The missing Lightsaber

Kaccani wrote:
If I kindly may request one thing for your answers: Please don't refer me to "resolve that problem internally". Or "change your view".

At no point did I make such a suggestion. I merely contributed my view of the matter. I don't even consider the issue a 'problem' (and certainly not your personal problem that needs to be resolved) per se - it's more of a philosophical question to me that can be discussed. Answers can be accepted, discarded, deconstructed - up to each of us.

And to get back on topic: indeed, you can not 'not act'. As we're all players within the system, we always play. Refusal to play is also playing. In an interdependent, self-regulating system, you can't take yourself out of the equation. You brought Rosenberg's 'nonviolent communication' into the discussion. It's an interesting theory for sure, but Rosenberg's idealism (his basic premise being that all humans are intrinsically compassionate and only use aggressive behavior if other, more benevolent means of communications are either unavailable or have failed) is a weak point in his assumptions. I personally believe that compassionate behavior needs to be developed and is not intrinsic, at least not on all levels. If the latter were the case, there would have never been a need for organized religion and restrictive government systems, as compassion would be the rule and not the exception.

As de Botton mentions, religion was created to ensure the survival and sustainability of societies in a perilous surrounding, with the individual members lacking the compassion necessary to survive without strict rules. While there's certainly intrinsic compassion on a small-scale, directly social level, I believe it's almost entirely absent with growing distance. Which is an absurdity if we accept the idea of general interconnectedness that many religions see. If you hurt your neighbor, you hurt yourself. If you don't keep that guy from throwing himself off the bridge, even though helping puts you in harm's way (to bring Campbell into the game), you wouldn't be able to live with yourself. Yet, on an everyday level, these thoughts seem to be absent. We live in a 'dog eat dog' society and always have.

Which brings us back to the initial question - how do we go about it?

My personal creed is to pour all of my heart into changing those things that I have a direct level of influence on. And I try my best to accept the rest. This has been my recipe for keeping my sanity. The perception of what needs to be changed and what can be accepted without internal harm is a fluid one - the older I get, the less I feel I need to change things. But then I live in relative freedom - other people might not be so fortunate. As a teacher I often get the chance to witness and practice the workings of the social groups within the system that I call 'the Force', and it has become my personal view that non-action causes less problems than action in many cases. The outcome is often the same, but with fewer side-effects.