not to oversimplify a complex topic (the need for brevity can force complexity to seem simplified when more lies underneath), but: there are important distinctions to be made between the commitment to humanize all beings (to refuse to dehumanize), and being willing to validate positions that may stem from conditioning into power, rather than contain those positions and challenge them to grow, while focussing care and empathy on those who as you’re grappling with are routinely not centred.
Beginning in a relational way that insists on standards and forming a fabric - a circle of belonging - with people who have both the ability and the desire to share standards of care and ethical behaviour - then fostering the requirement to be at those basic standards as a condition of belonging - is I think the one way we can get to communities that foster genuine safety for those who are in them. Open armed exclusion can both honour the autonomy of people who cause harm and simultaneously build meaningful safety that does not get watered down by the false middle.
for example, a small nucleus of high empathy, highly ethical humans normalizes ‘here are the standards of the group’: high degree of empathy, balancing care of self, family, community, culture, and earth, commitment to grow in self-awareness, receptivity to the feelings and concerns of self and others, therefore committment to turn towards and hear when we have hurt someone and genuinely change, without evasion or manipulation or stonewalling), and then when those baselines are not met, the limbic norm becomes ‘well of course this is expected, come on, this is how we do things, we’ll do it with you,’ and in the percentage of cases where that cannot happen, that person has to leave. They can change and belong again but the necessary paradox is that the one condition of belonging that makes true belonging possible, is the willingness to excise those who genuinely do not care about others or are unwilling to challenge their own conditioning into dominance. They cannot be centred in ways that break the entire fabric, but they can be told to go in ways that humanize (and that allow return when genuine change has happened, but not without that). This is absolutely necessary because without this boundary, shunning - one of the most powerful forms of social control humans possess, very very underestimated in an individualist culture - is primarily and most often used as a tool to maintain systems of oppression.
I agree that having no red lines whatsoever around actions and words is probably the most anti-belonging situation. But the extreme alternative, a cult or a narrow dogma, sounds counter-productive either. The balancing act, in my mind, centers around the following questions:
1. What is the broadest circle that we can draw? and what is the shortest list of actions/words that we're unwilling to tolerate?
2. How do we make the boundaries permeable or the inclusion/exclusion dynamic under the belief that people can change?
to add (I think we’re roughly in agreement, but to add more to what you’ve said?) for me it’s about so much more than actions and words. Committment to relational responsibilities is so much bigger than ‘not using hurtful actions and words.’ Because when it appears only actions and words can cause harm then those who cause harm by absence of caring good action, or absence of caring good words, or hard to catch quiet manipulations, where their actions and words look ‘nice’ but are doing damage to community bonds, can turn things around and say that telling them ‘no,’ ‘stop,’ ‘that’s hurting ppl, cut it out’ are ‘causing harm’ to them - when only harms of transgression are recognized, but not harms of neglect of responsibilities or harms of manipulation, then we have a very limited community capacity to contain some of the most egregious and dangerous kinds of harm. We need first to know who the circle is who are committed to care and act in ethical ways together and can then have a clear guide in our minds and hearts that can recognize when that care is not occurring. harms of manipulation, deception, or neglect can take advantage of communities that do not recognize them if they only recognize harms of transgression. we need a clear circle or fabric first to recognize the full range of kinds of harms and protect from them.
It's no coincidence that there are answers, and great ones like you bring to light here Brian, that undermine their goals in their very thoughtfulness. Few are in a position (BB and other notable exceptions aside) to realistically do cross-cultural accountability work at a mass scale. In my opinion, it's not something that can or should be put upon the shoulders of individuals. That paradox is an underlying feature of the bind you point out between PC and cancel culture.
The only answer can be in a system shift. We've been lulled by stories generated by hyper-individualist and quasi-nihilistic cultures about Source (the System) that say Source is unknowable. With this, we create a loop of pressure back on ourselves, by giving ourselves the responsibility for creating knowledge out of the unknowable. Ego-wise, we've engendered a sense of self-importance within the pressure we have created as humans to be a stand-in Source of Knowledge and Understanding. This puts us in conflict with real Source. That conflict is second only to death avoidance for the depth to which it afflicts our ability to navigate reality and our places in it -- individually, but especially collectively.
Sadly, many are incapable of understanding any of this. Which means those who can must compassionately reach out to perceived “enemies” in belonging and invitation. }:- a.m.
Hoofnote: It can be and often is a place humility and vulnerability, wherein the one reaching out is attacked in return. Only perseverance in LOVE can withstand and transform.
not to oversimplify a complex topic (the need for brevity can force complexity to seem simplified when more lies underneath), but: there are important distinctions to be made between the commitment to humanize all beings (to refuse to dehumanize), and being willing to validate positions that may stem from conditioning into power, rather than contain those positions and challenge them to grow, while focussing care and empathy on those who as you’re grappling with are routinely not centred.
Beginning in a relational way that insists on standards and forming a fabric - a circle of belonging - with people who have both the ability and the desire to share standards of care and ethical behaviour - then fostering the requirement to be at those basic standards as a condition of belonging - is I think the one way we can get to communities that foster genuine safety for those who are in them. Open armed exclusion can both honour the autonomy of people who cause harm and simultaneously build meaningful safety that does not get watered down by the false middle.
for example, a small nucleus of high empathy, highly ethical humans normalizes ‘here are the standards of the group’: high degree of empathy, balancing care of self, family, community, culture, and earth, commitment to grow in self-awareness, receptivity to the feelings and concerns of self and others, therefore committment to turn towards and hear when we have hurt someone and genuinely change, without evasion or manipulation or stonewalling), and then when those baselines are not met, the limbic norm becomes ‘well of course this is expected, come on, this is how we do things, we’ll do it with you,’ and in the percentage of cases where that cannot happen, that person has to leave. They can change and belong again but the necessary paradox is that the one condition of belonging that makes true belonging possible, is the willingness to excise those who genuinely do not care about others or are unwilling to challenge their own conditioning into dominance. They cannot be centred in ways that break the entire fabric, but they can be told to go in ways that humanize (and that allow return when genuine change has happened, but not without that). This is absolutely necessary because without this boundary, shunning - one of the most powerful forms of social control humans possess, very very underestimated in an individualist culture - is primarily and most often used as a tool to maintain systems of oppression.
Naava, this resonates and seems to be aligned with the narrative Tim Urban offers here: https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/enlightenment-kids.html
I agree that having no red lines whatsoever around actions and words is probably the most anti-belonging situation. But the extreme alternative, a cult or a narrow dogma, sounds counter-productive either. The balancing act, in my mind, centers around the following questions:
1. What is the broadest circle that we can draw? and what is the shortest list of actions/words that we're unwilling to tolerate?
2. How do we make the boundaries permeable or the inclusion/exclusion dynamic under the belief that people can change?
to add (I think we’re roughly in agreement, but to add more to what you’ve said?) for me it’s about so much more than actions and words. Committment to relational responsibilities is so much bigger than ‘not using hurtful actions and words.’ Because when it appears only actions and words can cause harm then those who cause harm by absence of caring good action, or absence of caring good words, or hard to catch quiet manipulations, where their actions and words look ‘nice’ but are doing damage to community bonds, can turn things around and say that telling them ‘no,’ ‘stop,’ ‘that’s hurting ppl, cut it out’ are ‘causing harm’ to them - when only harms of transgression are recognized, but not harms of neglect of responsibilities or harms of manipulation, then we have a very limited community capacity to contain some of the most egregious and dangerous kinds of harm. We need first to know who the circle is who are committed to care and act in ethical ways together and can then have a clear guide in our minds and hearts that can recognize when that care is not occurring. harms of manipulation, deception, or neglect can take advantage of communities that do not recognize them if they only recognize harms of transgression. we need a clear circle or fabric first to recognize the full range of kinds of harms and protect from them.
It's no coincidence that there are answers, and great ones like you bring to light here Brian, that undermine their goals in their very thoughtfulness. Few are in a position (BB and other notable exceptions aside) to realistically do cross-cultural accountability work at a mass scale. In my opinion, it's not something that can or should be put upon the shoulders of individuals. That paradox is an underlying feature of the bind you point out between PC and cancel culture.
The only answer can be in a system shift. We've been lulled by stories generated by hyper-individualist and quasi-nihilistic cultures about Source (the System) that say Source is unknowable. With this, we create a loop of pressure back on ourselves, by giving ourselves the responsibility for creating knowledge out of the unknowable. Ego-wise, we've engendered a sense of self-importance within the pressure we have created as humans to be a stand-in Source of Knowledge and Understanding. This puts us in conflict with real Source. That conflict is second only to death avoidance for the depth to which it afflicts our ability to navigate reality and our places in it -- individually, but especially collectively.
Sadly, many are incapable of understanding any of this. Which means those who can must compassionately reach out to perceived “enemies” in belonging and invitation. }:- a.m.
Hoofnote: It can be and often is a place humility and vulnerability, wherein the one reaching out is attacked in return. Only perseverance in LOVE can withstand and transform.
"Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for the divine the energies and the power of love.
And then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire."
-Teillhard de Chardin