So, it's December 6th and I haven't posted in four days. The holiday preparations continue to rev into ramming speed, and I suspect posts will be fewer and farther between until after the New Year. But I wanted to touch upon a subject I've already mentioned and develop it a bit, in preparation for more concentrated treatment when life becomes a bit less harried (ha, ha).
One of Barack Obama's most attractive, to me, themes during the recent presidential campaign was the concept that the restoration of American liberties and freedoms must go hand in hand with a general re-shouldering of individual and social responsibilities. "We are the change we've been waiting for" is not a new slogan, but remains a true one. Jim Hightower's most recent monthly newsletter (Dec. 2008, Vol. 10, No. 12: if you're a political progressive and don't read the Hightower Lowdown, look into it) takes up this message:
"If last month’s sweeping vote for change is to come to fruition, We the People must be the ones who nurture it. We can’t just crank back in our La-Z-Boys and say, “We did our job – now Barack can do the heavy lifting for us.” We tried this laid-back approach after Clinton won in 1992 – with unpleasant and unprogressive results.
"If you think your job is done, look who’s waiting for Obama in Washington: a swarm of Wall Street bankers, the war machine, 13,000 corporate lobbyists, naysaying Republican Congress critters, right-wing yackety-yackers, weak-kneed Democrats, the conformist media, and other powerful forces of business-as-usual politics. These insiders intend to shape his presidency in their image.
"We have to be the counterforce, pushing insistently, vociferously, and persistently from the outside. Who’s “we”? You and me – determined citizens, working through our personal networks, public-interest organizations, progressive media, the netroots nation, unions, community groups, and other connections to grassroots activism.
"Obama was the candidate of change, but he’ll be the president of change ONLY if we buck him up and back him up. We must stand up and speak out on every move the insiders make; we must propose and push progressive ideas and ideals; and we must certainly expose and vigorously oppose any capitulations he will be pressured to make to the corporate powers.
"If his presidency is to be worthy of the enormous effort that so many put into it, worthy of the deep potential of this political moment in American history, you and I have to be on the alert and in the face of power...
"From the start, I’ve felt that the most significant thing about the Obama phenomenon was not Obama, but the phenomenon – the fact that millions of ordinary Americans (especially young people) were not merely enthusiastic but were engaged, organizing and mobilizing, taking possession of their democracy, and doing the grunt work that is the essence of self-government.
"People really do want change – not as a political buzzword, but as a fundamental matter of national direction and policy. In fact, for some time, folks have been shouting: CHANGE! Get our troops and America’s reputation out of Iraq. Provide good health care for all. Rein in greedheaded CEOs and corporate lobbyists. End “tinkle down” economics. Re-invest in America’s infrastructure. Rebuild middle-class opportunities. Deal with global climate change. End the use of torture. Get serious about green energy. Restore our stolen liberties. Stop polluters. And, generally, reinstate the Common Good as America’s governing ethic.
"As Obama himself often said on the campaign trail, he is not the change. We are. By electing him, we opened the White House door to the possibility of change. Now we must see it through."
This kind of collective effort is part of what I, personally, mean when I talk of social responsibility. Effecting political change by continuing to work, noodge, speak out, demand and protest. Individual responsibility includes doing so in an honest, researched, thought-through and consistent fashion.
Which takes me back to the issue of gay and lesbian civil rights. Like much of the rest of America, I've seen "Proposition 8: The Musical," which I think is a brilliant piece of agit-prop. If by some chance you haven't encountered this three-minute tour de force, check it out on YouTube. Touching back upon the December 2008 Hightower Lowdown, which disappointed me by not addressing the horrific anti-gay legislation that was passed in four states even as Obama was elected, it did trash James Dobson and his Focus on the Family Christian-right organization for publishing an apocalyptic anti-Obama brochure right before the election. Written from the perspective of a shell-shocked "Christian" chronicling the abominations of four years of the Obama administration in the year 2012, one of its many fear-mongering prophecies was that a liberalized Supreme Court would force schools to teach first-graders that homosexuality is good.
Well, that set me to thinking. Of course the Dobson brochure is despicable, and largely ludicrous. But somehow it made something very clear to me. I think homosexuality, in and of itself, isn't good and isn't bad. It just is. Just like heterosexuality, in and of itself, isn't good or bad, it just is. Some of us are 100% homosexual, some of us are 100% heterosexual, and some of us fall somewhere inbetween. I've come to believe that each individual's possible spectrum of sexual preferences is almost as hard-wired as hair and eye color. Which means legislating discrimination against gays and lesbians is about as sensible as legislating discrimination against blond-haired or green-eyed people. Whether someone is gay, or blond, or green-eyed does not determine whether or not that individual is a decent person.
The only factor that may affect the character of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered people is a societal one, the still far too commonly parrotted lie that anyone who isn't easily classifiable as "straight" is somehow "less moral" than "the rest of us." If as you grow up you realize that you are homosexual, or attracted to either gender, or don't fit with the sex characteristics with which you were born, you can't escape being bombarded by the societal expectation that you will be a "lesser" or "bad" person. Since expectations do shape us up to a point, those who aren't vanilla/straight have a harder row to hoe -- they have to fight against a whole set of external and internalized expectations of failure (much like people of color or women in general) on top of all the common vicissitudes and adversities.
Nonetheless, a large part of every identifiable population -- whether it's white straight women, gays, African-Americans, or transgenders -- consists of plain old good people. People who are honest with their friends, loyal to their partners and children, responsible about their duties to themselves, their families, their community, their employers or employees. Whatever the difficulties we face, we are capable of demonstrating good character. The capacity to live as a responsible human being is not affected by our sexual preference or orientation. Unfortunately, the capacity to participate equally in the benefits offered by our society still is.
Showing posts with label responsibility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label responsibility. Show all posts
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
On Marriage, continued
Something just struck me. I wrote in an earlier post about my objections to women taking their husbands' names upon marriage. Well, in one way this connects with my problems with societal homophobia. I believe that people are capable of remembering two or even more family names in connection with a single family unit, but many of them just aren't familiar with the concept and therefore bridle at it, or would rather be mentally lazy and slap the same label on both spouses and their kids. And many, whether consciously or subconsciously, subscribe to the idea that a woman should "be subsumed into" her husband upon marriage, as is the will of patriarchy.
Now, gay and lesbian couples are (blessedly, in my opinion -- they're a breath of fresh air within the New York Times Sunday Styles wedding announcements, see earlier post) very likely to include two or more names in their family unit. So maybe gay and lesbian couples are in somewhat of the same boat with heterosexual couples who retain two names instead of shoehorning both partners in under one name. Many folks claim they "can't handle it" when the truth often is, they don't want to handle it. They're using nomenclature as a means of social compulsion, to make straight women who want to maintain their independence, and gays and lesbians, disappear.
Of course it's not as simple as that. Homophobia is still far more socially acceptable than misogyny. Though misogyny remains too socially acceptable on its own account, if a straight woman, and her male partner, are willing to take on the extra work needful to make the world at large recognize the fact that they each have their own surname even though they're married, they can usually get pretty much everyone to go along with it. Some people may be obnoxious about it, and even attack you personally if they feel threatened enough, but if you don't cede ground, all but a handful will back down. Unfortunately, the same is not true for gays and lesbians seeking the plain old right to marry, much less recognition as a married couple. A straight woman who insists on her own name may get guff, but she won't get beaten up or killed. Gays and lesbians who refuse to pretend to be who they're not may actually get beaten up or killed, or lose their jobs, or be denied housing, or lose custody of their children... and a lot of other unpleasant, wrong and dangerous things. Not to mention that they run a very good chance of being abandoned, rejected and/or abused by their very own family members.
This is a strange time. We've managed to go a little ways toward getting past sexism and racism in our political choices, but at the same time, there's this "renaissance" (I would say recidivist slide) of women ostentatiously "taking their husband's names," and, far worse, a spate of benighted anti-gay legislation which has gone so far as to re-write state constitutions to deny the right of marriage to a specific group (on the basis of sexual orientation or preference), and also to deny the option of domestic partnership to heterosexuals who don't want to legally marry. The effect on my state, Florida, is catastrophic. First there's the despicable homophobia and anti-American tenor of the constitutional amendment passed here. And then there are the disastrous consequences for our senior-citizen-heavy population. Many single seniors live together without marriage because marrying means losing a significant part of their already pathetic Social Security benefits. Now they face not being able to register as domestic partners, which means they have no rights if a partner gets sick, no access to a partner's health benefits, etc. etc. Sickening.
Let me be clear on one point. If a woman desperately wants to change her name upon marriage, it's a free country. But the overwhelming trend of women "taking their husbands' names" is an ongoing expression of a pretty clearly discernible, long-standing patriarchal sentiment, which is that women are here to support and enable men (and children), and not to lead lives of their own or have goals of their own. This system has not redounded to the psychological or economic benefit of homemakers, whose vital work I think should be explicitly part of the Gross Domestic Product. Full-time homemakers of either gender should be awarded Social Security in their own right, not as derivatives of their spouses, and ideally, they should be officially allotted a given share of the annual family income, so they never have to beg, cajole or manipulate in order to get their hands on spending money. And don't get me going on so-called "no-fault" divorce, which seems to assume that someone who hasn't held a paid job for years can somehow jump right back into paid work! What very few people realize is that only about 15% of women who divorce are awarded ANY alimony at all, and as for child support, the frequency with which men skip out on paying it is disgusting.
But I digress. Which I do tend to do. To get back to the resistance of the larger society to both "two-name" heterosexual marriage and, far more aggravatedly, gay/lesbian marriage: of course, what both these options do is to undermine the paradigm of patriarchal marriage. They offer models of marriage that go against gender-role assumptions and assume equal partnerships instead of complementarity. A large percentage of our fellow citizens don't want to see, and don't want their children to see, that there are quite a few different ways to do coupledom, including ones which don't necessarily involve hierarchy, dominance/submission, procreation, or the "disappearing" of one partner into another. They want to force everyone into "one-size-fits-all" (it never does) gender roles and marriage molds, ones they find familiar and comforting, ones that don't require individual thought and don't necessitate the taking of individual responsibility or individual stands.
This is intimately connected to our culture's love of dualism, the idea that there are only two answers to any given question, one labeled "right" and one labeled "wrong." Every situation is reduced to an "either-or" choice, with no option labeled "both-and." More on this next time.
Now, gay and lesbian couples are (blessedly, in my opinion -- they're a breath of fresh air within the New York Times Sunday Styles wedding announcements, see earlier post) very likely to include two or more names in their family unit. So maybe gay and lesbian couples are in somewhat of the same boat with heterosexual couples who retain two names instead of shoehorning both partners in under one name. Many folks claim they "can't handle it" when the truth often is, they don't want to handle it. They're using nomenclature as a means of social compulsion, to make straight women who want to maintain their independence, and gays and lesbians, disappear.
Of course it's not as simple as that. Homophobia is still far more socially acceptable than misogyny. Though misogyny remains too socially acceptable on its own account, if a straight woman, and her male partner, are willing to take on the extra work needful to make the world at large recognize the fact that they each have their own surname even though they're married, they can usually get pretty much everyone to go along with it. Some people may be obnoxious about it, and even attack you personally if they feel threatened enough, but if you don't cede ground, all but a handful will back down. Unfortunately, the same is not true for gays and lesbians seeking the plain old right to marry, much less recognition as a married couple. A straight woman who insists on her own name may get guff, but she won't get beaten up or killed. Gays and lesbians who refuse to pretend to be who they're not may actually get beaten up or killed, or lose their jobs, or be denied housing, or lose custody of their children... and a lot of other unpleasant, wrong and dangerous things. Not to mention that they run a very good chance of being abandoned, rejected and/or abused by their very own family members.
This is a strange time. We've managed to go a little ways toward getting past sexism and racism in our political choices, but at the same time, there's this "renaissance" (I would say recidivist slide) of women ostentatiously "taking their husband's names," and, far worse, a spate of benighted anti-gay legislation which has gone so far as to re-write state constitutions to deny the right of marriage to a specific group (on the basis of sexual orientation or preference), and also to deny the option of domestic partnership to heterosexuals who don't want to legally marry. The effect on my state, Florida, is catastrophic. First there's the despicable homophobia and anti-American tenor of the constitutional amendment passed here. And then there are the disastrous consequences for our senior-citizen-heavy population. Many single seniors live together without marriage because marrying means losing a significant part of their already pathetic Social Security benefits. Now they face not being able to register as domestic partners, which means they have no rights if a partner gets sick, no access to a partner's health benefits, etc. etc. Sickening.
Let me be clear on one point. If a woman desperately wants to change her name upon marriage, it's a free country. But the overwhelming trend of women "taking their husbands' names" is an ongoing expression of a pretty clearly discernible, long-standing patriarchal sentiment, which is that women are here to support and enable men (and children), and not to lead lives of their own or have goals of their own. This system has not redounded to the psychological or economic benefit of homemakers, whose vital work I think should be explicitly part of the Gross Domestic Product. Full-time homemakers of either gender should be awarded Social Security in their own right, not as derivatives of their spouses, and ideally, they should be officially allotted a given share of the annual family income, so they never have to beg, cajole or manipulate in order to get their hands on spending money. And don't get me going on so-called "no-fault" divorce, which seems to assume that someone who hasn't held a paid job for years can somehow jump right back into paid work! What very few people realize is that only about 15% of women who divorce are awarded ANY alimony at all, and as for child support, the frequency with which men skip out on paying it is disgusting.
But I digress. Which I do tend to do. To get back to the resistance of the larger society to both "two-name" heterosexual marriage and, far more aggravatedly, gay/lesbian marriage: of course, what both these options do is to undermine the paradigm of patriarchal marriage. They offer models of marriage that go against gender-role assumptions and assume equal partnerships instead of complementarity. A large percentage of our fellow citizens don't want to see, and don't want their children to see, that there are quite a few different ways to do coupledom, including ones which don't necessarily involve hierarchy, dominance/submission, procreation, or the "disappearing" of one partner into another. They want to force everyone into "one-size-fits-all" (it never does) gender roles and marriage molds, ones they find familiar and comforting, ones that don't require individual thought and don't necessitate the taking of individual responsibility or individual stands.
This is intimately connected to our culture's love of dualism, the idea that there are only two answers to any given question, one labeled "right" and one labeled "wrong." Every situation is reduced to an "either-or" choice, with no option labeled "both-and." More on this next time.
Ethics: Some Food for Thought from Robin Wood
Here's an excerpt from "When, Why...If," by Robin Wood:
"When you were small, you were taught a certain world view by your parents, your peers, and the people around you. Your mind was primed then, and ready to accept those things that would enable you to adapt in this society. You eagerly learned the concepts that your parents taught you, and by the time you were two, your basic view of the world was in place.
"As you grew, you learned to fit the things you heard and saw into that basic view of the world. You learned what behavior was acceptable to the people who ruled your life, and what was not. You learned how much latitude there was in the rules, and when 'no' really meant 'no.'
"And you also learned how to work around the rules to get what you thought you wanted.
"If your upbringing had been perfect, you would have perfectly understood the reasoning behind the rules, and you would easily have developed perfect ethics.
"The trouble is that we are all raised by mortals; by people who have problems of their own, who were raised by other people with problems and so on. And the problems tend to get passed down from generation to generation, right along with all the other attitudes and beliefs that your parents so carefully instilled in you.
"You, however, have decided that at least some of those things are not the things that you want to make up the pieces of your world view. That's great! I think that adults need to create their own world views. We are not the same individuals that our parents are, and we are not living on the same planet they were raised on. The world is changing too quickly. Population has probably more than doubled since they were young; societal values are shifting; technology has flown far beyond the science fiction of my own youth, let alone theirs; incurable diseases have cropped up, and forced a change in attitude about a great many things. Future Shock, they called it twenty years ago. But I look at my own kids now, and they aren't the least bit shocky. I think they are depending on the speed of change, counting on it to give them swell new things they barely dreamed of before. Just last night at dinner my youngest told me that 1993 stuff is way out of fashion now. As I write this, it is January 4, 1994! (Not everything, he admitted, but lots of it.)
"And as you create your own world view, and put together the things you need to take this path, you will discover that some of the stuff you learned as a youngster is still valid for you now, that some things no longer apply to the world you find yourself in, and that some things were invalid from the beginning.
"In order for you to become an ethical being, you need to make these decisions and determinations yourself. No one else can do it for you. If you allow someone else to make your ethical decisions, you are giving away your own personal power, and you are not behaving ethically at all. You are behaving obediently. In my opinion, obedience is for children who do not yet have enough experience under their belts to make cause and effect correlations, and therefore can't be expected to make wise ethical decisions. If you are not a child, you should not be obedient. You are the only person living your life, and therefore, you are the only one qualified to make your life decisions.
"Yes, I know that means that you will have to think a great deal.
"I warned you about that... Get used to it.
"It isn't like you have to start from a vacuum.
"Begin with what you were taught as a kid. Chances are that the rules and standards drummed into you had a lot in common with the basic law of the craft, although the reasons for following them were different. You were probably taught the golden rule: 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.' Fine as far as it goes. Good for children. But I think we can do better than that. We can 'Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.'
"I told you in the beginning that this was the hard path, not the easy one. And the farther along you go, the more your own ethics will cause you to think, and then do things that you know are right, even if you don't want to do them.
"... It is my sincere desire that you will realize that rules and reflexive reactions have little place in a world that changes every nanosecond; where every situation is unique, and every individual you deal with is unlike any other. In such a world, each case is a special case, and must be met with a special answer. It is my goal to help you discover how to reach those answers; honestly and non-judgementally, with a heart filled with love, understanding, wisdom and joy.
"I want you to be able to steer your way through your life, and find your heart's desire, without harming anyone.
"I hope that you realize that if you do harm someone, you must make restitution. There is no 'forgiveness' on this path. Your 'sins' are not 'wiped clean' with little or no effort on your part. Here, 'sins' are not part of the question. Here we have only responsibility. You are responsible for your own actions, and only for your own actions. And if you break something with your actions, you are required to attempt to mend it with your actions, as well.
"We all make mistakes, try as we might not to. The trick is to realize that we have, forgive ourselves, do our best to correct our mistake, and go on.
"Sometimes, our ethics will cause us to change our entire lives. This takes great courage....
"When you become ethical, when you begin to see the cause of your actions, when you truly take responsibility for everything you do, the easy way ceases to serve. It no longer works to say 'Mea culpa' and be absolved, because deep inside you know perfectly well that is not enough.
"When you look within, and can find the answers there, you are beginning to arrive.
"When you can shine the bright light of honesty on the dusty corners of your soul, and like what you see, you are well on your way.
"When everything you look at, you look at with love and honesty, with a judgement unclouded by any sort of fear or prejudice, and you can decide clearly and wisely what you should do in each situation as it arises, you are there.
"I, personally, am not there yet.
"But I'm working on it!
"The thinking and reasoning become easier all the time.
"My prejudices are fading.
"But in order for your prejudices to fade, you first have to know what they are.... So examine your prejudices... Cast the bright light of honesty on them until they dissipate like fog in the sun.
"Keep working, and thinking, and trying to be better; and I assure you that you will be.
"Let your appetites and habits rule you, have a pat answer for everything, and your ethics will slip away until you have none left.
"Having ethics is like driving a car. Remember when you first learned to drive? You had to think about all of the mechanics of it, all the time. Hands go here, feet go there. Oh no! I'm turning the wheel too far! Ack! That's too far in the other direction! Where is that brake pedal? I know it has to be here somewhere!
"Then, gradually, you learned how to do it, and it became easier. ... By now, you can probably drive without much trouble. You may even have an 'autopilot' that will take you straight to work without any conscious effort on your part at all.
"But if you don't keep at least some of your mind on the road, you will wind up in a pileup.
"In just the same way, using your mind instead of a set of rules is hard at first. Every question is completely different than anything you have had to think through before. Correlating the cause and effect, and thinking through the ripples may seem almost paralyzing at first. Correcting for an error may result in an over-correction that harms someone else. You may need to find the brakes, and use the old rules for a little while to get your breath back. (If so, go ahead. Most of the ones that don't judge other people are not bad, as far as they go. I just think they don't go very far.)
"As you become more familiar with ethical living, you will find that certain questions follow certain patterns, and that you have thought a lot of this out before. Some things will become reflexive. You don't have to consider whether to use magic to cause someone to fall in love with you, for instance. You will just know that is wrong. The mechanics of having your brain with you at all times will be less and less of a problem. Eventually, you will be able to make rapid judgments for most things, and life will go pretty smoothly.
"But don't make the mistake of letting your mind wander completely away, or you will end up in an ethical pileup.
"Just as in driving, you may have only seconds to make the really important ethical decisions. Emergencies of all kinds are like that. And again as in driving, the more experience you have, the more likely you are to make a good decision in time.
"Without the ability to drive, your freedom would be seriously curtailed. Without the ability to make good ethical choices, your freedom may need to be seriously curtailed.
"So become a good ethical driver!
"Go forth joyfully, with honesty and love and laughter and wisdom and all that good stuff. Steer carefully, enjoy your freedom, and write if you get work!"
"When you were small, you were taught a certain world view by your parents, your peers, and the people around you. Your mind was primed then, and ready to accept those things that would enable you to adapt in this society. You eagerly learned the concepts that your parents taught you, and by the time you were two, your basic view of the world was in place.
"As you grew, you learned to fit the things you heard and saw into that basic view of the world. You learned what behavior was acceptable to the people who ruled your life, and what was not. You learned how much latitude there was in the rules, and when 'no' really meant 'no.'
"And you also learned how to work around the rules to get what you thought you wanted.
"If your upbringing had been perfect, you would have perfectly understood the reasoning behind the rules, and you would easily have developed perfect ethics.
"The trouble is that we are all raised by mortals; by people who have problems of their own, who were raised by other people with problems and so on. And the problems tend to get passed down from generation to generation, right along with all the other attitudes and beliefs that your parents so carefully instilled in you.
"You, however, have decided that at least some of those things are not the things that you want to make up the pieces of your world view. That's great! I think that adults need to create their own world views. We are not the same individuals that our parents are, and we are not living on the same planet they were raised on. The world is changing too quickly. Population has probably more than doubled since they were young; societal values are shifting; technology has flown far beyond the science fiction of my own youth, let alone theirs; incurable diseases have cropped up, and forced a change in attitude about a great many things. Future Shock, they called it twenty years ago. But I look at my own kids now, and they aren't the least bit shocky. I think they are depending on the speed of change, counting on it to give them swell new things they barely dreamed of before. Just last night at dinner my youngest told me that 1993 stuff is way out of fashion now. As I write this, it is January 4, 1994! (Not everything, he admitted, but lots of it.)
"And as you create your own world view, and put together the things you need to take this path, you will discover that some of the stuff you learned as a youngster is still valid for you now, that some things no longer apply to the world you find yourself in, and that some things were invalid from the beginning.
"In order for you to become an ethical being, you need to make these decisions and determinations yourself. No one else can do it for you. If you allow someone else to make your ethical decisions, you are giving away your own personal power, and you are not behaving ethically at all. You are behaving obediently. In my opinion, obedience is for children who do not yet have enough experience under their belts to make cause and effect correlations, and therefore can't be expected to make wise ethical decisions. If you are not a child, you should not be obedient. You are the only person living your life, and therefore, you are the only one qualified to make your life decisions.
"Yes, I know that means that you will have to think a great deal.
"I warned you about that... Get used to it.
"It isn't like you have to start from a vacuum.
"Begin with what you were taught as a kid. Chances are that the rules and standards drummed into you had a lot in common with the basic law of the craft, although the reasons for following them were different. You were probably taught the golden rule: 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.' Fine as far as it goes. Good for children. But I think we can do better than that. We can 'Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.'
"I told you in the beginning that this was the hard path, not the easy one. And the farther along you go, the more your own ethics will cause you to think, and then do things that you know are right, even if you don't want to do them.
"... It is my sincere desire that you will realize that rules and reflexive reactions have little place in a world that changes every nanosecond; where every situation is unique, and every individual you deal with is unlike any other. In such a world, each case is a special case, and must be met with a special answer. It is my goal to help you discover how to reach those answers; honestly and non-judgementally, with a heart filled with love, understanding, wisdom and joy.
"I want you to be able to steer your way through your life, and find your heart's desire, without harming anyone.
"I hope that you realize that if you do harm someone, you must make restitution. There is no 'forgiveness' on this path. Your 'sins' are not 'wiped clean' with little or no effort on your part. Here, 'sins' are not part of the question. Here we have only responsibility. You are responsible for your own actions, and only for your own actions. And if you break something with your actions, you are required to attempt to mend it with your actions, as well.
"We all make mistakes, try as we might not to. The trick is to realize that we have, forgive ourselves, do our best to correct our mistake, and go on.
"Sometimes, our ethics will cause us to change our entire lives. This takes great courage....
"When you become ethical, when you begin to see the cause of your actions, when you truly take responsibility for everything you do, the easy way ceases to serve. It no longer works to say 'Mea culpa' and be absolved, because deep inside you know perfectly well that is not enough.
"When you look within, and can find the answers there, you are beginning to arrive.
"When you can shine the bright light of honesty on the dusty corners of your soul, and like what you see, you are well on your way.
"When everything you look at, you look at with love and honesty, with a judgement unclouded by any sort of fear or prejudice, and you can decide clearly and wisely what you should do in each situation as it arises, you are there.
"I, personally, am not there yet.
"But I'm working on it!
"The thinking and reasoning become easier all the time.
"My prejudices are fading.
"But in order for your prejudices to fade, you first have to know what they are.... So examine your prejudices... Cast the bright light of honesty on them until they dissipate like fog in the sun.
"Keep working, and thinking, and trying to be better; and I assure you that you will be.
"Let your appetites and habits rule you, have a pat answer for everything, and your ethics will slip away until you have none left.
"Having ethics is like driving a car. Remember when you first learned to drive? You had to think about all of the mechanics of it, all the time. Hands go here, feet go there. Oh no! I'm turning the wheel too far! Ack! That's too far in the other direction! Where is that brake pedal? I know it has to be here somewhere!
"Then, gradually, you learned how to do it, and it became easier. ... By now, you can probably drive without much trouble. You may even have an 'autopilot' that will take you straight to work without any conscious effort on your part at all.
"But if you don't keep at least some of your mind on the road, you will wind up in a pileup.
"In just the same way, using your mind instead of a set of rules is hard at first. Every question is completely different than anything you have had to think through before. Correlating the cause and effect, and thinking through the ripples may seem almost paralyzing at first. Correcting for an error may result in an over-correction that harms someone else. You may need to find the brakes, and use the old rules for a little while to get your breath back. (If so, go ahead. Most of the ones that don't judge other people are not bad, as far as they go. I just think they don't go very far.)
"As you become more familiar with ethical living, you will find that certain questions follow certain patterns, and that you have thought a lot of this out before. Some things will become reflexive. You don't have to consider whether to use magic to cause someone to fall in love with you, for instance. You will just know that is wrong. The mechanics of having your brain with you at all times will be less and less of a problem. Eventually, you will be able to make rapid judgments for most things, and life will go pretty smoothly.
"But don't make the mistake of letting your mind wander completely away, or you will end up in an ethical pileup.
"Just as in driving, you may have only seconds to make the really important ethical decisions. Emergencies of all kinds are like that. And again as in driving, the more experience you have, the more likely you are to make a good decision in time.
"Without the ability to drive, your freedom would be seriously curtailed. Without the ability to make good ethical choices, your freedom may need to be seriously curtailed.
"So become a good ethical driver!
"Go forth joyfully, with honesty and love and laughter and wisdom and all that good stuff. Steer carefully, enjoy your freedom, and write if you get work!"
Friday, November 28, 2008
Terrorism
Terrorism is something I particularly hate, and I'm not in the least apologetic about it. Anyone who feels entitled to cut short anyone's precious life to draw attention to a cause, even to protest some dire injustice, has to me divorced her- or himself from the human race. The only exception might be if one were able to confront someone directly responsible for the injustice. But killing uninvolved civilians, and worse yet killing them because of their nationality and/or religion... unforgivable.
Religion is so often the culprit behind these horrible acts. The kind of religion that spreads the pernicious message that only those who believe exactly like you are fully human, that everyone else is inherently expendable. And to some extent or another, I'm sorry to say, all three of the great mono-male-theisms -- the religions with a unitary or triune male God, i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in order of their emergence -- fit that description.
How can you psych yourself up to such a pitch, such a poisonous mix of bigotry, nihilism and self-righteousness, that you can go out and slaughter a young Jewish couple in front of their now orphaned two-year-old child, who was only saved by the bravery of his nanny? The toddler's pants were soaked in blood. How can you shoot a 13-year-old girl on a tour with her father -- and her father? An ageing couple dining at a restaurant to celebrate their son and daughter-in-law's wedding anniversary? And from what I gleaned from the New York Times this morning, the son in this last case may also have fallen victim to the terrorists, while his wife managed to escape.
Many years ago, by unfortunate coincidence, I ended up on board a hijacked airplane. Then a young teenager, traveling without my parents, I've actually experienced guns pointed at me, and threats to blow up the airplane with all of us passengers on board. I was held in a Middle Eastern nation torn by civil war for a week. At night, the building in which we were last held was bombarded by artillery. When some of us were finally released, we took off from the capital city's airport with a gunfight going on not far away.
I may not be a pacifist -- if anyone tries to turn me into a pawn again, or worse, attempts to take someone I love hostage, I will fight back by every means at my command -- but my Paganism is a life-conserving belief system. Using one's energy to spread terror, throwing away one's own irreplaceable life and those of others in some explosion of hatred, is anathema. It's worse yet if it's religion-fueled hatred. My gut instinct tells me that any religion that dares tell you it's O.K. to persecute or kill people who think differently from you has to be a dangerous load of hooey. No-one is inherently "second-class," and no one is in a position to judge that anyone else is expendable.
Of course, the problem is that the sort of people who carry out horrors like this carnage in Mumbai -- almost without exception young men -- have been taught from infancy to hate the "other" (the "unbeliever," the foreigner, plus women in general) and, at the same time, to hate themselves, to find themselves sinful, imperfect, worthy of death. They're not about to turn around and use their energy to work on creating a better world where they happen to be. They've been indoctrinated with the dread and infinitely destructive idea that the Earth is only a way-station, that they'll be rewarded for throwing themselves and others away with some fabulous paradise beyond death's door.
This mindset has to be replaced with more life-affirming ones before these terrorists and many others of their ilk manage to threaten or destroy everything that matters to us. We need to stand up for our own, life-positive belief systems, to show that one can change one's environment for the better, in small ways and, with enough positive dedication, in a big way. We also need to teach tolerance for the inevitable imperfections in each of us, love for ourselves and others, and personal and mutual responsibility throughout each community.
Responsibility -- that's worthy of a lot more exploration! More anon.
Religion is so often the culprit behind these horrible acts. The kind of religion that spreads the pernicious message that only those who believe exactly like you are fully human, that everyone else is inherently expendable. And to some extent or another, I'm sorry to say, all three of the great mono-male-theisms -- the religions with a unitary or triune male God, i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in order of their emergence -- fit that description.
How can you psych yourself up to such a pitch, such a poisonous mix of bigotry, nihilism and self-righteousness, that you can go out and slaughter a young Jewish couple in front of their now orphaned two-year-old child, who was only saved by the bravery of his nanny? The toddler's pants were soaked in blood. How can you shoot a 13-year-old girl on a tour with her father -- and her father? An ageing couple dining at a restaurant to celebrate their son and daughter-in-law's wedding anniversary? And from what I gleaned from the New York Times this morning, the son in this last case may also have fallen victim to the terrorists, while his wife managed to escape.
Many years ago, by unfortunate coincidence, I ended up on board a hijacked airplane. Then a young teenager, traveling without my parents, I've actually experienced guns pointed at me, and threats to blow up the airplane with all of us passengers on board. I was held in a Middle Eastern nation torn by civil war for a week. At night, the building in which we were last held was bombarded by artillery. When some of us were finally released, we took off from the capital city's airport with a gunfight going on not far away.
I may not be a pacifist -- if anyone tries to turn me into a pawn again, or worse, attempts to take someone I love hostage, I will fight back by every means at my command -- but my Paganism is a life-conserving belief system. Using one's energy to spread terror, throwing away one's own irreplaceable life and those of others in some explosion of hatred, is anathema. It's worse yet if it's religion-fueled hatred. My gut instinct tells me that any religion that dares tell you it's O.K. to persecute or kill people who think differently from you has to be a dangerous load of hooey. No-one is inherently "second-class," and no one is in a position to judge that anyone else is expendable.
Of course, the problem is that the sort of people who carry out horrors like this carnage in Mumbai -- almost without exception young men -- have been taught from infancy to hate the "other" (the "unbeliever," the foreigner, plus women in general) and, at the same time, to hate themselves, to find themselves sinful, imperfect, worthy of death. They're not about to turn around and use their energy to work on creating a better world where they happen to be. They've been indoctrinated with the dread and infinitely destructive idea that the Earth is only a way-station, that they'll be rewarded for throwing themselves and others away with some fabulous paradise beyond death's door.
This mindset has to be replaced with more life-affirming ones before these terrorists and many others of their ilk manage to threaten or destroy everything that matters to us. We need to stand up for our own, life-positive belief systems, to show that one can change one's environment for the better, in small ways and, with enough positive dedication, in a big way. We also need to teach tolerance for the inevitable imperfections in each of us, love for ourselves and others, and personal and mutual responsibility throughout each community.
Responsibility -- that's worthy of a lot more exploration! More anon.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
An Introduction to (Neo-)Paganism
Here's a brief piece I wrote for a panel discussion at a college reunion, almost ten years ago:
Starting in 1991, I came back to the belief system I think I was born with. It's called Goddess spirituality, eco-spirituality, eco-feminism -- the big, catch-all term is Neo-Paganism. None of these names fit completely, and some of the words are given a negative spin by popular culture.
It's partly rooted in ever-growing amounts of archaeological evidence of non-patriarchal pre-Christian cultures in Africa, Asia, and Europe. These societies, which existed for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, were egalitarian, co-operative, highly creative and largely peaceful. They saw the spark of the divine in everything living, and when they personified this divine essence, they called it Goddess -- later, they also called it God.
For me, it's also a personal re-connection to remembered moments in my childhood, experiences of wonder, times when I felt good about myself and the whole world, energized, 100 per cent alive.
But it's not all “going back.” My belief system rejects dualism, the idea that something must be either "this" or "that" -- so it can reach back and look forward at the same time. Neo-Paganism makes no claim to being some "authentic" revival of specific beliefs from 3,500 or more years ago. After all, it's Neo-Paganism, and it's about living in this, present world. It's about remaining aware of both the wider world, and the specific places we each live in: their seasons, climate, and geography, and the needs of that particular community. Because we insist on honoring where we are, what we come from and what we've become a part of, Neo-Pagans come in at least as many flavors as Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream -- but we DO share some basic principles.
First, to Neo-Pagans, the divine is immanent, NOT transcendent. It's not somewhere "above" us humans and the rest of the world, or "out there" -- it IS, and it IS in EVERYTHING, including us. All creation is born of a Great Mother and is part of Her substance, so everything is connected.
Second, Neo-Pagans accept no cast-in-stone hierarchies, and no all-powerful gurus. It's a woman-positive belief system -- for example, since we believe in Goddess, we can't well question women's right to be priestesses -- but it's not a belief system for women only. For men and women, Neo-Paganism gives the opportunity to explore and integrate all aspects of one's personality, to "think outside the box." We're also called to live in the body -- live juicy and messy, without denying the body and the emotions, without seeing the mind and spirit as separate from the body, superior or somehow more "pure." I believe I get one life, one wonderful gift, one chance to experience this beautiful world, through the medium of my body -- and I am grateful to my body, and love it.
At the same time, Neo-Paganism is a very demanding belief system. It's not about unlimited license or moral relativism. The one binding rule, the Wiccan Rede, could be called "How to be Stricter than the Ten Commandments in Eight Words or Less." It says, "IF you harm NONE, do as you will." Think about it. I am to harm nothing -- not myself, or anyone or anything else. So I'm required to "live lightly on the earth", to be constantly aware of the obvious and not so obvious impact of my actions. I have to take responsibility for everything I do, and examine and recognize the amazing power of my intentions and my expectations.
You can see why this is unlikely to become a majority religion! It's a lifelong learning process, without any promise of a future repeat performance. But it suits me, and quite a few others: there are now [1999] at least 200,000 Neo-Pagans in the United States alone.
Starting in 1991, I came back to the belief system I think I was born with. It's called Goddess spirituality, eco-spirituality, eco-feminism -- the big, catch-all term is Neo-Paganism. None of these names fit completely, and some of the words are given a negative spin by popular culture.
It's partly rooted in ever-growing amounts of archaeological evidence of non-patriarchal pre-Christian cultures in Africa, Asia, and Europe. These societies, which existed for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, were egalitarian, co-operative, highly creative and largely peaceful. They saw the spark of the divine in everything living, and when they personified this divine essence, they called it Goddess -- later, they also called it God.
For me, it's also a personal re-connection to remembered moments in my childhood, experiences of wonder, times when I felt good about myself and the whole world, energized, 100 per cent alive.
But it's not all “going back.” My belief system rejects dualism, the idea that something must be either "this" or "that" -- so it can reach back and look forward at the same time. Neo-Paganism makes no claim to being some "authentic" revival of specific beliefs from 3,500 or more years ago. After all, it's Neo-Paganism, and it's about living in this, present world. It's about remaining aware of both the wider world, and the specific places we each live in: their seasons, climate, and geography, and the needs of that particular community. Because we insist on honoring where we are, what we come from and what we've become a part of, Neo-Pagans come in at least as many flavors as Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream -- but we DO share some basic principles.
First, to Neo-Pagans, the divine is immanent, NOT transcendent. It's not somewhere "above" us humans and the rest of the world, or "out there" -- it IS, and it IS in EVERYTHING, including us. All creation is born of a Great Mother and is part of Her substance, so everything is connected.
Second, Neo-Pagans accept no cast-in-stone hierarchies, and no all-powerful gurus. It's a woman-positive belief system -- for example, since we believe in Goddess, we can't well question women's right to be priestesses -- but it's not a belief system for women only. For men and women, Neo-Paganism gives the opportunity to explore and integrate all aspects of one's personality, to "think outside the box." We're also called to live in the body -- live juicy and messy, without denying the body and the emotions, without seeing the mind and spirit as separate from the body, superior or somehow more "pure." I believe I get one life, one wonderful gift, one chance to experience this beautiful world, through the medium of my body -- and I am grateful to my body, and love it.
At the same time, Neo-Paganism is a very demanding belief system. It's not about unlimited license or moral relativism. The one binding rule, the Wiccan Rede, could be called "How to be Stricter than the Ten Commandments in Eight Words or Less." It says, "IF you harm NONE, do as you will." Think about it. I am to harm nothing -- not myself, or anyone or anything else. So I'm required to "live lightly on the earth", to be constantly aware of the obvious and not so obvious impact of my actions. I have to take responsibility for everything I do, and examine and recognize the amazing power of my intentions and my expectations.
You can see why this is unlikely to become a majority religion! It's a lifelong learning process, without any promise of a future repeat performance. But it suits me, and quite a few others: there are now [1999] at least 200,000 Neo-Pagans in the United States alone.
Courtesy is Contagious
It's great to get one's nose outside the house after a whole morning and half an afternoon spent preparing for another mass Thanksgiving -- up to 25 people! Everyone was supposed to have told us whether they were coming by yesterday morning, but of course, four have managed not to report in yet. The art of the RSVP is all but lost. I had to call pretty much everyone on the guest list to double-check as to whether they were attending and what they were bringing. Even five years ago, not that much was expected of the hosts!
I suppose that leads me to a not so small gripe of mine. One of my favorite bumper stickers says "Courtesy is Contagious," and what seems to be in very short supply in contemporary society is basic consideration for others. Like letting the hosts of a potluck party know if you're going to be there and what you'll bring. Or using your turn signals when you're driving a car to warn the people behind you that you intend to change lanes or make a turn. Something that's particularly neglected in our fair city. Never before have I lived in a place where people were quite as likely to cut across two or more lanes of traffic without the slightest whiff of warning. It's as if drivers are in a trance, convinced they're actually in a world of their own. It's so ubiquitous around here that I had a proprietary bumper sticker made up that says "I Can't Read Minds -- Use Your Turn Signals!"
You know you're really suffering from withdrawal symptoms about responsible citizenhood when you get sentimental about a series of TV commercials. I'm talking about the Liberty Mutual insurance company commercials which show a chain of small actions taken by individuals to look out for their fellow human beings. I feel like investigating Liberty Mutual to see if they can take over some of our insurance, just to reward them for putting these positive examples out there. If we all took the trouble to be more aware of our surroundings, the people around us and our immediate environment, the world could be a much less stressful and stressed place in a very short time.
Taking responsibility. It's a key ingredient of the Pagan creed. Not that I'm always perfect at it either, but I am aware that it's a requirement. It harks back to "Harm none." You have to try to be aware enough to avoid doing any avoidable, active harm. It means you have to live awake, and be cognizant of your impact, and what you can do to make life easier and more pleasant for everyone (without bending yourself into a pretzel or being masochistic, mind you!).
And what you put out there comes back to you, usually in multiples. So it's best to do good!
I suppose that leads me to a not so small gripe of mine. One of my favorite bumper stickers says "Courtesy is Contagious," and what seems to be in very short supply in contemporary society is basic consideration for others. Like letting the hosts of a potluck party know if you're going to be there and what you'll bring. Or using your turn signals when you're driving a car to warn the people behind you that you intend to change lanes or make a turn. Something that's particularly neglected in our fair city. Never before have I lived in a place where people were quite as likely to cut across two or more lanes of traffic without the slightest whiff of warning. It's as if drivers are in a trance, convinced they're actually in a world of their own. It's so ubiquitous around here that I had a proprietary bumper sticker made up that says "I Can't Read Minds -- Use Your Turn Signals!"
You know you're really suffering from withdrawal symptoms about responsible citizenhood when you get sentimental about a series of TV commercials. I'm talking about the Liberty Mutual insurance company commercials which show a chain of small actions taken by individuals to look out for their fellow human beings. I feel like investigating Liberty Mutual to see if they can take over some of our insurance, just to reward them for putting these positive examples out there. If we all took the trouble to be more aware of our surroundings, the people around us and our immediate environment, the world could be a much less stressful and stressed place in a very short time.
Taking responsibility. It's a key ingredient of the Pagan creed. Not that I'm always perfect at it either, but I am aware that it's a requirement. It harks back to "Harm none." You have to try to be aware enough to avoid doing any avoidable, active harm. It means you have to live awake, and be cognizant of your impact, and what you can do to make life easier and more pleasant for everyone (without bending yourself into a pretzel or being masochistic, mind you!).
And what you put out there comes back to you, usually in multiples. So it's best to do good!
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