On Violence and Autonomy
As much as we want to criticize all the people at the top and all of the bad things that they are doing, we would be remiss if we didn't look at what we are doing.
If you truly want the world to change, you must look at your contribution to the world being 'not how you want'.
And I've been trying to see through that smoke-screen my entire life.
What I found out is that we've been raised in a culture of violence that is so horrific that we don't even notice it's there. It's the water we swim in.
Not only do we not see it, but we can't even imagine that it could be any other way.
When I start talking about it, most people look at me like I'm crazy, because that's what they know.
At the risk of seeming crazy, I'm going to do it anyway so that we can get away from it. Make a better world.
We have been taught that as long as you're not actively shooting or punching someone, you're not being violent. But the truth is so many of the things that we do every day support violence or are violent. I'm going to look at that definition later, but first...
If I could get you to think about them, then I would encourage you to think about all the times you force someone to do something they don't want to do.
Including yourself.
We live in a violent and punitive society. Basically, the fundamental idea behind almost our entire civilization is that "there's a right way to be and someone knows what that is" and that they're perfectly justified in forcing you to do that.
This is ridiculous on its surface. When the entire foundation of civilization sits on an obvious logical fallacy, you have to wonder why and whom it serves.
The fallacy is that someone, whether it's the person representing God or the government as delegated by the people, or your parents, knows better what you should do than you do.
And if you don't do that, they should punish you or reward you to make you do that as much as they can.
Parents force children. So do teachers.
Bosses force employees.
Husbands and wives try to manipulate and use soft violence to force each other, not accepting when the other chooses something differently.
And government, police, and military force all of us.
And that's just "the way things are".
It's how we extract energy from each other, but at what cost?
Relationship.
When you force or manipulate someone to do something they don't want to do, we all pay for it, as one of my teachers said.
*And the way we pay for it is the loss of love and goodwill between each other. *
And ultimately, not respecting each other's autonomy is how we end up with divorce and violence and the world we have now.
And this applies to our own autonomy as well.
Look around. Do we treat each other with respect? Do we obey the Golden Rule?
Are there people whom you punish or reward to make them do the right thing?
What about yourself?