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A Good Question

Posted January 17th, 2012 by Stanley in Integral Ethics
In Reference to:
From Integral Talk to Integral Walk: Living an Ethical Life

"How should we treat one another?" (Integral Life Practice p. 267).

 

I confess that after getting this book when it was first published it took me a long time, over a year, to read the chapter on Integral Ethics. I freely admit that I continue to include traits and values of red and green. I want to do my own thing and I don't want people telling me what to do (at least not in my limited free time). And I also want to support KenWilber in his mission of making our world a better place by protecting the rights of all healthy developmental levels. Eventually I could no longer cling to my denial that something is seriously wrong here and I began to look for answers. The chapter above gave me a direction. I still can not understand my perception that there is a HUGE difference between what Ken is calling for and what I frequently see acted out here on a regular basis.

The purpose of this post is not to persuade people to believe and follow Ken Wilber's teachings on integral ethics. I would like for this to be an open forum so we can explain the answer to the above question from our own level of understanding. This would be a good opportunity for the people who believe that they have a special priviledge to invade the posts of other people with harm, abuse, stalking, and unwanted personal advice to come out into the light of day and explain themselves honestly and forthrightly.

In the past people have tried to use the excuse of blaming their victims. But this has been an ongoing pattern since before most of our recent victims have arived and which continues when these victims are driven off. Anyway I invite our members to share your perspective on;

"How should we treat one another right here and now?"

 

No cyber-stalking please.

 

 

 

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Stanley!

Posted January 18th, 2012 by Shikha Sabharwal

hello. :o) i think we could start by talking to each other, directly, i mean, not that no one talks or anything like that, well, i think that that part is good, that we can all talk to one another. i think we could also do with becoming clear about what we want and expect from others in interactions, and should simply walk away without a fight, when we feel someone crosses a line excessively, especially after talking to them. this can happen just in people's minds even. i haven't had that experience with anyone here, yet, but i think if i did, i would mostly walk away in my mind, and i know my general demeanor of interaction tends to become affected by things like that, but of course, i think we should still be respectful, and honest, which might seem like a tricky line, especially with people we're close to, or have known for a long time.

sometimes i think it's better to not make final decisions about whether or not to interact with people or specific people, but you're not asking that. i think we can mostly trust ourselves to engage in interactions appropriately as they come up, no?

sometimes i give unwanted suggestions, possibly a lot, i'm not sure. i can't imagine why anyone would be upset about them, though. well, i maybe could, but maybe not. i mean, i guess what i would like, and i can maybe just speak for myself, personally, is that if someone would rather i relate to them differently or if something i do bothers them, - i would ask that they address me directly, so i can respond, and have a conversation about changing, instead of there having to be any hurt feelings, or any misunderstanding. i think we are good at having conversations, in theory, but it does seem like not a whole lot of genuine conversation takes place here, but that wouldn't be hard to change, i think.

i think maybe we've been doing that other places, or maybe started to, which i think is probably helpful.

i think it's good to fall back on something like community, or to have community to fall back into, if necessary, since one form or another of community is kind of what connects all of us-...and to maybe keep in mind a kind of ideal person- like for example Ram or someone.

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a few answers

Posted January 18th, 2012 by Layman Pascal

How should we treat each other?

How would I like to be treated in this online community?

I think we should give each other the benefit of the doubt, knowing that we might not initially grasp the humor or insight being offered in a foreign style.

We should be very comfortable (as Shikha says) speaking to each other directly -- for both feeding upon the nuances of each other's wisdom-energy & enriching the dialogue environment by inquiring into each other's communication styles.

We should be willing to show up a lot in certain streams, not holding back, but also willing to constrain ourselves when it looks like "too much".  

We should not treat this space as a dumping ground for our cultural artifacts.  This means being ready to exchange with people rather than just leave a text describing our insights and then vanish.

We need to engage very directly about oddities in each other's messaging.  This sometimes means telling people they are going too far, being too imbalanced for this context.  Other times it means digging into a confused feeling -- mining it for gold that could enrich us all.

We need to be ready to change our minds about each other -- and to allow people who have upset us to explain themselves if they wish.

We need to be able to provide better feedback than just "was this useful or not?"  

We need to fill this space with praise, prayer and invocation of virtues... but never fear that critique, aggression, doubt, etc. are opposed to the higher vibrations.  

We need to accept all kinds of people but at the same make a little pressure for everyone to go beyond lurking and self-expression.  

We need to, I think, propose ideas and feelings and let others agree or disagree.  There is a magic in agreements which helps something interpersonal form in new ways.  Even declarations that seem too clumsy, too obvious, too forced... they may have a unique power to orient us in other domains.

We need begin with an embrace, with an effort to see "as" the other, to validate what other people are saying, even when it seems obviously out of bounds, and THEN we need to challenge each other to go a little deeper, go a little wider, go a little higher, be more of what we all came here to be.

We need, in summary, an environment of creative trust.  The trust part comes from being nice to each other AND stretching that niceness with friendly struggle, complexity, vigor, etc.  The creative part comes from making our best attempt to understand each other, to extend our self-understanding (rather than just share what we already understand), and to make real effort to integrate and profit from whatever turns us off -- but without losing the strength to denounce and refuse when civil order really is threatened.

 

 

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

 

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