Genuine question: do you believe laziness exists?
“We Americans stubbornly resist the possibility that what we do is profoundly shaped by policies, norms, systems, and other structural realities. We prefer to believe that people who commit crimes are morally deficient, that the have-nots in our midst are lazy (or at least insufficiently resourceful), that overweight people simply lack the willpower to stop eating, and so on. If only those folks would just exercise a little personal responsibility, a bit more self-control!”
— Alfie Kahn
I think it's presumptuous to say that all violence is the result of a person's neurology, and not someone being in a desperate position because a number of their human needs not being met. Do you ever get angry or regret things?
When you talk about 'cognitive reforming abilities’, to me it sounds as if you are saying that human beings are like machines to be tweaked, which is rather indicative of technocratic solutionism. Do you think you are connected to a compassionate, nonjudgmental view of humanity or life itself?
In my experience, a lot of other men I’ve had around me tend to shy away from sharing what is going on inside of them, not sharing and describing what they feel in their body and how this relates to their unmet needs.
"The reality is that men are hurting and that the whole culture responds to them by saying, 'Please do not tell us what you feel.' ... If we cannot heal what we cannot feel, by supporting patriarchal culture that socializes men to deny feelings, we doom them to live in states of emotional numbness. We construct a culture where male pain can have no voice, where male hurt cannot be named or healed."
— bell hooks
When I first read this, it resonated with me a lot. Does it resonate with you?
I think American society has evolved into a culture that glorifies violence, turns young girls into sex objects, sends young men to their deaths to ‘defend America’, and indoctrinates it's citizens with bizarre nationalistic views and a sense superiority that to me is completely removed from a compassionate view of life.
I recently learned that that there is not just one type of abuse, ‘disempowering abuse’ - which is shaming, and making someone consider themselves ‘less than’ others, but two types. The second type of abuse, which I think American culture suffers from, is what Pia Mellody calls: ‘false empowerment’. It leads to codependent individuals, on both sides. Here is a description by psychologist Terrence Real, from his book ‘How Can I Get Through to You’:
“What Pia has called “disempowering abuse” is the one we can all readily identify. It is made up of transactions that shame a child, hurt him, physically or psychologically, make him feel unwanted, helpless, unworthy. What Pia has called “false empowerment,” by contrast, is comprised of transactions that pump up a child’s grandiosity, or at the least, that do not actively hold it in check. Pia’s genius was in understanding that falsely empowering a child is also a form of abuse.”
I think this artistic video, by Lubomir Arsov, sums up the Global North’s collective unconscious: https://vimeo.com/242569435
I think we need to move away from punitive justice as practiced in America today, and move to restorative justice. Re-humanizing and de-labeling people.
After doing deep soul searching, at this point I just can’t say that if I were in someone else’s shoes - that I would do ‘better’ than them. Listening to people’s stories and exploring their motivations with them has led me to some beautiful experiences and connections, including a more compassionate connection and relationship with myself.
To be honest, at the same time as I am getting very stirred up inside from the viewpoint you shared, I somehow don’t think the world could be any better than it is today. Tracing our collective behavior to the roots, I think a lot comes from our money system. Bernard Lietaer helped me see that money is a human invention.
Charles Eisenstein on Sacred Economics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEZkQv25uEs