Looking back at the old Patriotism and Extremism post cited in the piece below, I realize that it barely said something I thought I had more fully explored. Perhaps I did elsewhere, but it's worth doing again even if so.
The idea is certainly mentioned in that piece: "It is necessary, in other words, to learn to forgive your ancestors: to recognize their flaws, their failings, and even their crimes, but to love them anyway.... in the end, patriotism proves to be a kind of health. As with other loves that forgive, it sets you free: free to honor the past, and to work for better in the future."
It is not for no reason that the root of 'patriotism' is 'patria,' meaning 'fatherland' in the Latin. It could be 'motherland' just as easily; in some languages the concept is captured that way (e.g., 'Mother Russia'). There is a strong analogy between the family and the state, as well as a clear relationship between the family you happen to come from and the coming-to-be of the particular state you are likely to inhabit. A few true immigrants leave family and culture behind, but more bring it with them; and even the assimilated descendants of 19th-century Italians or Irishmen belong now to a country that has learned from their culture as they have learned from it, and which has integrated their norms and patterns into its own.
Thus the question of how you feel about your country is rather like the question the Freudians used to ask about how you feel about your mother. You may have some very good reasons for animosity towards your mother. All the same, the existence of such animosity reliably predicts the presence of larger and more dangerous mental health issues. If you hate or despise your mother or father, you hate something of the root of your own being. This is going to manifest itself in many terrible ways, things that will cause you immense suffering.
A negative answer to that question of how you feel about the ground of your being also points out the treatment. The treatment is forgiveness and gratitude. It is not the adoption of ignorance about what they did wrong, which you likely did not deserve and which may have been the source of legitimate pain. Rather, the treatment is to forgive them for it. One needs to forgive them for one's self, because it is only in forgiveness -- easiest in the context of the recognition of one's own flaws -- that one can at last be liberated of the weight of carrying the anger.
This enables one to reflect anew on the good things one has gotten, also often undeserved, even from bad parents or nations. This does not require you to maintain ties to them; you can cut an abusive parent out of your life, and we are free as citizens ultimately even to dissolve a nation if we decide that is the right way to proceed. Even in doing so, though, it is helpful to one's self to recognize the goods they bestowed upon you: existence, some degree of protection and nurturing even in the worst relationships, education (even when learning from their mistakes or abuses). One becomes free in forgiving the faults without forgetting them, while being grateful for the goods they gave you in spite of their faults.
It is my sense that countries that cannot forgive their national ancestors wither away, as individuals do who cannot forgive their parents. I begin to think the same is true for individuals who cannot forgive their national ancestors. Aristotle says that we are social animals, and that the polis in a sense completes the work that the family can only begin.
Sometimes it is right to begin anew, but even then forgiveness and gratitude are appropriate. The United States separated from the United Kingdom, but for generations it looked back with honor upon Shakespeare and Sir Thomas Malory, Sir Walter Scott and Magna Carta. That sense of having grown from a fertile and happy ground was ultimately itself fecund, even though we had chosen the path of political separatism and independence.
14 comments:
What do southerners have to say about those who still think of lincoln as a tyrant and sherman as a pyromaniac?
This isnt somebody s ancestors, these are modern americans.
When a tradition considers you too foreign, it becomes a lot easier to point out their flaws.
Forgiveness is the same mistake as judgment condemnation. It depends on who has the authority. There is no difference
I cannot write enough about this, due to phone key pad. I suggest people watch marianne s take on forgiveness in the course on miracles.
What do southerners have to say about those who still think of lincoln as a tyrant and sherman as a pyromaniac?
Lincoln was a magnanimous man, but he did many tyrannical things. It's the odd thing about virtue ethics; when the virtuous man does a thing, his virtue steers him through it. The rules are to restrain the vicious; it's important that the virtuous be able to set them aside at need. But knowing that making the rules too weak will enable the vicious, the virtuous often elect to obey them in order to strengthen the norms.
Sherman was a war criminal avant la lettre. I'm not sure what I think about the concept of war crimes; I've known a few war criminals, and they haven't been the worst of men. Sherman taught Sheridan and Custer, and what they did to the Native American Nations out West that gets called 'genocide' was just a gentler repetition of what they did in Georgia and down the Shenandoah Valley. Sherman wasn't an especially virtuous man, but he did have one strong virtue. That's a mystery for the Greeks, who never could quite explain how virtue wasn't a unity. It seemed like it ought to be -- it's always about doing the right thing, which entails both knowledge and capacity -- but somehow you'd get courageous men who could see the road to victory, but who lacked the other ones.
This distorted view of Sherman and Lincoln is exactly why the attack that is deemed a defense of Southern traditions rebounds back on the South in the form of destroyed Founding Father idols and attacks on Bedford of all people.
Or in other words, so long as the Southern tradition teaches the generations this rather misaligned view of the ancestors and founding fathers, their own founding fathers are gonna take the hit sooner or later and be treated with the same human "misperception".
In other words, misdirected hate and misunderstanding of people based on Hatfield vs McCoy "filters".
It was no surprise to me that Demoncrats began destroying idols of Lee and Bedford, even blaming Bedford for the KKK, which he would be the last one responsible for. The first one responsible are the Demoncrat land owners and aristos, along with Virginia's Congress KKKers.
This idea that attacking Lincoln and Sherman to defend something, is why the South itself is under attack. The attack has rebounded on the attackers. Defense is a form of attack, because it assumes that one needs to defend because one is vulnerable to attack. And if one is vulnerable to attack, then others are vulnerable and should be attacked first.
The reason why forgiveness doesn't work for humanity is because people selectively choose certain things to forgive. In other words, that's just a pre judgment and the mistake of unrighteous judgment of a judge (not of a poll).
This is a function of the System as the Divine Counsel created it as. The multiverse will rebound the attacks of a civilization or nation, back on itself, just as I or Trum rebounds attacks against us, back at the source 1000 times stronger, to the point where the source thinks that they are the victims or the ones on the defensive.
The Native Americans and Aztecs, had so many wars against each other that it polluted the very Earth on which they stood. To the point where it drew in the conquistadors to do to them what they were doing to each other. Unfortunately, all the enlightened individuals got caught up in the problem.
The entirety of what people now call US Civil War 2, is merely an outcome of the consequences of the last civil war, The Civil War 1. WW1 leads to WW2.
This is because for human survival and emotional instincts, the cycle of violence is what makes sense in victory. There is no "forgiveness" except perhaps as a religious or idealistic concept. But they cannot put it into application very well.
In days before I awakened, I might have argued the merits of Sherman or Lincoln. But that in itself would also be pointless. So long as the South holds the grievance of the past to itself, it will continue to be under the power of the Demoncrats or of the tyranny they wished to fight. The land is poisoned and sooner or later, the Earth or the angels, will vomit out the civilization that is poisoning the land. Even if that means using some other conquering faction to destroy the idols of the South's war heroes, as the South defends itself by destroying the North's war heroes.
If you hate or despise your mother or father, you hate something of the root of your own being. This is going to manifest itself in many terrible ways, things that will cause you immense suffering.
A negative answer to that question of how you feel about the ground of your being also points out the treatment. The treatment is forgiveness and gratitude. It is not the adoption of ignorance about what they did wrong, which you likely did not deserve and which may have been the source of legitimate pain. Rather, the treatment is to forgive them for it. One needs to forgive them for one's self, because it is only in forgiveness -- easiest in the context of the recognition of one's own flaws -- that one can at last be liberated of the weight of carrying the anger.
It does manifest itself in ways.
The human nature and condition prevents people from forgiving each other because it prevents them from forgiving themselves. It tells them that in order to survive, they have to keep the tribe pure or defend the tribe from foreign enemies and attackers (like me when I point out truths).
This is a mortal view point and not an immortal view point.
The South's suffering, in geographical terms alone, is not yet over. The akashic records still retain the problem of CW1.
As for the birth rate, I made special note of that whenever Americans made fun of the Japanese birth rates. I said it was a first world problem, not a Japanese problem.
In other words, AMericans making fun of the Japanese for a problem America is ignorant about, will rebound back on America sooner rather than later.
Which is already happening if articles like that one you linked is any judge.
The Creative energy of the Divine creates human vessels for a purpose. When the entire edifice is toxic and poisoned, a Reset starts looking better and better from a Divine pov.
This is a mortal view point and not an immortal view point...
The South's suffering, in geographical terms alone, is not yet over. The akashic records still retain the problem of CW1.
Well, I'm not immortal, am I? I only instantiate one of the gods, when it pleases him. But you better get out of the way when it does. (Do you know which one?)
You should give clearer advice, if you're able. I think I don't really care about any of this anymore; I think I'm just trying to describe the truth, as far as I can. I might be wrong, but I'm no longer devoted to my expressed opinion being right. I can accept being wrong, as long as I know what is right.
Forgiivng one's ancestors seems related to CS Lewis's essay on "The Dangers of National Repentance." https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/14323.html
Lewis is warning -- with justice -- about the dangers of being called to repent for 'national sins.' We are called to repent all the time. What bothers me is that, however fantastic the repentance and assumption of penance, there is no possibility of forgiveness.
Ultimately the penitent who cannot be forgiven is trapped in the sin, whatever it was; they're like Robert De Niro's character in The Mission, if it were impossible for him to ever be loosed from his burden.
The point of penance is not punishment, but liberation. If you cannot forgive or be forgiven, you can never be free.
Grim, i have cultivated an identity and self that provokes people into finding out ways that i am wrong. That is similar to brother socrates and brother yeshuas methodology.
When i talk to people and describe them as mortal and human, not a single one here or elsewhere have rejected that label. They may assume to put words in my mouth by changing the subject of my sentences from you to 'me' but thats it.
The idea that you are a body, that your existence on earth is a human life, is what you agreed to but it is a deception or illusion like a vr simulation.
Nobody dares to even think i am wrong in attaching that label, yet they respond to the perceived attack by claiming i am an alien. Even tho i never claimed that title. This little experiment has been interesting. People will think i am wrong on all manner of things, but not that they are human or mortal. Even those who dont write anything, i can still perceive your inner discord so long as you direct attack thoughts toward moi.
I wish people would at least question their traditional assumptions. If not now, then after their body dies, they will be in more pain as they try to remember while resistance is futile.
The idea that i am wrong or you are right is also inverted. You are not wrong and i am not right, because there is no right or wrong, there is only the system the elohim created for us.
The only advice i wish to offer is as bro. Socrates said. Question authority and the wise to see if they are wise and right. Even if that authority has been unquestioned in this land for hundreds of years.
I also regularly tell the entity naming itself yeshua the christ, that he needs to be clear and not vague. The answer i get is,"look at the reactions to your internet comments if you think it so easy". Ok. I get it. Higher dimensional unzipping has problems in a lower dimension or unpacking via unfolding.
You channel two gods. One is more methodical and christ like, the other one is closer to mara. I call the former your higher self, and the latter your human traditions and emotional insecurities.
The liberation of humanity grows nearer. The fleet of the angelic high command already have agents and c4 contacts on earth. C4 comms, computers, command, control. Aka holy spirit, akashic record, soul group, spirit.
There will come a time when americas toxic history will be purged. Forgiveness or repentance will not come from humans.
I was actually trying to write Mars but it somehow came out as Mara. In order t ocheck if this was Divine Guidance, I looked up the etymology.
The word "Māra" comes from the Sanskrit form of the verbal root mṛ. It takes a present indicative form mṛyate and a causative form mārayati (with strengthening of the root vowel from ṛ to ār). Māra is a verbal noun from the causative root and means 'causing death' or 'killing'.[4] It is related to other words for death from the same root, such as: maraṇa and mṛtyu. The latter is a name for death personified and is sometimes identified with Yama. The root mṛ is related to the Indo-European verbal root *mer meaning "die, disappear" in the context of "death, murder or destruction". It is "very wide-spread" in Indo-European languages suggesting it to be of great antiquity, according to Mallory and Adams.[5]
That would be a sufficiently appropriate god of Southerners, given the history and culture. As Armstrong said, one of truth's protective layers.
I was wondering if you were aiming at the orthodox Buddhist position that we're all of us divided between Buddha-like striving and Mara-like temptations of the flesh.
Post a Comment