From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon May 19 2003 - 01:06:00 BST
Dear Wim,
> 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.
Glad we agree on the general proposition, "Mind your own business." I
wouldn't know how to interfere in someone else's affairs even if I wanted
to. I always keep in the mind that the excuse for the Inquisition was to
save people from pain and suffering.
> 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.
I don't know how God acts when threatened. In fact, if God can be
threatened He isn't as powerful as I take Him to be. When I'm
threatened by physical violence, however, I'll take whatever preemptive
measures I can to avoid being killed or maimed.
> 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.
Maybe so. But I'm not quite to that point yet where I believe God, acting
through you and me seeks to alleviate pain throughout the world. It is
enough for me to see that all life forms seem to know instinctively
and.or intuitively what's good for them. Even an amoeba knows "It's
better here."
> 'Individual autonomy and responsibility' are meaningless if you 'let go,
> let God'.
I disagree. By responsibility I mean to suffer the consequences of my
own choices. To 'let go' is one of those choices.
> 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?
Probably. By letting go and letting God, I may feel a push. Then again, I
might not. Regardless, you can bet it will come as a surprise.
> 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.
This is where you and I part company. I don't experience the pain of
others. I can't get inside their skins. I can empathize and sympathize,
but I can't experience what they experience. I can't walk in their
moccasins, except figuratively. Experience is personal, private.
> 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.
I also part company with you about "oppression," the favorite word of
those who would like to profit from victimology. There's no greater
"oppression" for all of us than the biological certainty of death. But, as
Rosie said to Charlie in the movie the African Queen, "Nature, Mr.
Alnut, is what God put us here on earth to rise above." If an individual
feels oppressed, it is up to him to make the situation better. Millions
have fled their Godforsaken countries for a better life in Europe and the
U.S.
>You didn't favor a
> policy of benign neglect vis-à-vis Iraq.
Iraq represented a threat of physical violence.
> 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.
No, I'm not sorry about the end to slavery. And I'm equally grateful to my
father's generation for ending the mass killings by the likes of Stalin,
Hitler, Mussolini, and the Emperor of Japan.
>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.
Yes, that's how I feel. God will nudge me in the right direction at
appropriate times. Most like, He will ignore me altogether.
> 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.
I agree. The key is to pray for guidance on how best to help. Sometimes
when we think we're helping we're actually doing harm, public welfare
being a prime example of fostering many unintended consequences
resulting from redistribution of wealth by do-gooders.
> '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.
Probably so. It's difficult for any of us to overcome our prejudices and
know for certain what's the right course of action.
> Are such views really so different from yours?
On balance I would say we're closer in our views than apart. Where we
differ most I think is our faith in universal collective action, such as
through the U.N., to attain good ends. You have a much stronger belief
than me in the brotherhood of man and the feasibility of cooperation
among all sects to achieve good ends. I look to benign neglect, except
when threatened, to achieve results equally good if not better, putting
my faith in a higher power to accomplish good far beyond my meager
means to do so. I mean, look where mankind has come in a few
thousand years in spite of war, famine, pestilence and all the other
horrors inflicted by man and nature alike. Talk about miracles!
But, I could be wrong.
Platt
"Lila's battle is everybody's battle, you know?"
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