Response to Ignorance in Others

(Sorry if this belongs on the Jediism forum, but I don't have access to it yet - but I consider this a well-being topic)

So here's a bit of backstory first. I've only been around here for a couple of days, but I've been trying to live Jedi values ever since I read "The Jedi Path" about 6 months ago. Also I've been living Jedi-like values since I studied at a Buddhist temple about 7 years ago. I try to be temperate when faced with passion and emotion, and to feel compassion for everyone (even if they've wronged me) - and I've mostly succeeded.

I've been praised for my ability to maintain composure when under fire, BUT being temperate and reasonable in the face of raging emotion seems to induce further rage.

I'm having a hard time reconciling my desire to actively do right (usually this happens when I see/hear racism, sexism, homophobia, or other harmful social behaviour) with the Buddhist teaching of dispelling ignorance passively by being an example to others.

It seems to me that a Jedi should combat injustice (but not look for a fight), but when it's the same people around you who remain ignorant, you just seem like an unfeeling provocateur jerk for trying to offer alternatives to ignorance. In that case, should one remove oneself from around ignorant people, or continue to strive to shine a light into their minds?

Where should an aspiring Jedi draw the line when choosing their battles and dealing with conflict?

This is a really good question and something I kind of struggle with as well. I'm all for leading by example, but I won't just sit idly by when I see something I consider to be an injustice, as long as I feel I can deal with it appropriately.

Example: I've had some family members say some rather rude things about LGBT. I tend to just stare at them and say "that's not a nice thing to say", or some form of that, without escalating the situation into a conflict. I like to believe it's working, as sometimes when they say comments they then look at me and say "Stephanie is going to tell us that's not nice". It's like... yeah, I will! In my mind, it's hard to lead by example with that case because to me, letting comments like that slide mean I am essentially supporting them.

On the other hand, I don't think I'd ever join a rally or anything.

Sometimes people are angry and there is absolutely nothing you can say or do that will get them to calm down. Even if their anger literally serves no purpose and is worsening the situation. At some point in the past year I realized that being angry was just exhausting and doesn't solve anything. I also need to understand that other people may not realize that yet, and maybe they never will. I just do my best to remain calm (at least outwardly!) and take heart in the fact that while some people may not like it, I'd rather be relaxed and rational than just add more fuel to the fire.

I know that you feel you may just be provoking your friends, but in that case, I'd say pick your battles. I was working in a group project with a bunch of my guy friends last year, and when one of them kept talking over me I just looked at him and said "Yeah, I was talking, can I finish?". I think that bit of tough love was a wakeup call for him and the other guys to not only realize what they were doing was hurtful, but to be on the lookout for it later on.

Only if that is your calling. Not everyone will be called to resolve Social Justice issues. When they are not, they can simply be the example needed for others while tackling the task of whatever it is you're called to do (battle in the Middle East, food ministry at your local church, perform your task as a doctor or nurse, etc). Everyone has a different journey, it's not the place of the Jedi Community as a whole to champion a cause, but rather to inspire everyone in the Community to champion their own cause.

Standing up for your own convictions I reckon is important, but changing other peoples is a different kettle of fish IMO. The most broadly realistic thing might be to be on the lookout for inconsistencies within their own arguments and let the person realize the foundations of their position is at odds with itself. Because if they are actually 'ignorant' then their arguments are probably going to be full of holes which are held together with the proverbial duct tape.

The thinking being that if they can recognise their own failures in their own position then it could more easily allow them to rethink their position without feeling like their own positions was wrong. Basically spotting the weak links for them so they can look again and hopefully come out of that process with a more informed position.

People are often naturally over confident in their positions on many complex topics, and so my thinking is the easiest way to bring that down a few levels is for them to realize they are delivering it incorrectly. It might reduce their self confidence a bit, but then it allows them to redress their beliefs on their own terms. This could be very important because often people embrace beliefs, arguments and positions on things as parts of their own identity... such that 'this is what I stand for' becomes a defacto 'this is who I am' - and so its natural for people to defend their argument as if they are defending their lives sometimes. I think that is the avenue in which arguments get very emotive and venture into places like anger etc. Arguments just put people in corners, and turn into fights when crowds develop - which is the laziest, least capable, and most inefficient way to deal with things IMO.

So generally speaking if it can be avoided to confront their belief from the outside, it is usually easier to make them confront their own belief from the inside. It's not a 'victory' over them, but rather helping them move in a direction of accuracy. It also conveniently avoids yourself getting drawn into defending your position... which lets be honest, we all only know so much about how much we don't really know.

So if you feel drawn to a particular cause I'd consider looking at joining whatever is the most capable existing effort in tackling the root cause of the problem. Often these things already exist, like for financial fraud you could join the CRA (IRS, ATO) for crime you could join the Police, etc. While existing institutions are often seen as part of the problem, they are also usually the best way to solve the problem - using the same approach as above. Get inside, and help or join the effort to drive change. A lot of the other approaches tend to just be engines of publicity, which of their own value like perhaps to increase awareness, but often do not really manifest long term sustainable maintenance of ethical practice. So, if your drawn to a particular cause then you might get a lot of benefit by exploring how the problem exists systematically and what systematic measures are best positioned to realistically be able to address the problem and using your energy to drive progress. Confidence, commitment and motivation are great ingredients for leadership so if the will is there, look for a way, and if none exist perhaps build your own!!

While I often fail to be, I like to consider myself - and indeed enjoy being considered - something of a man of reason at times. To me, a commandment like "thou shalt restrain thine genuine feelings to a point where they stifleth thine impulses" has no worth whatsoever. What is my reason to abide by it? What is anyone's? And who is this commander that they get to impose it on anybody?
Now, I am by no means in favour of aggression for its own sake or indeed imbalanced, inappropriate - immoderate, if you will - responses, and I can and would name my reasons but none of them involve things like "Our lives are dominated by suffering and it is our holy duty to free ourselves from it and to help some do the same along the way" or anything along these lines. This, likewise is an empty postulation, asserted for no reason and I thus feel not only free but intellectually obligated to dismiss it pending a demonstration of its logical truthfulness or its predictive power.
Ironically, all of this boils down to the very same semi-stoic ideas that brought you to the struggle in the first place: The reason you are struggling with this is because you make yourself struggle. To recognize this is well within your capacity and thus is to change it, too. Some more opinionated folks than myself will carry on with declarative statement of what is the Jedi thing to do, but then that cannot really make you care to be one way or another, can it? And even if you did, who is to say that those advisors have any of it figured out or at any rate get to be arbiters of what does or does not make a Jedi? I say be you. Be genuine. Inconvenience caused to oneself or to others is a small price to pay for one's own integrity. How ever you decide, you will never please everyone, but in my experience it appears that people appreciate a trustworthy enemy more than they do an unreliable friend.

Social justice warriors breed conflict and reinforce their own as well as their opponents' beliefs by calling people ignorant and 'educating' them when they themselves often lack intellect of the non-pseudo variety.

Hey homo don't you know what you do is wrong? Will someone not think of the children?
Hey homophobe don't you know what you do is wrong? Will someone not think of the children?

Mindless sheeple, all obeying their respective doctrines, all thinking their flock has better wool than the other flocks. They're not even different breeds, they just much on different grass.



The maxims don't actually spell it out, but wu-wei.

I usually just point out to people that what they are saying might be considered unkind , but thats really all you can do , i can get agressive as well tho, its a thin line if you ask me , i rembember being at a party where someone got really disgusted because he saw a man kissing another man , he started whining ...my response : " Really ? i only see one little fagot here , and its You ! "

Later i realised , i cannot say what i think all the time and as Ren so clearly put it , who am i to tell people how to behave , am i not as bad as them then? I am a lot better now but still have an awfull lot to learn about not being so agressive to what i find to be injustice , but hey , we are all learning , and some people had a good laugh at that party , staring at me and giggling , just saying...i am a Jedi and i am maturing ( slowly ) But boy ow boy , i am old in age but still no one can take me to their mothers :laugh:

This is something I have been struggling with lately. I’m rather sure I’m not seeing the complete
picture but so far I chose the lines from the doctrine allowing me to act the way I believe to be
best (suited for me, at least).

The first I would cite is part of the creed: [ I shall never so much seek ] to be understood as to
understand. I’ve always found this to be helpful as it drives me to ask someone I disagree with for
their reasons. Most of the adversaries I talked to so far had one reason or another for their opinion – which
is not to say these reasons would be enough to justify their bias in my eyes but at least it allows me to
understand they are not just vile for the sake of being vile. Also in the line of the movie inception (I’m not
imagining myself to be a dreamwalker though ) I believe ideas people came up with themselves to be
the most permanent ones. So I’d ask in an attempt to show them other paths – but only after I feel I have
understood where they come from. Sometimes this breeds nothing new, sometimes people find other views.
At any rate I would not want to straight up tell people they’re wrong and what the right thing would be. I
don’t believe I personally have that insight.

Which brings me to the teachings. 17: Jedi understand their limitations. Thankfully I have yet to meet a
jedi thinking themselves to be without fault. Other people have faults to and as long as these don’t actively
harm others around them I rarely feel it is my place to correct them and even then it’s more of my calling to
stop the harmful action rather than influencing the offending individual.

This leads to the two strongest, least ambiguous parts of my thought process: The maxims, namely Intervention
and Morality. If I see two people arguing I won’t interfere, I won’t inject myself as long as it stays an argument
and does not turn into one side berating the other. Even then I’ll wait to see whether the berated can solve
this by themselves as I do not wish to take a victory from someone who might be in dire need of the experience.
Getting someone to back down from berating after winning the argument before can be a liberating experience
for the one who lost, causing them to not shy away from future arguments for they know now they can still walk
away in dignity. Taking this experience from them by prematurely intervening to protect them might be incredibly
harmful as they know might rely on someone else saving them the next time. Sure, all those outcomes are
theoretical but how am I to judge? I’ll make the best call I can and that will have to suffice.

Direct transition to the main point: Morality. “A Jedi knows how contradicting beliefs of what is right and wrong
can lead to devastating crimes and conflicts. A Jedi takes a step away from the subjectivity of opinion in favour
of the peace of objectivity. A Jedi does not force their values upon others.“
Is my opinion the right one? I’d like to think so. Does that justify for me to impose it on people of a differing
belief? No. I still need to act accordingly when intervention is necessary, and I may argue with them in order
to change their views but I cannot be crushing in my interaction.

In conclusion I live my life as decently as I can, hoping to inspire others in pass during my journey. I will interfere
only if I believe serious harm of either the physical or psychical nature to be imminent but not before.

I have to decide where to draw the line at the time. The line is not always the same as situations vary. Unfortunately learning where to draw the line comes from drawing it in the wrong spot once or twice.

Examples. It does me no good to tell the elderly receptionist I work with that she's being racist. She won't change and as long as she's not being racist in front of customers things'll be okay. I do let my foreign coworkers know when they've gotten sayings wrong or are accidentally saying things that are inappropriate. They will change their behavior.

I don't stand outside local bars in attempts to stop people from driving drunk but when my friends have had a few drinks I will test them before letting them drive home. (drunk driving may not be categorized as social injustice but it's something that I am passionate about fighting)

In the end it's about what will have impact and what will just be a hassle. Uselessly argue with people or correct people who honestly just don't know? Get in fights with drunk strangers or play keep away with your friends keys before they pass out on your couch? It is noble to fight the good fight but it is less noble to accomplish nothing in foolish endeavors.

having spent so much time explaining to so many people exactly why and how they are wrong, i can tell you from experience that they dont listen!

generally i would say that the answer really depends on the people and the setting

if your friends are a bunch of racist sexist homophobes, then maybe youre due for a social upgrade?

when it comes to "choice associations", meaning the people we have a choice about being associated with, always go with people you admire

as for family

ive learned to accept the fact that some of the people who i love are flawed in some way/s

ive spent years (well over a decade) trying to "shine a light into their minds" and it doesnt work, except to create hard feelings

i accept them as they are (or i reject them as they are)

everyone has the right to act and react authentically in any given situation, and if someone near to you says or does something that you think is ethically short sighted, its well within your "rights" to speak your mind

i only caution against making it any kind of commitment of yours to actually change their minds, because then the the relationship itself changes into a battle of views and that will kill the affection quickly, and it might be that when it really comes down to it, an affectionate relationship is more important than being "right"

there are movements and causes and venues and organizations all over who are working for in different areas of equality

if youre in usa some of these might interest you

https://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/resources/civil-rights-organizations

theres nothing at all preventing you from getting involved with whatever causes you think are important

but running around telling people why they are wrong is not a great strategy for experiencing happiness or for increasing happiness in others lives, in my experience

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EDIT

this professor has been super influential to me lately, and im watching one of his uploads (again) and he says: "...its much better to identify with your capacity to transform than it is to identify with who you are now... One of the things that characterizes ideologues for example, or people who are trapped in fixed belief systems, is that they worship who they are now.. and that would be all fine if everything was going 100 percent for them but that is seldom the case. So unless your life is perfect - and that seems highly improbable - maybe if you were someone else it would be better. And thats all youve got, in some sense, because changing the world in some way thats going to make you feel better about it, well you might be able to do that in some small way, but the probability that you could, or SHOULD try to do that on a large scale is pretty low."

if you just read these words in the context of this conversation we are having you might think he is saying we shouldnt participate in movements to improve the world

what he is saying is i think more mature than that, he is saying that we ourselves become dangerous when we latch on to ideas in an ideological way - when enforcing the ideas becomes more important than the people we interact with, we become tyrannical in our own fashion

so thats something to keep in mind

heres a link to that lecture if anyone is interested (he actually mentions crazy people who line up and wait for days to watch star wars lol)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGLsnu5RLe8