The extraordinary occurrences in an ordinary life.
13th
JUN
Tolerance
Posted by snow under Blog
This arose in a discussion with a friend recently.
If we see wrong in this world, should we actively seek to fix it? I suppose all of us would say yes for this question and each of us would envision a different scenario, say an old lady being mugged, or a corrupt tax official punished. But where do we draw the line? How about a person eating him/herself to death off of junk food, or a country imposing a stringent dress code on their population? When should we stick out a hand to help and when should we respect the fact that we don’t know enough about the situation to act meaningfully?
My friend, a revolutionary, was . . . displeased with my passive attitude and on several matters disagreed with my lack of action. In my eyes, we should not act to change the life of another unless it’s directly causing immediate harm to another person – eg. violence or swindling. All other matters we should empower the individual with the proper ideas and tools to help him/herself. Why? Because each of us experiences a different reality, created by our different circumstances and experiences. Our views make perfect sense in each of these unique realities. To criticize another’s behavior while not experiencing another’s reality is not only pointless, but also destructive. More helpful is to listen, to empathize, to immerse oneself into another’s reality, but subjectively and free of the emotions that another is experiencing. The way to interject is not by forcefully altering the landscape of another’s reality, but by offering glimpses of one’s own reality to another and providing a path out of their current plight. Give him/her an idea that can allow him/her to escape their present situation. I feel this not only applies on a personal level, but scales to a communal, national and global level. To fire down criticism from out rocking chairs as the mass media society would have us do and to act brutishly on these often misguided perspectives is arrogant, offensive and often causes more harm.
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June 13, 2009 -
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I agree with your take on when to take action and when to not take action. It’s true that we all experience a different reality, and forcefully changing situations in one person’s reality to fit our perspective of what we think needs to be fixed can actually be harmful, though sometimes it may be helpful but too risky to tell.
One — “a revolutionary”? [I do not think it means what you think it means.]
Two — while I’m generally of the persuasion that personal realities are subjective, I’d be careful to discount Kantian moral universalism so easily when dealing with populations on such a large scale. If one agrees to the existence of universal imperatives such as the right to life, then one must categorically also accept the possibility of higher-level, post-Modern analogues, e.g. the UN’s current push to make internet access a human right. Applying the “glimpse-offering” approach here will, of course, swiftly and unfortunately result in a Catch-22. Solve this first; then we can start talking.