Diagnosis should precede prescription and intervention. Therefore,
we first have to understand the nature and problems of humanity before we can
intercede effectively.
Joseph Stalin was convinced that humanity’s problems did not
lie within but without. Consequently, his prescription was to change the
environment—the State and its economy:
•
Whatever is the mode of production of a society,
such in the main is the society itself, its ideas, and theories, its political
views and institutions. Or, to put it more crudely, whatever is man’s manner of
life, such is his manner of thought.
For Stalin, a change in the “manner of life,” namely, a
change in the economic and political institutions, would greatly improve the
human condition.
Other utopian schemes rely upon the removal of the
repressive or capitalistic elements. The Occupy
Wall Street movement seemed to suggest that if we could simply remove the
capitalist oppressors—the top one percent—we could have a better world. Such
thinking is predicated on the idea that if the bad guys are removed, the good guys
will naturally thrive and create a benign society.
Why? Because the great majority of people are naturally
compassionate and other-centered, but they have been oppressed by those who are
selfish. By this line of thinking, all the masses need to do is grow in
awareness and self-trust.
According to New Age guru, Shakti Gawain, we have failed to
learn how to trust in ourselves:
•
“When we consistently suppress and distrust our
intuitive knowingness, looking instead for external authority, validation, and
the approval of others, we give our personal power away…Every time you don’t
trust yourself and don’t follow your inner truth, you decrease your aliveness
and your body will reflect this with a loss of vitality, numbness, pain, and
eventually physical disease.”
How then do we learn how to trust in ourselves? We need to
be empowered. How? According to some, by learning how to relate to one another!
Yesterday, I attended a workshop given by THEDIALOGUEPROJECT.ORG for high
school youth. We were all directed to write the names of three people in the
group whom we admired, and what we admired about them. Then, we broke up into pairs
and one had to recite the admirable qualities we noticed to the other as the
other listened attentively. Then, the other person related back to the first
what they understood the presenter to be saying. Finally, we had to process
what we felt about the experience of being understood.
This proved to be an easy way to generate human connectedness.
I had attended one of their talks before. While I do think that there is a
place for these kinds of exercises, they wrongly convey the idea that if we
simply learn how to affirm others, those others will in turn reciprocate and
the world will be a better place. If we could simply learn the skills of
affirmation, we would empower both ourselves and others. Consequently, we would
no longer need police or soldiers.
This, of course, is predicated on a positive diagnosis of
the human condition, a condition that presupposes that we all naturally want to
affiliate, creating a win-win situation for all.
Similarly, many college students believe that love will
conquer all, even hate. We just have to learn how to love. These students are
convinced that if we had known better how to love, then Hitler, Stalin, and Mao
would never have embarked on their genocidal rampages.
How do we love? Well, one way is through affirming
conversations. I recently talked with a group of young communists at Columbia
University in a conversation I hoped would be affirmative. I began by asking
them about their hopes. They answered, “Revolution.” Light-heartedly—at least
at first—I probed: “Well certainly, you are not advocating violent revolution?” They were; but they assured me that their
revolt would kill a mere 1% of the population.
Again, I probed: “In light of the failed communist experiments
of the twentieth century, what hope do you have that yours will be successful?”
They explained that they now had an enlightened
Thinker/Leader who would not repeat the mistakes of former Marxist revolutions.
Meanwhile, I was wondering if, rightly applied, love could persuade their enlightened
Leader to lay aside his sickle in favor of tulips.
Meanwhile, my young, idealistic communist comrades assured
me that love for humanity required them to strike a quick, relatively painless
and antiseptic blow against the controlling elites.
I wondered about what was motivating them. Whatever it was—anger,
jealousy, or self-righteous idealism—it seemed to be more decisive than all the
love that I could muster through my affirmative attentiveness and understanding
of their concerns.
These students are human beings with the same feelings and
needs that I have, but yet, they are also our future murderers—instruments of
genocide. Can friendship and conversation turn them around? Would these techniques
have turned around Hitler, Stalin, and Mao, or would they have co-opted them
for their own sinister designs? In view
of the fact that there has never been a society that has been able to relax sanctions against anti-social behaviors, I had
my doubts about their effectiveness.
I’m certainly not against using the carrot before the club.
Some will respond favorably to the carrot, but it seems to be undeniable that
the club also has its place.
Perhaps this should lead us to a reassessment of humanity
and our prescriptions for a better world. Perhaps we have faults at the core of
our being that all of the loving affirmations in the world cannot adequately address.
Occupy Wall Street and the communists
are convinced that they can create a better world by removing the evil elites.
However, the elites are the people who are rich in
affirmations. They are successful and have had their needs met, at least more
completely than the rest of us. Aren’t they the ones who should be models of
self-actualization and humanity? However, affirmations can also harden us in
our pride and self-trust.
If our illness lies at the core of our being, perhaps we
need to be reborn from above, as the Prophet Ezekiel wrote:
•
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you
shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will
cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put
within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a
heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in
my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I
gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I
will deliver you from all your uncleannesses (Ezekiel 36:25-29).
If this is correct, then all of our attempts at
self-rectification, revolution, and social re-designing are, at best,
superficial and temporary. Instead, the inside must first be changed before the
outside can be meaningfully addressed.
No comments:
Post a Comment