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Jim’s closet

Jim

Nets of Wonder
You make it sound as if you were once very prejudiced and yet you come across to me as one of the least prejudiced people on this forum.
In the Baha’i Faith there’s a lot of emphasis on the elimination of prejudices, especially race prejudices, and on continual conscious efforts to improve our own character and conduct. Early in my life I saw that people are mostly blind to their own prejudices, so I presumed that it was the same for me, that it might be impossible for me to ever see my own prejudices. The question for me then was how to eliminate my prejudices if I couldn’t see them. I also saw that part of what perpetuated the oppression of black people was unconscious attitudes and behavior in most white people, so I presumed that it was the same for me. More generally, I saw that a big part of every social problem is people thinking that they aren’t part of the problem. Whenever I catch myself thinking that, I put a stop to it right away. I just presume that whether I see them or not, I have some of the same unconscious attitudes and behaviors as other people who grew up in the same cultural environment, and which are causing the problems. I also presume that no matter how much I improve, there will always be room for more improvement. Another principle I follow is that whatever I do to try to help improve other people’s attitudes and behavior has to include trying to improve my own at the same time. Again, the question for me was, how can I change attitudes and behavior in myself that I can’t see?

Part of my answer to that was to practice fellowship across the widest divides.

Now I’m remembering two incidents that changed my life. One of them is a memory engraved on my mind of a black woman, a member of the Baha’i Faith, standing in a doorway at a Baha’i meeting, telling the rest of us that black people did not feel welcome in our community. I was dumbfounded. I didn’t see how I was treating black people any differently from the way I was treating anyone else. Then I realized, that was the whole problem! The people who didn’t feel welcome grew up in an environment where people have very different ways of showing friendly feelings and intentions than the ways that I learned growing up. Again, the question for me was, how can I change attitudes and behavior in myself that I can’t see? That question is amplified by the problem that it’s already hard enough for me to change attitudes and behavior in myself that I can see.

Part of my answer to all those questions has been to spend time with people across the widest divides that I can see between me and others, in their home environments, side by side with them, trying to see things their way, to see the good in what they’re doing, to learn from them, and to encourage and support them in their best interests.

When my wife and I and our two children were on a flight from Martinique to the US, returning to live there after 14 years in Martinique, out of nowhere our daughter said “We’re going to live in a black neighborhood.” After a few seconds pondering that, we all said “yes,” and that’s what we did, for eleven years. I had no idea at the beginning of what good that could possibly do, but my thought was “Somebody gotta do something about the problems besides talk about them.”

I learned a lot during those years about the dynamics of oppression.

I’ll respond in a separate post to your question about my relationships with other Baha’is.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Jim said:
Part of my answer to that was to practice fellowship across the widest divides.

Part of my answer also, which is to establish a dialogue with atheists and strong agnostics. This is the most difficult for most traditional Theists of Christianity and Islam, which consider atheism to be the anathema of everything sacred.
 
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Jim

Nets of Wonder
From my perspective our dialogue has been fruitful and positive ...
I haven’t had any problems with you, and I see the relationship between us as a friendly one. That is not to say that I approve of everything I see you doing. I might have more to say about your post later.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
From the tomb,
a seed opens;
a flower begins
its slow sunward journey.
That reminded me of some words from a song by Phil Lucas:

——

I wonder where my thoughts have gone,
Like withered, unborn blossoms blown
Across the seas of nothing gained,
From a seed to sow, and bloom again,
In the meadows of my mind,
Born another time.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
Is there any way to have a discussion that won’t be hijacked and derailed? I’ll try a PM group, and see what happens with that.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
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siti

Well-Known Member
@Audie @shunyadragon @siti

I was hoping that even the most inconsiderate people would refrain from hijacking and derailing an interview thread.
I am truly sorry that you interpret a couple of jocular lines between myself and @shunyadragon (that made a point that was, in any case, relevant to your OP and was, in any case, followed immediately by a question directly to you...this being an interview forum after all) as "hijacking" and "inconsiderate" @Jim. I was going to say a bit more here but this is not the place. I'll PM you.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
@Vinayaka I should have said that what shunyadragon said is close to what I think. From what I’ve read about Buddha, it looks to me like he shattered the mental idols that people were worshiping, and that’s part of what he intended to do.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
@Vinayaka I should have said that what shunyadragon said is close to what I think. From what I’ve read about Buddha, it looks to me like he shattered the mental idols that people were worshiping, and that’s part of what he intended to do.

My point with my comment was a result one of Katzpur's comments about asking adherents of the faith rather than asking non-adherents of said faith. Do you know what Buddhists think?

I agree that they most likely vary widely, and that Buddhism was, in a way, or partially a protest on Hinduism. But the very fact that most Buddhists and Hindus consider each other brothers in dharma indicates the relative mildness of such protests. It's a different perspective, but not one that would lead to much animosity.

But that's also a non-Buddhist view. So I'm doing the same thing.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
Is there any way to have a discussion that won’t be hijacked and derailed?
I think now that the answer is no, and that it’s expecting too much from moderators to call them in to stop it from happening. I don’t think they really can, even if they try, and I think they have better things to do with their time, including participating in discussions.

I’ve moved my closet to a PM group.
 
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paarsurrey

Veteran Member
Jim’s closet

Sorry Jim, one addressed me in the OP but I did not notice it earlier. How is one and what is one doing, these-days. Please

Regards
 

Cooky

Veteran Member
@sun rise @PopeADope @siti @paarsurrey @Vinayaka @Katzpur @LuisDantas @CG Didymus @Mark Dohle

I’m having one of my moments in these forums where I’m feeling lonely and wishing for I don’t know what, but it might be for people to talk to about whatever I want to talk about. I thought some of you might be available for that sometimes.

Before I came here I was reading and posting in an atheist forum. When I first went there, it was because I had a new idea about the meanings of “God” in Christian and Baha’i scriptures, and I thought an atheist forum might be a good place to get some useful criticism. I was right about that! I ended up with a new way of thinking about it that answered a question that had puzzled me for decades.

I came to these forums because I was curious to see what a friend of mine was doing here, and I wanted to explore some possibilities for the Internet that I’ve been dreaming of for years. I’m confident now that everything I’m dreaming of will happen. In fact I’ve already seen all of it happening on a small scale.

When I first started posting in Internet discussions almost 20 years ago, it was mostly to free myself from my own prejudices and delusions, by spending time with some of the people whose ideas and interests seemed most contrary to mine. First it was with gay activists and leaders of change ministries trying to have civil dialogues about their disagreements. Then it was gay Baha’is, then Baha’is and former Baha’is feuding about Baha’i administration, then atheists feuding about feminism and social justice, then some people feuding about the Trinity.

For a few years I kept trying to put myself in the line of fire of people’s prejudices, thinking that might help break them down, but I never saw that do anything but harm, so I gave it up. One thing that kept surprising me while I was doing that was the arrows coming from behind me, from the people I thought I was defending. One reason was because sometimes they turned against me when they saw that I wasn’t trying to be a political ally.

Another of my goals has been to learn to be a friend to some of the people I’ve seen being stigmatized and marginalized the most. I’ve had some ups and downs with that.

One recurring failure has been with Baha’is. I’ve never practiced the kind of behavior with them that I want to practice, as well as I have with others. I’m assuming that has something to do with being a member, myself.

I’ve been thinking about the next dividing line I want to try erasing between myself and others. It might be with people in anti-male and anti-white counterfeit feminism and social justice, if I can find a way to spend some time with them. I’ve already spent a lot of time with some of their worst adversaries, in the Slyme Pit.

Hey Jim, how are things going these days. Are you working on anything that has shown any kind of results you can identify?
 

MNoBody

Well-Known Member
That can be a very creative place. It's not automatic, of course, but there is a potential. There can be many states that show up as feeling lonely from missing interaction to existential loneliness. The urge to write has mostly left me, but five years ago I wrote the following when I was feeling an existential void and just being with the feeling and letting it resolve itself into a slow birth that once again has me engaged with life on a slightly different level:

A man sits
by a tomb,
head bowed,
lost in thought.

Tears
at a life ended.
No where to go,
nothing to do.

Former joy
is now ashes.
Former life
is now silent.

Surrendering,
he merges
with the cold, still earth.

Dawn's mist
invokes quiet and peace.
Existence is an eternity
of patient waiting.

Slowly felt:
dawn's earth warming light.

From the tomb,
a seed opens;
a flower begins
its slow sunward journey.
reading this brought this tune to mind
 
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