From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Sat May 17 2003 - 23:05:24 BST
Dear Platt,
You are again (16 May 2003 09:49:31 -0400) assuming differences between the
two of us that I don't recognize. I (and Quakers generally) am just as
'reluctant ... to interfere ... in the affairs of others' as you are.
Quakers believe quite explicitly in (= trust the possibility and value of)
"Let go, let God", in acting on divine guidance rather than individual or
group opinion. Our historical experience is that God when given the
possibility to act through us (when we open ourselves to divine guidance)
indeed does not sit idly by when threatened. God feels the pain and
suffering of 'his' creation. Pain and suffering drive social and
intellectual evolution because it motivates 'that which connects everyone
and everything' (my favorite description of God) to interfere through us, to
seek ways to avoid and prevent it.
'Individual autonomy and responsibility' are meaningless if you 'let go, let
God'. Our historical experience as Quakers is, that God feels everyone's
pain and suffering as 'his' own. A lot of pain and suffering is caused by
stagnant social and intellectual patterns of value. Where a lot of people
participate in a stagnant social or intellectual pattern of value that
causes pain and suffering (e.g. the corrupting effect if groups give their
leaders personal power or the divisive effect of us versus them schemes of
thinking), that pain and suffering can only be avoided and prevented by
collective action, by collective sovereignty and responsibility.
You will say that collective action starts with an individual. I would like
to add that
1) on hindsight it is usually not the individuals that claimed individual
credit for their actions that started meaningful change and
2) in the domino-effect of individual actions precipitating collective
change it is not necessarily the first domino falling that should get all
the credit. There may have been other domino's further on in the chain that
should get more credit, because of standing further apart from each other
and having to take more trouble to tumble the next. Especially the first
domino may not be the one that should get any credit ... wasn't it God's
finger that pushed him?
When I see (or more likely read about) poor powerless people, I can't help
experiencing their pain and suffering in part as my own. It motivates me to
do something. I don't know to what extent their pain and suffering is a
result of individual bad choices and should be neglected to enable them to
learn from it, but I'm sure you'll agree that this is only partially the
case. There are situations in which people's pain and suffering is
predominantly due not to their own bad choices, but to oppression by others,
which they can't end without outside help. You didn't favor a policy of
benign neglect vis-à-vis Iraq. I don't think you are sorry that your
ancestors felt bound to end slavery, i.e. to interfere in the affairs of
fellow Americans, slaves, slavers and slave drivers, either.
I too trust in that higher power to work things out for the better,
recognizing that it may need me as its instrument at times. To 'let go, let
God' implies waiting and refraining from interfering until divine guidance
to interfere becomes clear.
I feel very uncomfortable knowing that part of what I consume (clothes,
shoes, some foods) is most probably produced in situations comparable to
slavery. I the few cases in which I know for sure and when I can do without
or know better alternatives (fair trade products), it is clear what I should
do. In our global complex economy I can't know about all what I consume and
about all their alternatives how they are produced, however. Living at my
level of wealth (and that of most Dutch and Americans) implies a lot of
neglect anyway, partly benign, partly malign. My 'policy' is to try to be
open to divine guidance to the few instances in which I can and should
interfere in the affairs of others on behalf of God to help work things out
for the better.
'Victimology' (creating and passing on stories that tell people that their
pain and suffering is caused by other peoples bad choices) helps no-one.
Neither does blaming the poor and powerless for their poverty and lack of
power and denying our (part of the) responsibility for it. Both types of
narratives blind us for the divine guidance and DQ experience that drive
social evolution.
Are such views really so different from yours?
(For atheists and agnostics: please substitute DQ for God.)
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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