a good day that those around you are unaffected by it?
How can you even be taken seriously by me if you perceive yourself as insignificant? Your higher principles are not applied alive if you cannot tell personal stories where your aspired ideals are reflected. Why should I listen to what you say when you are not an example to me?
You seem to consider it void what you or I as individuals contribute to the whole system. But we form the matrix of our human coexistence. I see it as being an important part of my system, because everything I do or do not do has an effect. Philosophy loses its meaning and power, if you see it merely as a subject of discussion. How everything becomes impoverished and philosophical without depth if you do not practice it.
Practise? What does that mean for you? Talk about what's going on in your mind? The practice of compassion becomes weak when you consider your existence to be small, your past as distasteful. You don't want to be you then, but someone else?
Actually you point the finger at your fellow human beings who are not like the woman from the video or the philosopher or another ideal. You seem contradictory to me because, on the one hand, you imply that you are already ideally suited, on the other hand, you cannot give examples that tells such things.
So how should I understand you? Our dialogue reflects your distaste to name real episodes, your answer a renewed rejection. But at least an answer to which, unfortunately, I can only ask again: who am I actually talking to? Why should I continue to be interested in this dialogue? Everything that you mention and that is not Brian, I can research on the net myself. Whether it is about higher principles, searching for truth or anything else, everything is already out there. The only thing I don't find are anecdotes of a personal Brian nature, because only everyone can tell the narratives themselves and thus enrich the whole thing.
About my anger: Mostly you have nothing to do with it. It's my frustration to not having overcome the distance between you and me and my inability to express myself in a supportive way which creates understanding. I try not to stick to it and see in this dialogue a chance to practice being less flawed. But if I fail, it's not your fault, neither mine. It's just a matter of process in which there is no end. A failure it only becomes if I consider it a failure and fix this in time.
The reason why I'm reluctant to share personal experiences is because I reject the idea that they are relevant. If a person says "When washing dishes, one should use soap and warm water for best results, instead of a dry stone", the validity and efficacy of that information is independent of the speaker's having exemplified its efficacy in practice. Think on it yourself. Try it for yourself. Investigate to see if it's true. The idea is to be judged on its own merits, not that of the speaker.
Yes, the information I provide is available elsewhere. I consider myself a radio, broadcasting a message that I have not created; something that is being broadcast by many other individuals. But someone may come into my range who would not have come by this information anywhere else. I am merely trying to carry this information into my sphere of influence.
I absolutely DO embody what I speak about, and one of the ways I do this is by speaking these ideas. I attempt to make my influence in any circumstance representative of that message. So whereas people may have carried on a conversation about compulsory schooling under the assumption that it's moral, appropriate, and beneficial, my presence will introduce an alternative viewpoint that casts doubt upon that unfounded set of assumptions.
I also remove my support from institutions and practices that are not in accord with Truth and morality. I do not vote or appeal to politicians. I do not call the police to enforce immoral laws upon others. I do not support the vile practices of the meat and dairy industry with my dollars or participation. I would not send my children to school, but for the fact that my wife would destroy my family if I imposed this action without her consent, and I have yet to garner her consent because she is too insecure to step outside the conformist paradigm.
I do, however, raise the issue constantly, and teach my children the truth: that teachers have no rightful authority over them, and they have no responsibility to follow any of their commands because they never consented to the arrangement that would imply the obligation. I teach them to challenge what's being asserted by teachers when they bring home information that's erroneous or deceptive. I teach them what that ritualistic oath known as "The Pledge of Allegiance" actually means, and let them know they need not participate, nor should they feel compelled to take oaths they do not understand or agree with.
There need not be any distance between us. I would prefer to both look out into the world hand-in-hand and try to figure out what we're looking at. Is the sun an LED light bulb in the sky, or a flaming ball of fire? There is a truth to this matter, as all others, and together we should seek to find it. When we do, we will necessarily agree; and if we are not in agreement, it only means the work is not yet complete on that particular subject.
Two years later.
I owe you an apology.
I think I now get what you back then tried to tell me. This year made me realize some things which I was not willing to see as it threatened my view of the world (though I deep down knew it but decided not to look at it as I probably felt I could not change it, anyways).
I read a lot about anarchy these days. Maybe the only way to exist in more or less peace. Unfortunately the definition of this term is negative.
I hope, you will find this late answer some day. I wish you to find peace in your heart and mind, especially in this upcoming era. The same I wish for me and all of us.
Love,
E.