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mayamaiaOne of today's discussion topics was the path thought takes when trying to help others. As written by someone whose name escapes me, people tend to go through steps -
Horror: "My God, I didn't realize it was so bad."
Determination: "Let's fix it."
Despair: "We can't fix it. Let's forget it."
Solidarity: "They" becomes "we", "those people" becomes "our people".
- and people in affluent countries often get stuck on #3.
But the thing that interests me, and continues to interest me, is how this can work on any level. Take a marriage that's on the rocks, for instance. At some point, one may realize things are in trouble. In many people, this leads to a frenzied determination to fix things, sometimes even if the realization comes to an outsider, like a friend or one of the kids. But when it doesn't seem to work, the temptation comes in to quit and ignore the situation. If one gets past the despair stage, one tends to find oneself more invested in the issue than one was originally.
The teacher asked us what resources we have to deal with despair in our ordinary lives. People listed friends and family, drugs and psychologists. Curiously, these fit fairly well with the perspectives we've been studying - friends and family being the religious side, drugs a bit like the absurd (Camus), and psychology like enlightenment rationality.
So - I kept thinking about how pissed I get when one of my friends says something to Jeff about how similar we are or how we know one another. The annoyance takes the words in my mind "You don't even know him, you just know what I think of him. Your statements are as likely to be false as true." ...but that doesn't warrant my getting ticked. It sounds, in some terms, as if I'm in a continuing state of despair. On the other hand, if I look at the way they're set out above, I'm not adding "Let's forget it" to my "We can't fix it." So what is it that I'm thinking?
The closest thing I have is something like what Camus said of the Myth of Sisyphus. I don't have any faith to hang on to in the situation, no reason to hold on to it - just enough defiance to keep going, day after day. I can't say I've given up on it, and I can't say I have hope of success but I can say I'm still going and will keep going and the simple fact of failure is never going to stop me.
Camus said Sisyphus must be happy. Am I happy?
Well I'm not sad. But I don't think I can claim to be in solidarity with anything in these circumstances. Just - that I'm refusing to not be. Camus is right, it's not the same thing. But it's what I've got.
Horror: "My God, I didn't realize it was so bad."
Determination: "Let's fix it."
Despair: "We can't fix it. Let's forget it."
Solidarity: "They" becomes "we", "those people" becomes "our people".
- and people in affluent countries often get stuck on #3.
But the thing that interests me, and continues to interest me, is how this can work on any level. Take a marriage that's on the rocks, for instance. At some point, one may realize things are in trouble. In many people, this leads to a frenzied determination to fix things, sometimes even if the realization comes to an outsider, like a friend or one of the kids. But when it doesn't seem to work, the temptation comes in to quit and ignore the situation. If one gets past the despair stage, one tends to find oneself more invested in the issue than one was originally.
The teacher asked us what resources we have to deal with despair in our ordinary lives. People listed friends and family, drugs and psychologists. Curiously, these fit fairly well with the perspectives we've been studying - friends and family being the religious side, drugs a bit like the absurd (Camus), and psychology like enlightenment rationality.
So - I kept thinking about how pissed I get when one of my friends says something to Jeff about how similar we are or how we know one another. The annoyance takes the words in my mind "You don't even know him, you just know what I think of him. Your statements are as likely to be false as true." ...but that doesn't warrant my getting ticked. It sounds, in some terms, as if I'm in a continuing state of despair. On the other hand, if I look at the way they're set out above, I'm not adding "Let's forget it" to my "We can't fix it." So what is it that I'm thinking?
The closest thing I have is something like what Camus said of the Myth of Sisyphus. I don't have any faith to hang on to in the situation, no reason to hold on to it - just enough defiance to keep going, day after day. I can't say I've given up on it, and I can't say I have hope of success but I can say I'm still going and will keep going and the simple fact of failure is never going to stop me.
Camus said Sisyphus must be happy. Am I happy?
Well I'm not sad. But I don't think I can claim to be in solidarity with anything in these circumstances. Just - that I'm refusing to not be. Camus is right, it's not the same thing. But it's what I've got.
