Sunday Musings - October 16, 2022
“You are nothing to me.”
Claiming the right to discard others.
Daily one can read or listen to so called objective reports of we humans hurting other humans. There are reports of those who physically harm others; who kill another while driving impaired; who rob or attempt to rob another; who attempt to control another physically or psychologically; who discard others as if they are a disposable/single use plastic bag ; who drain others emotionally or financially.
Daily, a number of teenagers are thrown into the streets because their parents are unable to fit their GLBT child into their tightly constructed gender or sexual identity boxes. Daily, some children discard parents who shut off access to family money.
Daily, one might notice that the objective reporter seems able to self-righteously discard the discarded.
Daily, many of us discard those who refuse to meet our expectations of how they should behave.
Discarding is much different than setting boundaries. Certainly, if someone is emotionally or physically abusive one needs to take protective action; one needs to keep oneself safe if at all possible. Thus, I am not likely to open my office or home door if I know someone is impaired because of their use of alcohol or other drugs. Clearly, I am not going invite someone who is actively psychotic and threatening violence into my home or office. Clearly, I am not going to invite someone, especially someone who is angry, into my office or home if they have a loaded gun. If someone is threatening me in any way, I am going to set up a physical or emotional barrier.
Although we talk as if all or most have free will. Our justice system is predicated on this assumption, I am increasingly convinced that we all do the best we can at any given moment. I am not implying that it is appropriate or even helpful to release ourselves or others from accountability or from acceptance of the extent our actions impact the health and even the life of others. I am also not implying that feeding one’s addiction to power, sex, alcohol or other drugs, possession, money or the internalization or the belief that one is more deserving that others is healthy.
I am implying that our energy, as a community, needs to be increasingly based on what we are learning from scientific study about the brain and all the factors which can cause or influence the thought process of each of us; how we can, without shame, examine and, when appropriate, change the thought process to perhaps arrive at a different slice of reality.
I understand that some individuals are incapable of considering the rights of others. I have no problem accepting that a person who is told from birth that they are entitled to an unequal share of material wealth and privilege will come to internalize that belief. I have no problem accepting, as Lenore Walker suggested in her book Battered Women, learned helplessness is as real as being bound in physical chains.
I am well aware that many of we humans are so convinced that our realty is the only possible reality that any attempt to suggest one consider another may be met with disdain, arrogance, a blank stare or every defensive anger. Some of us may have learned that it is our right and even our duty to silence the messenger who suggests a different reality. I have no doubt that President Putin believes he has the right or even the duty to bring Ukraine back into the umbrella of Russia no matter if he has to destroy all of Ukraine and kill all Ukrainians to accomplish that goal.
The question is not whether some of us are a danger to self-and/or others. The question is whether we, as a society, are going to allow grief, hurt, superstition, outdated religious dogma, arrogance, or science to work towards creating a safer, more just society. Clearly self-righteous, arrogant, emotional responses to injustice - to we humans mistreating each other - is emotionally, politically, and financially costly. It is also ineffective.
An eye for an eye approach from an emotional standpoint might make sense, but if the goal is to demonstrate that violence and punishment are not an effective response to one’s being mistreated than we need to find out what response might scientifically make more sense and reduce the hurt we cause each other.
Written October 16, 2022
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
“You are nothing to me.”
Claiming the right to discard others.
Daily one can read or listen to so called objective reports of we humans hurting other humans. There are reports of those who physically harm others; who kill another while driving impaired; who rob or attempt to rob another; who attempt to control another physically or psychologically; who discard others as if they are a disposable/single use plastic bag ; who drain others emotionally or financially.
Daily, a number of teenagers are thrown into the streets because their parents are unable to fit their GLBT child into their tightly constructed gender or sexual identity boxes. Daily, some children discard parents who shut off access to family money.
Daily, one might notice that the objective reporter seems able to self-righteously discard the discarded.
Daily, many of us discard those who refuse to meet our expectations of how they should behave.
Discarding is much different than setting boundaries. Certainly, if someone is emotionally or physically abusive one needs to take protective action; one needs to keep oneself safe if at all possible. Thus, I am not likely to open my office or home door if I know someone is impaired because of their use of alcohol or other drugs. Clearly, I am not going invite someone who is actively psychotic and threatening violence into my home or office. Clearly, I am not going to invite someone, especially someone who is angry, into my office or home if they have a loaded gun. If someone is threatening me in any way, I am going to set up a physical or emotional barrier.
Although we talk as if all or most have free will. Our justice system is predicated on this assumption, I am increasingly convinced that we all do the best we can at any given moment. I am not implying that it is appropriate or even helpful to release ourselves or others from accountability or from acceptance of the extent our actions impact the health and even the life of others. I am also not implying that feeding one’s addiction to power, sex, alcohol or other drugs, possession, money or the internalization or the belief that one is more deserving that others is healthy.
I am implying that our energy, as a community, needs to be increasingly based on what we are learning from scientific study about the brain and all the factors which can cause or influence the thought process of each of us; how we can, without shame, examine and, when appropriate, change the thought process to perhaps arrive at a different slice of reality.
I understand that some individuals are incapable of considering the rights of others. I have no problem accepting that a person who is told from birth that they are entitled to an unequal share of material wealth and privilege will come to internalize that belief. I have no problem accepting, as Lenore Walker suggested in her book Battered Women, learned helplessness is as real as being bound in physical chains.
I am well aware that many of we humans are so convinced that our realty is the only possible reality that any attempt to suggest one consider another may be met with disdain, arrogance, a blank stare or every defensive anger. Some of us may have learned that it is our right and even our duty to silence the messenger who suggests a different reality. I have no doubt that President Putin believes he has the right or even the duty to bring Ukraine back into the umbrella of Russia no matter if he has to destroy all of Ukraine and kill all Ukrainians to accomplish that goal.
The question is not whether some of us are a danger to self-and/or others. The question is whether we, as a society, are going to allow grief, hurt, superstition, outdated religious dogma, arrogance, or science to work towards creating a safer, more just society. Clearly self-righteous, arrogant, emotional responses to injustice - to we humans mistreating each other - is emotionally, politically, and financially costly. It is also ineffective.
An eye for an eye approach from an emotional standpoint might make sense, but if the goal is to demonstrate that violence and punishment are not an effective response to one’s being mistreated than we need to find out what response might scientifically make more sense and reduce the hurt we cause each other.
Written October 16, 2022
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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