Are You Part of the Solution or Part of the Problem?

Yes, and this goes for anyone who is entrenched in their thinking, be it religionists, anti-feminists, Conservatives, anarchists, etc. If I have a discussion with someone and come to realize they are resolute in their beliefs, I stop. The 'why' of it is irrelevant at that point. It is not my mission in life to change anyone's thinking, especially when I think we're poles apart and likely to stay that way.

That's a great story Ceili, it points to something I've noticed in my life.
It is not words or knowledge, but experience which produces real change in a human being.

When we look around, the knowledge of this is not at all uncommon, many are the works which portray this knowledge. Off the top of my head, one recent work presenting this view is the movie Blood Diamond.

We often lose ourselves in the big picture, ranting about the failings we see around us.
All that is required, to be part of the solution, is to pay attention in our own daily lives, to be a force for the good in our own small way. The real solutions in life are the small ones, the simple acts of paying it forward.

Snood points out the failings of others to pay it forward, such as the incidents at Penn State.
Ok, some people don't get it, does that mean I should try to fix them?
I think not, most likely nothing I could do would have much effect on them.
I can, however, change myself and hope that through my own small influence it will affect those around me in a positive way.

Wayne:



Whew. Where to go with that.... Okay, first of all, using the phrase "failing to pay it forward" in relation to the moral cowardice displayed by the individuals and institution that allowed the rape of boys that occured at Penn State over a decade is just wrong. Paying it forward has to do with building good karma by advancing good deeds. Paying it forward has nothing to do with what those people failed to do at Penn State.

And I don't know what you mean by "should I try to fix them?", either. If you're asking what I think someone should do about the Penn State situation, I think someone should have run, not walked to the legal authorities and gotten handcuffs on that pervert and maybe those complicit with him.

You say I'm only pointing out the "failings of others". I don't exclude myself when I say that bad things happen because good people let them happen. I was talking about everyone - not everyone else.

I really think you're missing my point. Would it have helped you if I'd titled the thread "Are WE part of the Problem or part of the solution"? If so, feel free to make the mental substitution and re-read.

I think it's pretty hard to answer the question from the perspective "we".
As far as I can tell, most members of the collective "we" tend to do the right thing when presented with a difficult situation. We hear a lot about those who fail to do, yet we seldom hear of it when the right choice is made, it's simply not news when things go as they should.

I'm not inclined to agree with your definition of paying it forward, I think it means doing the right thing, in spite of circumstance, without reward, especially when it involves sacrifice.

I didn't mean to imply you were only pointing out other's failings, I understood your intent.
People failed to do the right thing at Penn State, for whatever reasons.
I think that really says little about the collective we, for all the rules and ethics in the world, it remains a personal choice when one fails to do the right thing.

This leads to what is known as the fallacy of the enumeration of favorable circumstances. If you want to believe that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, it's easy enough to find news items which confirm that point of view. You will, hoever, find precious few which contradict it. Not because they're not there, they're just not news. That's a confirmation bias for the Chicken Littles of the world.

Does anybody know, really, why the Nazis did what they did?

No, and that's why sometimes I think there are some things I can accept to be defined as simply evil or simply insane or simply wrong, and not worry too much about why.

pay it forward :
This is a reference to the title phrase of the book by Catherine Ryan Hyde.
In the book the phrase is used as the opposite of payback: when someone does a good dead for you, instead of paying them back, pay it forward by doing a good deed for someone else.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pay%20it%20forward

There is a time and a place for both. When dealing with someone who thinks they can justify a ban on interracial marriage, I would agree that, no you are just plain wrong, may be an appropriate answer. If we are trying to understand their motivation so that we can take action to eliminate it, then maybe 'why' may be an appropriate question.

It's despicable that this action in Mississippi got as far as it did.

I tend to agree in terms of the evil, insane or wrong people.

They've committed their misdeeds and our judgment of them,as respects those actions, need not, in most cases, be influenced by the "why?"

Of course the "why" matters when someone kills another person to the extent that it might be self-defense, but the "why" doesn't matter when judging a bigot who believes interracial marriage should be illegal. I can't imagine even a single, legitimate mitigating factor.

However, I do think it makese sense to determine the reasons why people commit misdeeds. Not to rationalize the acts of individual miscreants, but to identify causitive factors that might be subject to modification or elimination so as to prevent future misdeeds.

I find people's reasons for their misdeeds to be interesting and often fascinating, but I'm not interested in understanding them in terms of forming my judgment about them.

I'm pretty sure that if we found out all of the facts of "Coach" Sandusky's sorry life we would discover that he had been molested as a child or suffered some other traumatic childhood event. If such were the case it would be tragic, but, I would argue, immaterial in terms of society's judgment of him as respects his misdeeds.

Not every child that has been molested goes on to molest children when they reach adulthood. Not every child who is beaten as a child goes on to be a thug or murderer in adulthood. If they did, what would we do with such information anyway? Lock up the victim when he or she reaches adulthood so as to break the cycle?

Each and everyone of us is responsible for his or her actions, and for being part of a solution or a problem. I would add however that it is unlikely that we are all going to agree on what constitutes a "problem" and what constitutes "the solution."

Political scapegoating to point at a "common enemy," and rise to power? I think it IS important to try to figure out why, so you have a chance to make the world a better place - if not for your generation - for the next one...

I wince most of the time when I re-read my posts. That "knowledge is power" post seemed condescending. I didn't feel that way when I wrote it.

I taught an Islam section recently, and my kids did horribly. They constantly equated Muslims with terrorists, made ethnic slurs, and challenged me when I made positive comments about . I'm calling around to see if I can invite leaders from several different faiths, including Islam, to a Q&A/social at the school. I am frankly worried about some of the things my students may say - but I feel like it's irresponsible of me to ignore their biases.

I guess this is what I'm thinking about when I answer on this thread. We don't have to argue or yell at people when they have antiquated or mean views - but we don't have to be quiet, either. I think being quiet makes us part of the problem.

Questioning someone - to make them articulate their reasoning - is, many times, the most powerful weapon against ignorant or hateful views.