Ive come to recognize that there exist three forms of abuse that people rely upon to browbeat or coerce others into silence or submission as part of the power/dominator process of governing. 1) Physical abuse - the most obvious. Historically, humanity has used torture, death, deprivation, physical punishment and the conscious infliction of physical pain to deter behaviors, beliefs and attitudes we dislike. Much of human history reveals a litany of human suffering resulting from this choice by those in power...and those who would strive to hold power over others. 2) Emotional abuse - somewhat obvious. This includes taunting, bullying, name-calling, verbally abusing another so as to undermine the others sense of self-worth. Much of the suffering, alienation and mental illness we observe in modern history reflects humanitys more nuanced choice to move beyond the infliction of physical pain to the application of emotional abuse to quiet or otherwise subdue dissent in the world. 3) Intellectual bullying - somewhat insidious. This involves attempting to leverage ones mental capacities and expertise in ways designed to make others feel foolish, less intelligent, less educated, less able to decide for themselves what to believe or how to analyze a situation. It involves undermining the confidence others feel in their own mental capacity to understand reality...thereby disempowering them and convincing them to surrender their power to think, evaluate and decide for themselves to the so-called experts in a given field. It has been arising gradually, as bullying and emotional abuse has been increasingly revealed to be harmful to the human psyche. What if we LET GO of the urge to coerce anyone to believe in anything at all? What if we ceased inflicting physical, emotional or intellectual suffering on others as a means to control them? What if we simply relaxed and allowed each other the spaciousness to question, explore, experiment and discover truth - AS truth? Might that not empower truth to stabilize more firmly within our species, as compared to trying to force others to swallow our personal version of truth through coercive means? Even the most luminous truth, if forcibly imposed, loses its luster, because the person who is being forced to accept it doesnt...not really. He or she surrenders in order to avoid the pain of either physical, emotional or intellectual abuse...but that does not mean that the truth has been REALIZED by that being. As soon as the abuser moves on or loses power, guess what happens? The person who has felt subjugated takes that opportunity to reclaim his/her old beliefs...and around and around we go, everyone trying to force everyone else to believe what I believe...or else. Im letting go of that method of discussing truth. Will you let go of it with me, so we can see what arises when we run a new experiment? Lets SUPPORT one another in the discovery of truth, rather than COERCE one another into surrendering to our own ideas about it.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 16:20:36 +0000
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