When we violate the nature of the other, we violate ourselves as well. At the very least, we despoil the environment that we ourselves inhabit. When we build dams in the wrong place, we diminish our own lives by destroying beauty and damaging the ecology. When we impose military "solutions" on alien societies, we make the world more dangerous for ourselves and our descendants. When we force our values on our students or on our children, we create environments of hostility that corrode our own souls.
At least, if we have any sensitivity, if we are not psychopaths or sociopaths, these words from Parker Palmer, from The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring should speak to us.
Please join me in a brief exploration of what they mean to me, as a teacher yes, but also as a political activist, and a citizen of the world.
As a teacher I know that my job is NOT to indoctrinate my students. Rather I see my task as to empower them, although that may require me to challenge them, to take them out of their comfort zones to consider other possibilities, other ways of thinking and perceiving. In part this will help them to understand, to connect with and communicate with, those different than they perceive themselves to be. Perhaps in the process they will become different, perhaps they will deepen their sense of what they already believed. Ultimately that is their choice. I can but help with the process.
As a political activist, not merely through what I write but the causes to which I contribute or on whose behalf I labor, I must remember that I am not God. I am not omniscient. Certainly learning from my students reminds me of that constantly, as do the occasions when they pose questions for which I have to admit I do not have an answer. I cannot presume that my political opponent is mean-spirited because s/he disagrees with me. We do not arrive at political discussions with the same background and experience, things that can shape how we perceive, how we react. I may come to a political discussion or argument with a predilection for a certain outcome, or an ideological lens that colors how how perceive, think, speak, and act. That does not, no matter how firmly I adhere to such an ideology, necessarily mean I am correct.
And even if I am, does that give me the right to impose by force?
Yes, politics involves power. Part of power is the ability to "win" be it elections or legislative votes. And in our democratic system such wins entitles us to have our way, or so we think. Yet if we impose without regard for the other, if we seek to even scores or merely to gain partisan advantage, we may find that our short-term success contributes to a long-term failure, as those upon whom we impose allow their resentment to build.
NO, we cannot appease. I am not arguing that, nor do I think Palmer would. Rather, I suggest that his words point at something else, a need for a certain amount of humility in how we think, speak, act.
It is perhaps for that reason I have always been bothered by the idea of American Exceptionalism. Even were we to fully live up to the ideals that supposedly guide and shape our nation - which we never have done - it would still be arrogant of us to impose them by force upon others. Pax Americana appeals to me no more than Pax Romana appealed to those subjected to it. Order is not necessarily the highest human aspiration, particularly when that order locks some into subservient positions without hope, or fuels resentment that leads in extreme cases to blind rage.
Perhaps one who responds, as do I, to these words of Palmer is too sensitive. Some would dismiss such thinking as weak, and instead argue for a Realpolitik approach.
And yet, why is it that even those of us who participate vigorously and enthusiastically in partisan activities nevertheless respond to words like those of a Martin Luther King Jr? Or find ourselves inspired when a Bobby Kennedy would quote Shaw? We are inspired to try to change the world, remembering as Gandhi taught us that first we must become the change we wish to see in the world.
I do not know if my heart, my soul, are large enough, open enough to include those who hate the things I value, who belittle what I hold dear, who willingly distort and use lies to try to win victories. I know that I cannot be like them - I refuse to be Pogo looking out on the swamp and think "we have met the enemy and he is us." But I also refuse to give up.
Which places me in a quandary. How can I oppose that which I perceive as evil, as dangerous, unless I am willing to use all the power available to me?
Perhaps that means I will not hold power, because others want someone who will be harsher.
But it also means my soul will be free to speak truth to those who hold or seek power, because I am less concerned with power than the pursuit of the true, as best as I can in all humility pursue it.
So perhaps some might say I should forswear political activity if I am not prepared to engage more forcefully. I am reminded that Gandhi pointed out that the path he pursued was not one of passivity. Nor is my response to the words of Palmer - who has for a number of years been my most important teacher even though I only recently met him - one that bespeaks a path of quietism.
I think I have a quandary. Let me propose a greater quandary, or if you will, a paradox. It is a religious question, and I accept that not all here will be willing to entertain it. Please, humor me.
Imagine an all-powerful God. How can the power of such a God be limited? In human terms, that makes no sense.
But then there is this - God cannot FORCE anyone to love God, because love is an act born of freedom. For those who believe in a deity, love - not worship - is the one thing they can give their deity. A gift is freely given.
Now I have posited a contradiction greater than that which confronts me. Which also helps me begin to see a path through confusion.
I am not going to be able to understand all before me. As a result I will at times make errors, sometimes serious ones. I would rather err in generosity and openness than deprive myself of the meaningful encounter of truly experiencing others, even when we may strongly disagree about things very important to us.
I am not very good at it. Like many, I carry many wounds, some born of my own foolish actions. I know there are limits to my understanding, my strength, my patience.
What does not have to be limited is my willing to learn, to be open, to be vulnerable. That is the first step to love.
To love is to risk having that love rejected. To return to the religious frame, God has given man the power to love and to choose whom or what to love. That choice will not always be in God's direction.
Let me turn to a different sense of Palmer's words. Our desires can never be solely for our own short-term self-gratification. If we remain oblivious to the reality of the other we diminish what we can learn or gain from her, him or it.
On Wednesday many of my students experienced something they may not have fully realized - that I am far more emotional than I am intellectual. I played some music for them. I began first by sounding my singing bowl - it sets a tone, a feeling of peacefulness if you will. I then shared a song by Mary Chapin Carpenter to which I cannot to this day listen without at a minimum tearing up:
It is because I am more emotional than I am intellectual that I blog. It is the reason that I am politically active. It is the reason I teach.
Put simply, I care, or at least, I try to.
And if I care, I must be "like God" and give freedom to those about whom I care, even as I strive for what i believe to be correct. I could be wrong.
This is another of those diaries which perhaps represents my struggle to make sense of things I encounter. I think I understand, but until I try to express it I am not sure what or how I understand.
And even after I finish writing? Perhaps in the reactions others offer to what I share my own understanding becomes more complete.
It is that hope for human connection that motivates me to try to express that for which I know my own understanding is incomplete, flawed, perhaps even badly off-target.
It is evening. Probably few will encounter these words. I can only hope that perhaps at least one person will derive something of value from encountering what I have posted, perhaps in Palmer's words more than my own.
And so? I don't know. I can only hope and trust.
And offer my regular wish.
Peace.