Will I Be a Better Man Tomorrow?

[Selwynn]

Two different communications from yesterday prompted me to write this essay which will go on my blog. It is a combination of a couple different thoughts I had thanks to a few different conversations yesterday.


A Better Man Tomorrow?
by Selwynn

After the honeymoon wears off, people like me start to see our progressive political communities and likeminded thinkers as not-always-glamorous “real” people. It turns out that they too are people who wake up in the morning with rollers in their hair and stand in a breakfast-stained dirty bathrobe at the kitchen sink – scratching their butt while cigarette dangles from furry lip In other words, we start to see that no one, on any side of a political issue, or with any particular point of view, is perfect.

One of the biggest imperfections I recognize is the continuing inclination of some of my progressive colleagues to use the weapons of hatred and intolerance against political opponents. I have witnessed direct harassment, vicious personal attacks, dishonest smear campaigns and the like all employed against those with different points of view and all justified in the name of being “right.”

There are so many clever rationalizations to mask the glaring hypocrisy in this. Some progressives call it “fighting fire with fire.” Others say that in a time when the political opposition is so tyrannical and fascist, the “ends justify the means.” However it is excused, it seems that anger and hatred fuels most modern political discourse even among those who lay claim to values of inclusively and liberty. That is very wrong.

The most divisive notion in all of progressive politics is this idea that while we're fighting the "good fight" we should set aside every noble value that we claim to cherish, only to magically begin practicing these things after we "win." The trouble is, we will never "win" in the sense that there will never be a time when no one opposes our convictions. Moreover, the true test of integrity is the courage to hold true to values when it is complicated and hard, not only when there is no opposition.

I don't believe in shifting values by which we pretend that there is one way to act when everyone agrees with us and another way to act when many don’t. I am not willing to let my convictions be contextualized by those who choose to embrace hatred and dishonestly as the tools of their trade. I do not to grant them any power over my convictions.

There is nothing cowardly or ineffective about an unyielding commitment to proper values. It does not remove from us the power to forcefully and frequently speak out against our political opponents and speak up for the convictions we hold. I cannot accept that the right course of action is to use all the indecent and disgusting tactics of certain opponents in the name of "doing what's right." That does not reflect who I am or what I believe in.


But once upon a time, it used to...


One of the things I believe is that many progressives who speak and act in ways that I find disturbing do so primarily out of deep heartbrokenness at what they see all around them. Of course that's not always true - I'm sure some people are just jerks. But I suspect that to be an exception to a rule amongst my comrades.

So many times that heartbroken feeling is and combined with a feeling of helplessness. And from those feelings comes the anxiety of hopelessness. I believe that combination frequently leads to irrational anger. Out of desperation spews all this rhetoric and action that betrays the better qualities of our convictions. Sometimes anger is really a hopeless act of defiance against the experience of despair. And sometimes anger is a mechanism through which we avoid facing the things that we really feel.

I know that this was quite true of me. For too long the injustices that I saw or the attitudes of hatred that I heard or the policies of oppression that I recognized would make me despair, and that despair would make me furious. In my case, my anger and bitter feelings were shields to keep from feeling the thing most people dread above all: sorrow. The anger which kept me from sorrow also led me to bitterness and cynicism.

But now I realize what I believe is the most important life lesson: to act justly is to accept sorrow. I believe that step one in the quest for the good life is being willing to weep instead of masking sorrow with anger. Sorrow is not the enemy; it is a necessity. It is not synonymous with despair. It is synonymous with an honest recognition of the conditions of existence. What we do after we accept sorrow over the things we see is what I believe counts.

I am a spiritual man. My faith has been helpful to me, and yet I acknowledge the opinion of those who feel faith is a crutch - if that is true, then I am one who needs the crutch, and that doesn’t bother me. When I pray, I ask that God would continue transforming my anger and help me accept my sorrow at the suffering of the world. Then I ask for courage to move from that place of sorrow - not to a place of anger, but to a place of compassion.

I do not believe that compassion is synonymous with weakness. In fact I believe compassion is the very pinnacle of human strength. It is when we turn our sorrow into compassion that we discover something new: hope. I am convinced that hope is what this world needs most. Hope is what fuels my daily struggle to live my life with eyes turned more toward compassion and less toward anger. It is the driving force behind my convictions and my thought processes.

Nowadays I try not to get angry at “angry people.” I still do get angry at angry people sometimes, but it doesn’t reflect my core values. Rather than feeling as though I've just done something right when I rip someone’s head off just for disagreeing with me, I feel that I've just done something wrong, and I know that I want to be better than that. If I had to give a succinct “mission statement” for my life it would be this: I want to be a better man tomorrow than I have been today. I choose to judge my progress on the basis of my capacity for compassion.

Buddhist philosophy, after illuminating the first Noble Truth that life inescapably includes suffering, perfectly encapsulates the spirit of all that I am writing here today by suggesting that the fundamental task of human life is to learn “joyful participation in the suffering of the world.” I think that’s about right.

[Tsiyu]

1. Very Beautiful words, Selwynn

I'm sorry that all the vitriole is getting you down. We should, of course, endeavor to live by the principles we espouse - the ways of tolerance, respect and kindness.

Like you, I fail most days to have a perfectly "gentle spirit" day. And there is not an excuse but a reason for this: I am living this nightmare, complete with the empty place, the lack of jobs, the dim future for my kids. I hear of trouble in Iraq hereon DU, but no one else tells me what is happening. The media lie to me EVERY DAY. I have three young adults living in my home today. Two are my birth kids, one is another "adopted" son who is an orphan and has been abandoned and forgotten by this world.

The lesson I want them to learn is this: Unproductive anger gets you no where. Productive anger can change things. Anger is merely an emotion. How we choose to express it is the key.

In some ways, those who seek to muzzle or censor others are also guilty of using their anger (they may be angry because they cannot control the behavior of others) in unkind, detrimental ways, no matter how noble they may feel their aims to be.

This country revolted because a King failed to heed the angry cries of a People. We are still those People. And we have different methods.

In principle you are right on.

In practice, I'd say it's not so black and white.

Cheers :toast:

[Selwynn]

2. Or course, It's not about muzzling or censoring others...

..its about calling others to a self-chosen higher standard. I cannot force, nor would I try to force, other people to act in the ways I believe are most approrpiate. That doesn't stop me from believing that they are most appropriate and trying to convince others that they are most appropriate and convincing others to change when necessary.

The very problem we face so many times today is the myth that there is a legitimate difference between principle and practice. If and when there is a discrepancy between principle and practice, one of those things is wrong. Either the principle is incorrect or the practice is not well understood - or, I suppose both.

In this case, you are mistaking anger that leads to bitterness and rage - that leads to visciousness, and a compromising of every belief that we claim to value, with righteous indignation and a absolute and unwavering commitment to principles - the spirt if Camus' Rebel. People who refuse to bow before an unjust king and take up arms to resist are not the same as people who go and rape the royal family and torture the kings men simply becuase "they did it first."

I would argue that this is the classic ideological mistake of confusing raw "anger" with raw courage. Courageous comittment to conviction can create a bold and unflinching (even "angry") resistance to things we disagree with - but that is hardly the same as bling rage steming from our own inability to come to terms with what we really feel and then becoming in our fury the exact same kinds of people as those that we so strongly oppose.

There is I suppose if you want to choose this language, a right kind of "anger" which is direct towards the resistance of injustice generally rather than at human beings themselves, but this kind of anger does not remove or undercut the foundation of compassionate action. There is clearly a wrong or misplaced kind of anger that is based on despair or on denial that betrays every principle of rightness along the way.

[Tsiyu]

3. Give some examples

of appropriate and inappropriate anger.

Is venting here in an insulting way inappropriate ( dang, that's a hard word to type!)? Somehow it may not be the sweetest way to convey feeling, but this is a soundbyte culture, a few generations raised on fast-food and faster entertainment. Many kids here are responding in kind to cartoonish attacks on Democrats found on the web.

There have been derogatory political cartoons for a long while. And politicians have been slamming each other since the first woman or man declared himself or herself the chosen leader of the group.

Is it wrong to answer absolute folly with an insult? Sure. But folly is folly, and I will say something is idiotic if I believe it is idiotic. If that hurts someone's feelings, oh well. if I tell them they're about to fall off a cliff and they don't listen, can I yell then? or is that too aggressive?

Of course humans are humans. I never imagined anyone on DU being some angelic vision in gauzy splendor. Putting people on pedestals is dangerous. You will be disappointed.

Two more questions. How old are you?

Do you like Heavy Metal music?

[Selwynn]

4. The example I will give is personal experience.

But before I do, perhaps I can phrase it this way: there is an appropriate and productive and an inappropriate and non-productive way to express dissent, outrage, disagreement, etc.

Personally, I don't feel that I have been handicapped in my ability to act nor in my ability to stand strong for my convictions by adopting a philosophy that puts reconciliation and compassion front and center. Nor does that philosophy assume that I can be reconciled to everyone. There are clearly examples of folks with whom I will always be at odds, and clearly examples of people with particular mindsets that I will always reject. That rejection however, doesn't change my fundamental perspective.

My philosophy has not kept me from being able to say "this is wrong and outrageous" or "that is a lie" or "this action is tyrannical." It hasn't kept my silent or in anyway limited my ability and right to speak up and speak out loudly and often. What it has done however, is given me inroads in conversation to people who would not listen for two seconds to mindless insults or harassment. It has given me personally the opportunity to change minds more than once, and I consider that something valuable.

I fail to see how my comments can so easily be construed into implying some kind of passivity or inaction. It is in fact precisely the opposite. I believe that it is the only way to discover an actual ability to really act in meaningful ways rather than perpetual a cycle of pointless sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It's not about putting people on a pedestal. It's not about expectations of perfection. That is why I said that my own guiding principle for my own life is one that seeks to be a better (note: not perfect) man tomorrow than I am today. That's all I ask of myself, and that's all I seek in others. And there are a wide array of examples of people in my own life who most definitely do not disappoint from that perspective.

Holding challenging and uncompromised values is not irrelevant when one understands that the appropriate response to such ideals is the drive to be better - not to be perfect. It's a beautiful thing (for me) because it is an ongoing life commitment. I can frequently succeed at being better. I'm not even worried about the wrong-headed notions of achieving perfect, nor am I looking for that in others. I am looking for people committed to the same ideals that I believe are most right, and who seek to be better each day. And that, I have found over and over again.

There is nothing in my personal life that amounts to inaction, or an inability to speak out or act out against things that I believe are unjust and outrageous. But perhaps a better way to describe it is to say that our experience of "outrage" at the things we see and experience can lead us down a couple different paths. They can lead us to little more than more anger, and outrage transformed into blind rage, which frequently functions as a denial or mask over deeper feelings that we don't want to deal with. Or they can lead to avenues for expression of fundamental commitments - commitments to compassionate concern for justice and equality to name one. Blind rage at some outrage we see contributes nothing of value, and moreover, very frequently contributes negative roadblocks and obstacles to our path. Outrage turned into compassionate commitment to our principles creates with it the opportunity for meaningful action.

That is my philosophy, which has repeatedly worked well for me. As far as my age goes, that is irrelevant. Evaluate my arguments their own merit; you are of course free to disagree.

[Tsiyu]

5. Hold on to your Idealism

You can turn a word, so hold on to the writing as well.

Your OP had a sort of wistful ring to it, as if you suddenly realized that people on your side had "warts" and all that icky stuff. Just my impression, perhaps not your intent.

I come at this from the point of view of raising children versus raising animals. I don't believe in killing animals except for food, but I have supervised the killing of animals when they were a threat. Or sick. But i wouldn't shoot a sick child, a human. I don't advocate violence toward Repukes or stealing signs or tailgating them ( though I did this once to one who tailgated me, soo i'm not perfect.) But I DO advocate the firm 'You are Wrong" when someone is wrong. I will not call it principle in any way, shape or form, to say i must tolerate greed, murder, lies or threats.

I don't believe in killing humans, period, but I will if a human threatens the lives of my children or myself.

I do not imply inaction on your part, and of course i have agreed that in the perfect circumstance, your way is the correct way. But the principles you embrace have been won and enforced by the very actions you claim are nonproductive. had the colonists merely laid down their weapons and "talked" to the British, history would be vastly different.

We face the same enemy now as we faced then. Keep talking. The soldier learns how to aim his gun if you cannot. The warrior learns how to attack and demoralize the enemy even if you cannot.

But keep talking. My daughter lives and acts according to your philosophy. She does influence for the good. And my "condition" prevents me from actually engaging in conversations about politics now. But I have flipped a finger and I have said what I think loudly and clearly. I understand what you are saying. i just hope you try to understand the reality of politics in America today.

As well as our history!

[Selwynn]

6. I still don't think we're completely connecting.

I do not imply inaction on your part, and of course i have agreed that in the perfect circumstance, your way is the correct way. But the principles you embrace have been won and enforced by the very actions you claim are nonproductive. had the colonists merely laid down their weapons and "talked" to the British, history would be vastly different.

I don't feel that anything in my approach implies that colonists should have laid down their weapons and held hands with the British. Unless of course, the British were willing to do so, which they weren't.

I do feel however that my approach implies that if hypothetically British soldiers had barged into the homes of colonists and raped their women, we should not go out and do the same. There is nothing wrong or contrary to my convictions in recognizing the fact that sometimes you are pressed into situations that you've tried everything you can do to avoid. That doesn't change the attitude that can and must coincide even with "force" or unavoidable action. I don't believe - in fact I know from personal experience, that this still doesn't require one to fundamentally betray core convictions in the process.