The following post by Thot Plickens is decisive. He supports Ton by implying that one ideology has been simply replaced by another. He doesn’t deepen the exploration he understood from Elena’s posts as valid, but takes Ton’s road.
57. Thot Plickens - April 7, 2010
ton, I sense you’re concerned that when someone finds one doctrine or ideology that proves to be destructive in some way, and then leaps to yet another doctrine without thinking critically about it, they’re potentially replacing one harmful thing with another?
The root of the word indoctrination does happen to be doctrine.
Sometimes I think a potential antidote to that tendency to be consumed by any one ideology or doctrine — to getting sucked in (sorry for the expression) to any type of group thinking — is to be open to manydoctrines, and to connect to many different groups. (without necessary “joining” them by the way).
But I guess it feels cozy and safe to have one doctrine, one ideology, one group, one leader, one nation, one religion, and to attach ourselves to that. Feels safer, but it’s often not so smart or wise, or in the end even safe at all. Even “non-dualism” becomes “dualistic” if you start approaching it in a certain way. The key is to reflect upon the idea, meditate on it, and take from it what is healthy and wise. Seems best whenever possible to avoid the labels — e.g., I’m a non-dualist, I’m a “student of the Fourth Way”, I’m a Democrat, I’m an American. We already start closing ourselves off from the rest of the world, and start down that path of becoming prone to indoctrination.
Or if I do call myself an American or attach any other label, doctrine, or ideology to myself — at least be able to say that I am also a resident of the world at large.
—
“And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.”
JFK, June 1963
and Elena continues trying to reach a place of acceptance:
59. Elena - April 7, 2010
Dear Ton who have consistently checked on me and kept biting at my heels in the hope that I will move a different way, I sincerely thank you for your insight on my recent participation.
I am afraid that like you, I also feel that you pick on a little something of everything I am saying and neglect to address the whole idea, which is all right. If that is all you can do here that is what I am willing to take from you. It is clear that I am little more than a sloganeer for you and if that is what I am, please keep repeating it that I might one day see it and that whoever is reading me is three times careful with what they are hearing.
I write what I believe and it is not that I am following a humanist doctrine that I read somewhere as Thot Plickens suggests but that I have come to understand for myself that everything that made and makes me inhuman towards others is based on some kind of imaginary separateness that I justify because they are different to me economically, socially, academically, nationally or racially. When work on my self began I repeatedly observed those things in me and the more I stopped expressing negativity towards others for these totally absurd reasons, the more I understood that behaving “consciously” for me meant behaving humanly. I am still far from being all the human I wish to become so I thank you for pushing me on. I am glad for you if you feel you have already reached such a condition.
It is also very clear to me that most people don’t understand each other because as soon as they meet they catalogue the other person so thoroughly that they either fall into deep identification wishing to attract that person or totally ignoring them. This too I’ve observed in myself.
I sincerely believe that WE, every human being alive today, can behave humanly at least towards a few people and that wars as they are being waged are not only not necessary but criminal. Since this is my belief the least I can do is to not carry out a war with you and the many here as I did before I was banned. We are not here to agree but to talk and listen and help each other and those inside who, some agree, would benefit from not continuing to sacrifice themselves in the Fellowship cult. It is the duty of a nation and every individual inside of it to stop its people from destroying themselves or others, some still try to help individuals who are about to commit suicide, why aren’t we helping those in cults when we know they are on that train? How many more people in cults have to die before laws are passed to control them? Laws that forbid every institution and cult and anyone with no matter what authority to act against people’s human rights? I am afraid we are far from human today and need laws that will protect us from our very powerful inhuman tendencies such as Fascism just half a century ago and the equally fascist activity of Israelis towards Palestinians today. It is a blessing that so many Jews are already acting against the State of Israel.
I am also not here to be attacked personally or attack you personally but to dialogue about our understandings. Before I was banned I was still so emotionally shocked by the cult experience that people who did not agree and support me in everything I said were perceived as people who did not love me and my self steam was so low that I turned very aggressive towards them. I am very sorry that I needed so much protection after the cult experience and did not look for it somewhere else. I am a little less vulnerable today and your agreeing or disagreeing with me is an opportunity for me to reflect on my understanding and continue to hold you because you are simply another human being with as much confusion and pain as I often experience. Where you not, you would have no difficulty being kind and generous. I do not ask you to love me but there is a huge difference between a conversation in which there is love and one in which there isn’t any. There is no love in your tone, no kindness and when there is no kindness, it is very easy to dismiss what is being said because the other person has in fact dismissed one and just picked up the piece of what one said and used it for his own interests. I sincerely do not know what your interest is but I get a feeling that you are not interested in me which is all right. We are not here to focus on my self but on life. We are fortunate to have the right to freedom of speech and do not need to share deep love to be able to practice it. That is what laws are for.
I can understand that I have hurt many of you in my previous participation on this blog. I have already asked you to forgive me but I cannot force you to forgive. We each come to that in our own time.
I also sincerely thank you for questioning my thinking. Let it get buried deep in the ground if there’s nothing worth sprouting in it. It seems to be helping me and I have not lived in vain, so hopefully it can be useful to others. I have actually nowhere found a simple understanding of what being human means for the individual and society “together”. History seems to be crowded with those who dealt with the inner side or the outer side without getting to the fact that they are too sides of the same coin: the human being. Everywhere people seem to agree that it is enough to be human with those one likes and agrees with, but not with those who do not belong to one’s class, race or nation. Humanism as I am understanding it means Humanism: we are all equals as human beings. We all have the same rights and freedoms:
Civil rights include:
Ensuring peoples’ physical integrity and safety.
Protection from discrimination on grounds such as gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, national origin, age, immigrant status, etc.
Equal access to health care, education, culture, etc.
Political rights include:
Natural justice (procedural fairness) in law (such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy)
Individual political freedom, including rights of individuals (freedom of thought and conscience, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of movement) and the right to participate in civil society and politics (freedom of association, right to assemble, right to petition, right to vote)
Civil and political rights comprise the first portion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (with economic, social and cultural rights comprising the second portion). The theory of three generations of human rights considers this group of rights to be “first-generation rights”, and the theory of negative and positive rights considers them to be generally negative rights.
We are FAR in the world today from practicing these freedoms and rights and each and every one of these rights is horrifically abused in cults, which is the particular area that we are discussing in this blog.
My aim is to explore humanism as I understand it so deeply that there will be no doubt as to why we human beings cannot continue to allow these very destructive cults to proliferate in our societies. My aim I believe is to a certain extent your aim. May we at least share that portion of the effort even if we only get a third of the way. Others will surely pick up where we left off.
And Ton continues:
64. ton - April 8, 2010
dear elena,
you don’t like my ‘tone’ eh? i’ve made no personal attacks, believe me, i wish you only well-being.
NOTE: Note that here Ton denies having made a personal attack or assuming a position of superiority in the tone he’s using and states that he wishes Elena’s well being only and continues:
what i have done is to question a few of your assumptions and preconceptions — apparently this rubs you the wrong way. if you are used to the notion that you are always right, and that your opinion counts more, then by now a certain kind of response should be expected…
NOTE: Note the personal attacks. He has in his last post positioned himself in a superior position and is now personally attacking Elena on the supposition that she thinks she is always right.
Where does he get that supposition from? He asserts it but nowhere does he point out where Elena acts as if she were always right. He has moved the conversation from the addressing of concrete ideas to addressing Elena’s persona.
He makes that statement adamantly ignoring Elena’s:
“I am afraid that like you, I also feel that you pick on a little something of everything I am saying and neglect to address the whole idea, which is all right. If that is all you can do here that is what I am willing to take from you. It is clear that I am little more than a sloganeer for you and if that is what I am, please keep repeating it that I might one day see it and that whoever is reading me is three times careful with what they are hearing”
NOTE: Can you hear Elena’s tone? Can you hear what she’s saying? Can you hear her humility? Her humanity?
But Ton continues:
the soap box is no substitute for a little self-reflective analysis so i hope my ‘needling’ can at least give you pause to think. no, you don’t know everything, in fact you know almost nothing if you can’t get past identification with ego and the little self…
NOTE: One. That he reduces everything Elena just said to a soap box
Two. That he again attacks Elena’s “self sphere” implying that she does not even think, that a little self analysis can help her and that she knows almost nothing if she doesn’t go beyond identification with her self
Three. That Ton asserts all these things from his own assumptions not from anything that he has actually taken from Elena
Note that he ignores everything that is said here:
I write what I believe and it is not that I am following a humanist doctrine that I read somewhere as Thot Plickens suggests but that I have come to understand for myself that everything that made and makes me inhuman towards others is based on some kind of imaginary separateness that I justify because they are different to me economically, socially, academically, nationally or racially. When work on my self began I repeatedly observed those things in me and the more I stopped expressing negativity towards others for these totally absurd reasons, the more I understood that behaving “consciously” for me meant behaving humanly. I am still far from being all the human I wish to become so I thank you for pushing me on. I am glad for you if you feel you have already reached such a condition.
It is also very clear to me that most people don’t understand each other because as soon as they meet they catalogue the other person so thoroughly that they either fall into deep identification wishing to attract that person or totally ignoring them. This too I’ve observed in myself.
I sincerely believe that WE, every human being alive today, can behave humanly at least towards a few people and that wars as they are being waged are not only not necessary but criminal. Since this is my belief the least I can do is to not carry out a war with you and the many here as I did before I was banned. We are not here to agree but to talk and listen and help each other and those inside who, some agree, would benefit from not continuing to sacrifice themselves in the Fellowship cult. It is the duty of a nation and every individual inside of it to stop its people from destroying themselves or others, some still try to help individuals who are about to commit suicide, why aren’t we helping those in cults when we know they are on that train? How many more people in cults have to die before laws are passed to control them? Laws that forbid every institution and cult and anyone with no matter what authority to act against people’s human rights? I am afraid we are far from human today and need laws that will protect us from our very powerful inhuman tendencies such as Fascism just half a century ago and the equally fascist activity of Israelis towards Palestinians today. It is a blessing that so many Jews are already acting against the State of Israel.
I am also not here to be attacked personally or attack you personally but to dialogue about our understandings. Before I was banned I was still so emotionally shocked by the cult experience that people who did not agree and support me in everything I said were perceived as people who did not love me and my self steam was so low that I turned very aggressive towards them. I am very sorry that I needed so much protection after the cult experience and did not look for it somewhere else. I am a little less vulnerable today and your agreeing or disagreeing with me is an opportunity for me to reflect on my understanding and continue to hold you because you are simply another human being with as much confusion and pain as I often experience. Where you not, you would have no difficulty being kind and generous. I do not ask you to love me but there is a huge difference between a conversation in which there is love and one in which there isn’t any. There is no love in your tone, no kindness and when there is no kindness, it is very easy to dismiss what is being said because the other person has in fact dismissed one and just picked up the piece of what one said and used it for his own interests. I sincerely do not know what your interest is but I get a feeling that you are not interested in me which is all right. We are not here to focus on my self but on life. We are fortunate to have the right to freedom of speech and do not need to share deep love to be able to practice it. That is what laws are for.
I can understand that I have hurt many of you in my previous participation on this blog. I have already asked you to forgive me but I cannot force you to forgive. We each come to that in our own time.
I also sincerely thank you for questioning my thinking. Let it get buried deep in the ground if there’s nothing worth sprouting in it. It seems to be helping me and I have not lived in vain, so hopefully it can be useful to others. I have actually nowhere found a simple understanding of what being human means for the individual and society “together”. History seems to be crowded with those who dealt with the inner side or the outer side without getting to the fact that they are too sides of the same coin: the human being. Everywhere people seem to agree that it is enough to be human with those one likes and agrees with, but not with those who do not belong to one’s class, race or nation. Humanism as I am understanding it means Humanism: we are all equals as human beings. We all have the same rights and freedoms:
And Ton continues:
you complained that i “pick on a little something and neglect the whole idea…” i say that the whole is contained in the parts, even if you can’t see it… anthropocentric humanism is at the root of the problem, from your current perspective you may not see it but inherent in this doctrine you’re preaching is human egotism writ large.
NOTE: This sentence is tantamount to understanding the manipulation that is going on.
you complained that i “pick on a little something and neglect the whole idea…”
i say that the whole is contained in the parts,
even if you can’t see it…
anthropocentric humanism is at the root of the problem,
from your current perspective you may not see it
but inherent in this doctrine you’re preaching is human egotism writ large.
NOTE: Note that Ton doesn’t address particular points of discussion but is set on maintaining a position in which he sees something that Elena doesn’t see. He has labeled what Elena is saying with anthropocentric humanism and that what Elena is preaching is simply human egotism writ large.
Note from Elena: it is quite fascinating to see how things can be turned around in such a misconstrued manner.
NOTE: That Ton continues to assert Elena’s position of inferiority:
even if you can’t see it…
from your current perspective you may not see it
but he’s unwilling to take any specific point and actually deal with it. His complete argumentation circles around his own assumptions and belittling of Elena’s condition.
And he continues:
there are alternatives to ‘ego’ based biases…. as a philosopher, scholar and ‘author’ you might want to do more research — for example, for a critique of the ‘ego-logical’ perspective see: rozak, naess, fisher, metzner, mckenna, et al, and see whitehead’s process-relational theory.
“What Humanist theories do not allow for is the fact that a system of ethics formulated from a human perspective may not be entirely accurate; humans are not the centre of reality. Spinoza argued that we tend to assess things wrongly in terms of their usefulness to us. Spinoza reasoned that if we were to look at things objectively we would discover that everything in the universe has a unique value…. a human-centred or anthropocentric ethic is not an accurate depiction of reality, there is a bigger picture….”
NOTE: And note that again by quoting and Spinoza and other authors he thinks his attacks is fully justified without having ever taking even one of Elena’s statements and working with it.
What this shows is that the intention is perfectly clear: what Ton is doing is not entering into a dialogue with Elena, he is clearly trying to invalidate her and her positions but the way he does it is with personal attacks on her condition, not with sincere argumentation of her theories while Elena is, surprisingly enough, always looking for a place where dialogue is possible.
The tone, the mutual expressions, that is what actually reveals the intention of the speakers and of course, the actual form expresses those intentions. Elena is consistently trying to find the human and Ton is consistently inhumanly rejecting that possibility: perverting Elena’s position demeanoring it by ridiculing it with words such as the soap box, the slogan, the cliché….
Words that are not meant to question what is being said but to ridicule the person saying it.
Elena: JUST THAT IS INHUMAN
And what is inhuman is that you can clearly see that in every single one of those posts Elena is trying to be there, willingly, healthily, lovingly presenting her views one after the other without hurting anyone but her views question other people’s views only that they are not willing to tackle with the views because Elena’s foundation is very strong so they have to attack Elena and not let her be. Ton is the mouth of the blog institution that then bans her.
Ton will continue to insist on his position all along, when questioned deeply by Elena he finally takes off the strongly demeanoring tone and begins to talk in a more equal tone unless he is confronted by the reality of the situation:
That Elena has been banned while he was the one who behaved inhuman in his manipulation.
________
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