--- In [email protected], "ispiritkin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > What a coool thread -- all 35 entries!
I thought so, too. And so I'll spend my last post of the week perpetuating it. (I think it's my last; it is by my count. If I've gone over, Rick, do not hesitate to ask me to take a time-out for a week.) > I, for one, did not know > there was a classification for my favorite kind of debating, where > people don't defeat their partners but instead support the ongoing > display of the fireworks. Gosh, I wish more people did this -- but > without gradually spacing out into platitudes. I usually end up > supplying material for both sides of the debate, kind of like an > actor playing two different roles in the same scene. And that is the best part about having discussions with *some* people on FFL. They "take the ball and run with it," sometimes continuing the main theme of another poster's post, sometimes segueing into new and unexplored territory, and inviting others to explore it with him or her. Others try consistently to turn the discussion into a head-to-head argument in which one or more of the participants can declare that they've "won." How pathetic. How completely antithetical to the spirit- ual process. > I agree with Turq about what is said by the cherishing of one's > favorite myths. I had a political epiphany once when I heard the > story of an activist in Chicago. This activist had a certain point > of view because of the world he experienced daily. His world was > filled with perpetrators and victims. There were almost no other > actors in his stories, so he viewed socialism as the ideal system. > > My world, on the other hand, was filled with individuals with > potential to be strong and free and happy, so I viewed free minds > and free markets as ideal. I realized that I would never ever be > able to find common ground with this activist, even though we were > both very dedicated to helping people toward better lives. Not > one of my best arguments would ever touch him, because I may as > well have been talking about the politics of a different galaxy. > The people of my world were not the people of his. Exactly. The power of the *myths* that each individual grew up identifying with have served to structure the way they see the world. It's the same with regard to the way that individuals see the issue of "problem solving." If the myths they identified with growing up involve adversarial resolutions -- battle, fighting, getting in someone's face, "right" prevailing over "wrong" -- how are they going to tend to resolve con- flicts in their own lives. On the other hand, if the myths they identified with growing up are about finding some other path through the maze of potentially adver- sarial situations that arise in life, they might be more likely to *look* for those other ways of dealing with issues in which two parties disagree. Take the hypothetical example of someone who grew up listening to Wagner, and having his operas form their personal mythos. They are full of conflict between "right" and "wrong," with "right" prevailing. The hero and heroine characters *deal* with situations by putting on their horned helmets and riding into battle singing "Yo ho, yo ho!" at the top of their lungs. They look to "devastate" their "enemies" and destroy them. That's just how the myths work. Now would a person brought up on such myths tend to do that in their own lives? Would they "act out" almost every situation by trying to turn it into a battle in which they could ride forth into battle and "win?" Would they tend to identify with political figures who do the same? Me, I dunno. It's just a hypothetical situation, after all. :-) Now imagine a person brought up on myths that involve more creative and less confrontational resolutions. The heroes and heroines are peacemakers, not warmakers. They find commonality, not difference. Would a person brought up on such myths act differently in situations that invite the potential for conflict? I suspect so. I think Obama thinks so, too. > My point is that we people our internal worlds with personalities we > come to know, and we people our myths with the characters we are > familiar with. Yet the people in my myth are different characters > than the people in your myth, so the effect of the myth is different > to each of us, and we may never really get how another person > understands the myth even when we both hear the same words. I think that what the world needs is better quality myths. One of my spiritual teachers once said (and I think with some wisdom) that the problem with America is that it has "mediocre dreams." It's myths are mostly about self-interest and self-gratification -- the rugged individual lifting himself up by his own bootstraps. Very, very few of them are about helping others. I'm of the opinion that if the myths that people were exposed to on TV -- both in the programs and in the ads, which are probably more mythic than the programs, because their very *intent8 is to instill desire -- were of a higher order, the people exposed to those myths might be of a higher order as well. > Or maybe we could if we both enjoy Buddhist debate, and to keep the > exchange going we each help the other to make better and better > points about the two very different stories told by the exact same > words. I really loved Stu's point about mythos and logos. It was the same point I had been trying to make about the distinction between the "plot" of a tale of power and the *intention* behind it. Interestingly, the person on Fairfield Life who IMO does the best "Buddhist debate" is the person who claims to no longer have a strong spiritual path, Curtis. He goes out of his way to find some way to bring any disagreement back to "common ground" and allow it to resolve in both parties having learned a little something, as opposed to just reinforcing and strengthening each of their sets of preconceptions. I suspect we could all learn from this. I've sat in rooms and engaged in the kind of debate that was discussed in the article Vaj posted, and it was a transformative situation. In a way, it was like the archetypal myth of how men handle conflict situations vs. how women handle them. In this myth, men get into heated arguments or even fights, and then afterwards go out together and share a beer and the whole thing is forgotten. Women, on the other hand, often keep the grudge going for years or decades. Or even lifetimes, in our context. I think the same thing could be achieved (the "guy" perspective in this myth, that is) with debate and disagreement here on FFL. One can disagree without dissing. :-) And *after* the disagreement one can still be friends with the person one disagreed with. Call me an elitist ( oh...never mind...someone recently did :-), but I cannot help but believe that the person who can argue strongly for his "side" in some debate with someone who believes just as strongly about the other side, and do so without trying to demonize the other person or develop some long-standing grudge against them -- is onto something, evolution-wise. I'm not one of those people yet, but I can aspire to it. The ability to go out for a beer afterwards and laugh is IMO indicative of a "higher evolution." Those who can only argue and do their best to *stay* in the state of mind of argumentation and difference seem to me to be more like dinosaurs whose time is long past and whom no one will miss when they finally go.
