Needleman is a religious scholar who tackles a major dilemma facing twenty-first century people: we know what is good and yet fail to do it. Now more than ever before, we have access to the ethical, moral, and religious resources of all the wisdom traditions to guide us in our choices.
Needleman is a philosopher who knows that the contents of our minds — our ideas about history, language, the body, war and peace, time and space all have an impact on our will to do well. Yet something else is preventing us from moving forward with love and kindness and that is the overwhelming evil in the world brought about by the human propensity for power, greed, selfishness, depravity, and other dark impulses.
Needleman warns us, however, that "Conscious suffering must not be confused with what we ordinarily speak of as 'guilt.' What we are speaking about here is a full experience of seeing, a full confrontation with our being; a vibrant acceptance of our incapacity to do what is good without masking the truth with self-pity or futile vows--an acceptance of the fact that our actions and all our manifestations are a result of our level of being. This act of seeing is the movement that brings the two worlds toward each other--the inner world and the outer world, the world of inner aspiration toward love and justice, and the world of outer action and behavior.
The above is quite a mouthful! Yet I felt that this is one of our greatest faults. Why fault you say? When being raised by our parent(s) we learn how to “do the right” thing, yet there are so many variations on this. If a parent is prejudiced, then we grow up being prejudiced. Needleman tries to give us an explanation as to why we “violate our most cherished values and beliefs.” I agree that we need to listen more, be silent and listen, and yes we do have the freedom to love and act honestly and fairly towards other human beings.

Happiness Hypothesis

At the beginning the author was talking about riding a horse. The story reminded me of the first time I went horseback riding, and how during similar situations I was freaking out, but the horse could have cared less and knew the path by heart. Anyways on to the rest of the reading, I like the idea of metaphors being used and being created to in my mind dumb down old philosophies. I grew up playing sports. The sports world is full of metaphors. But its not just sports, everything has metaphors and I think its really good to have them. Having metaphors in an area one is comfortable in make them easier to understand.
Now about the incest on page 21. I found that really weird and disturbing. I don't care what the reasoning is or circumstance I feel siblings should not have sex, let alone the though of having that kind of a relationship with each other. While I do think that, I also agree with what the author says that I have a hard time explaining why. I think its not as much a moral issue as the way we are brought up. If you were raised to feel one way then you would most likely stay that way. Either way I find it disturbing to think of a sibling that way.

The Happiness Hypothesis

The reading of The Happiness Hypothesis was rather interesting. The most interesting part that I came across was when the author was talking about love making. The quote on page 21 of the reading is a question that is brought up quite a lot in ethical thinking. "Do you think it is acceptable for two consenting adults, who happen to be siblings, to make love?" Most people would say that, no, it is not acceptable. There are cases of genetic defects in children born from siblings who engaged in love making, and it is also socially unacceptable. No person likes to think of two siblings engaging in sexual intercourse. It is a social taboo to even think of it. When most people think of siblings who engage in sexual intercourse, it even tends to make them feel uncomfortable and awkward when it comes to the subject itself. In the reading, the author pointed out that there would be no offspring from the one-time occurance of love making because they used two forms of birth control. Was that still just as wrong as if they had gone into the experience expecting to create offspring? According to those asked, it was just as wrong. Even though they were unable to explain exactly why, it was just wrong. In most cultures, engaging in any type of sexual act with a sibling is considered to be socially wrong. It makes sense to most people that it is unacceptable and should not be participated in due to the social unacceptability of it. Personally, I think that it is not something that should come up regularly, but it is highly possible that sexual experiences between siblings does occur. It is normal to think that children brought up outside of the social taboo of certain cultures may attempt making love with each other even if they are siblings, but as adults, it might be a more rare occurence.

In ending, it is not neccessarily the worst thing that could happen for two consenting adults, who happen to be siblings, to make love with each other. As long as they were not planning on producing offspring and it was a one time occurance, it should not bring up too many problems. If it strengthened their relationship as siblings, that is actually a good thing. Sometimes it takes a strange and socially awkward occurance for siblings to become closer. Personally, I am inclined to shy away from the thought of siblings engaging in love making, but that is how I was brough up in society and raised from a child, so that is what is normal for me.

Is Evil an unessesary stain on history?

"On the way to good and evil" was a bit over my head, but a few things did stand out to me. The author states that "The stain of human evil covers the earth and seeps into all man's achievements in art, science, and in the institutions of society." This seems to be completely true! I do a lot of theater and I do not know of any play that does not have any evil in it. For example, the play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare has evil in it, the animosity between the two houses is the main evil that we are aware of in the story. There is also killing of people's friends and death of beloved characters, these also represent evil. This story would not be as compelling if there were no forces of evil in the story. Would anyone watch a play about two people who fall in love, have no relationship issues, their families get along, they get married and everyone from both weddings attend the wedding in a joyous celebration? Maybe, but it would not be as famous as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Socrates told us that "We may understand intellectually what is good, while yet desiring and choosing to do something entirely different-and vica versa." This is pretty much the main issue that many of us deal with every minute of everyday. We know we should be doing homework, but instead we watch that one episode of Lost that we have been meaning to watch off of our Tevo. We are happier watching Lost, but we know we should be doing that blog for our Ethics class! We all desire things that we shouldn't have and most times (hopefully) we don't give into these desires. I am allergic to wheat, but I desire bread, yet I do not eat the bread, but I still desire it. Why does my mind work against itself by desiring things that I shouldn't want or have?

Love Ethic seems too hard!

Life would be better with more love, of course it would. When we go through our daily lives doing everything with a love ethic, ultimately everyone's lives who we come into contact with will be better. The auther suggests that "Awakening to love can happen only as we let go of our obsession with power and domination." I try to live like this already, but I still find power and domination to be somewhat necessary. In my world power and domination take the form of competitiveness. As a stage performer I go to a lot of auditions, and often have to perform a dance combination within a group of people. When doing the dance I have to work to be better than the people around me and to stand out or else I will not get the part. I can work with the people I am auditioning with to make them look good as well, but ultimately I want to "dominate" the auditioniers mind as the best for the role.

Instead of considering using a love ethic as a big 180 degree change in our lives, I believe it should instead be seen as a filter that we do everything through. In all of our daily activities we can look though this "love filter" and re-think our actions by adding in some love. Ultimately if everyone one day actually would live their lives with the love ethic that the author discusses, then we would all be happier and in a much better world. I am just skeptical of doing it completely myself for fear of getting hurt emotionally. I feel that if I live with a love ethic around a bunch of people concentrated on power and domination, that I will appear weaker. The author emphasizes that "'There is no fear in love.' But we do fear and fear keeps us from trusting in love." I believe that this is part of my issue, I'm too afraid to live completely with a love ethic.

I find that I am most able to apply the love ethic to my relationship with my boyfriend. I don't fear getting hurt and I know that if I embrace the love ethic when it comes to him, only good can come out of it. "Embracing a love ethic means that we utilize all the dimensions of love-'care, commitment, trust, responsibility, respect, and knowledge'-in our everyday lives." I always try to keep these things in my mind when I am around my boyfriend and especially when we fight. If there isn't love in what I say to my boyfriend or what I do for him, then I know we may not be ultimately happy.

I think the love ethic is a great idea and I want so badly to live in a world where evryone embraces it.

Prompt for March 1st

( Two of you beat me and started posting--great, thanks! So, read below this prompt also)

Read the chapter, "The Divided Self" (Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis). Read the chapter, " Values: Living by A Love Ethic” " (hooks, All About Love) and/or the selection from Needleman's Why Can't We Be Good. These readings are not long or difficult, so I hope you read all three.

Haidt writes about the dualities present in our humanness that influence our thinking, our actions, and our capacity for moral being. He also really deconstructs the mind/body split that traditional philosophers have usually reinforced--Needleman also speaks to this, the power of embodiment . Haidt also writes about the role of the emotions in our rational thinking and hooks plays this out a lot more in her chapter in her thoughts about love as a source for community building and openness to the reality of others. You can use these connections between the readings and unpack them further and/or see what other connections you make. Extra credit for working with all three readings!

screaming obscenities & herds of white bears

What I loved in the reading about the divided self was when the author brought up mental intrusions. My best friend and I have discussed at length how we sometimes feel this urge to do something completely inappropriate for the situation and consider what would happen were we to do it. For example, when I watch a play I often wonder what would happen if I were to take off all my clothes and run onto the stage. I have never seen this compulsion to think of these things actually written down and spoken about by a scholarly source. The author states "Whenever I am on a cliff, a rooftop, or a high balcony, the imp of the perverse whispers in my ear, "Jump.'" My "imp" does the same thing, while cutting vegetables I sometimes look at the knife and think "What would happen if I just shoved this into my side right now?" I know I am not crazy and that I would never actually act on this impulse, but it boggles my mind to think about the fact that at that moment I could stab myself, no one but myself is stopping me. I used to refer to this compulsion as "The urge to run on stage during a play" now I know to call it "Hearing the imp of the perverse."

Trying hard not to think about something is always an interesting exercise to try. If I tell myself not to imagine a purple lamp, then that is all I can think about until I forget about my project of trying not to think of that darn lamp. "Whenever one pursues a goal, a part of the mind automatically monitors its progress."as explained by the author. When a person is consciously trying to do something, their mind will be focused on that goal and it is therefore impossible not to think of a white bear when one tells them-self not to do so.

The mind is a huge and complicated place!

The Divided Self

So I guess Im first

The Divided self was a very interesting chapter, especially because I am a psychology major and was able to comprehend and relate to the divided self.

I found it really interesting how we as humans are always trying to have full control of our mind. We try to stay away from things we know that are bad and do not benefit us only to our flesh. For example we know that we shouldn’t be having unprotected sex but there are so many people out there who still do, why? Because it feels good to do it. However, over time their consequence appears to them it the form of a pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease. Another example would be eating. We know that its bad to eat too much sweets and fats, but sometimes we just can’t help it and eat whatever we want. And as a result of that we can become obese and get diabetes. I didn’t know why we as humans sometimes cannot control our brains and resist temptation and just simply listen to our conscience. But it turns out it has to do with our brain and how it functions. Our brain is very sensible and if one thing goes wrong in our allot is affected in our body. When I read about the schoolteacher who had completely lost the ability to inhibit inappropriate behavior and to think about consequences all because of a tumor was surprising. Its scary to think that a human who doesn’t have a way to stop himself from committing a crime or felony just because the human has lost control of its mind. Even though we may try so hard to do good in our lives in can all come to an end when we lose control of our brain and commit horrific things we never thought of doing.

The Psychology of Compassion

Interesting op-ed. . . last night I watched the documentary about Nick Kristoff called Reporter. They talk about his methods in which he pays a lot of attention to how to best get the attention of the world--by telling individual stories which don't cause the kind of psychic numbing that people get when they are confronted by the numbers and data related to genocide, poverty, and other social horrors.

Reflection for Reading 2

I truthfully did not know what was going on in the reading. It was extremely confusing. I understood that there needs to be active learning. If you don't continue to improve upon what it is that you know, there will be no learning happening and knowledge will continue to be unattainable. It is one thing to go in and teach someone what it is they already know, and another to go in and attempt to teach something that someone knows absolutely nothing about. The trick in teaching is to find what it is a person does know and continue to expand that person's knowledge into something he or she never thought they would know. It is impossible to force someone into knowledge if they are not willing to learn or bend their thoughts to fit with the knowledge they are being given, but as long as you keep trying, it will eventually get through to someone, somewhere.
I do not agree with being unable to change the heart of a person. I do not believe that the best way to teach is simply to change the structure. People rebel against dictators, and it is overall an inefficient way to teach people. The best way to teach someone is to relate what you are teaching to something that the person holds dear to them. If you succeed in that, the person is more likely to understand what it is you are trying to teach and will become more amenable to different methods of teaching in the future. If you simply force a person to do something, they aren't really learning. The person will simply be acting like a robot and resenting every minute of it. In order to truly teach, one must get to the heart and go forward from there.

It's funny how things work

For some reason, I really struggled with making meaning of this weeks reading. While I enjoyed the readings individually, I had a hard time finding my understanding of what was being said in We Make the Road by Walking and I struggled finding meaningful connections within the readings from The Impossible Will Take a Little While. Ironically it was the short paragraph beginning chapter 35 (which was not part of our reading), by Cornel West (who I love and think is a genius in his ability to speak to the younger generations), which gave me some inspiration for reflection. West writes:

The quality of our lives and the integrity of our souls are in jeopardy... The lethal power of global corporate elites and national managerial bosses is at an all-time high...The precious system of caring and nurturing are eroding...And out public life lies in shambles, shot through with icy cynicism and paralyzing pessimism." (p.293).

These words inspired me to rediscover the content and meaning of the readings. I believe our souls are paralyzed as Mr. West suggests. As a society and as individuals we hump along to the metronome of drumming provided by a mindless, heartless Bureaucracy that doesn’t apply to us. It is so big and so advanced that it carries the illusion is that it knows best, when in fact it really doesn’t care. We are fueled by consumption and advertising, which carries the empty promise of happiness, sexual gratification, individuality and superiority. We no longer feel with our souls, but rather with our hands and our eyes. We have disconnected from our own souls and spirits and thus disconnected from the interests of our fellow humans. In The Impossible Will Take a Little While, Dr. martin Luther King writes:

I must confess that over the last few years I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is no the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Klu Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” that to justice (p.282).

I believe that Dr. King’s point makes sense not only in the Civil Rights movement of African American’s, but in a larger civil rights movement that is on the horizon, which is people reconnecting to their souls and doing what is right in the context of all humanity, not just for them as individuals. Mr. West is right, we have become docile, tricked into immobility by a life that is not bad enough to have the NEED to change it, but not good enough to allow us to feel as though we can change it. I believe the beauty and the genius of the Civil Rights Movement was that it was not immobilized by the few and largely meaningless concessions occasionally made by the powers of the time. Its beliefs were not convoluted and it’s vision not blurred. Things were so bad and so clearly unacceptable that change could not wait. Dr. King writes “Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity” (p. 284).

What stood out the most to me out of the readings was the concept of how one must truly understand oneself and the cause they are fighting for. To identify who they are as a person and what their true values and beliefs are. So many people believe in a cause worthy to fight for but many times those people begin to lose sight of their beliefs. Myles Horton co-founder of the Highlander once decided to leave Highlander to become an organizer for textile workers. Horton explains he was a good organizer except his success for mobilizing crowds brought him a sense of power. A sense which lead him to believe he was doing everything right until he realized and asked himself, “What the hell am I doing? What is this? ...I was thinking about the feeling of power. I was a little scared of it, and yet I was fascinated by it” (Horton, 110). Horton later decided to quit being an organizer and decided to get back to education.
In The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear speaks of Billy Wayne Sinclair a who was serving time in jail for killing a store clerk and was offered to buy his freedom for $15,000. This was not the first time people were given the opportunity to buy their freedom but as Sinclair said “ he’d spent half his life struggling to become, as he puts it, a ‘moral man,’ and finally had been able to see someone other than a ‘convicted murderer’ in the mirror” (Loeb, 280). Even during the Civil Rights Movement Martin Luther King Jr. noticed that people did not truly understand the true reason of why African-Americans were fighting for equal rights. King said he had expected southern religious leaders to understand they were not being extremists in the sense of violence but extremists in the sense of love, truth, and goodness. When visiting Birmingham King realized that “numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, ‘Follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother” (Loeb, 286).
I believe everyone in one point or another is confronted with a situation in which they must ask themselves if they are proud of what they have accomplished right now and if they have not undermined their values and beliefs. It is easy to get overwhelmed with power and throw everything away, to take the easy way out and not pay the consequences for ones actions.
I remember during my first summer of Upward Bound all the first time students had to do some kind of community service. I was in the group who was responsible for cleaning up the local parks and doing gardening. There were fifteen students and our supervisor and out of the fifteen students five of us had done some type of experiences in gardening. We were divided into groups and given different tasks to accomplish, we decided to stick together. Point is we were “good”, we got our tasks done and finished rather quickly. Because of that we got to use tools the other students could not use and were given other tasks. We got complimented for our work and we felt like the big shots in our group. So much one day we finished our all our tasks early and were told we could leave early because we had done enough for today. All five of us did that without hesitation instead of staying and helping others finished their tasks so we could all leave early.
I felt bad later that day because I did something I usually never do which is forget that we were a team and we should of helped our fellow students. I felt like I was better than them because I had prior experience and it was easy to be in that mindset because I had four other friends who felt like that. It was more like proving how much better we were compared to them more like a competition to show off that five of us could do much more than the rest put together. I knew it was not right, I felt bad and something in me was bothering me. Although we had permission to leave I could stayed but decided not to. For that reason I decided to help out whenever I could and always stayed behind to help out the others even when my duties were done. It felt good, I felt better about myself and understood that because I had prior experience I should never think I’m better than others. I believe one should never make decisions that they will later regret, always stay true to yourself and you will always be grateful for how you live your life.

My thoughts on the reading

Many things stick out to me from the readings. The idea that stuck out to me the most is this one of active learning. Active not merely limited to engaging the students in the subject, but relating the subject to the world. There was a point that one of the speakers made when he said “I wasn’t interested in being good but rather interested in being good for something” (102). Teaching should be relevant to the world that we live in, regardless of the subject, and its applications in the world should be known. This goes beyond the idea of what jobs you can get with this degree. It goes into a deeper question of how does your job affect the world and how can you change it. It is from this viewpoint that I understand the author and his conviction that there is no neutrality. If you truly want to make a difference, then you can’t merely detach yourself, your job and the world we live in. The author limited this scope to only include teachers and leaders. I believe that this really can be applied to everyone in a sense.

Every person, whether it’s a dishwasher or the President of the United States, is connected in a sense to the system. If these lower parts of the system were to put their actions in retrospect to the world, then they could make a substantial change. Now the author may disagree with me and say that “you can’t win the hearts of men”(103) but I believe that in order to make true lasting change, that’s what must be done. The author brings up Marx when he talks about structural change, but if you were to go deeper into Marx you would see that he advocated more than structural stability. He wanted a perfect communal society, where the state disappears and reaches for the same communal goods. Now how could you possibly bring up this type of philosophy and say that you’re against winning of the hearts?

"Being Neutral" by Elizabeth O'Neill

When reading excerpts from both “We Make the Road by Walking” and “The Impossible Will Take a Little While” many common themes were discussed such as leadership, education, and the importance of societal change. While these topics are very important, one issue was discussed that I believe is the most important, neutrality. In both of the readings, the writers discuss the dangers of neutrality and how it can negatively affect society as a whole. In “We Make the Road by Walking,” Myles Horton states his feelings on the subject: “It’s a code word for the existing system. It has nothing to do with anything but agreeing to what is and will always be…Neutrality is just following the crowd…Neutrality, in other words, was an immoral act” (pg102). Horton’s statement on neutrality opened my mind to the idea of this topic and changed my perspective. I started to think about all of the elements in our society that made being neutral a good thing, most commonly in newspapers and news channels, even Switzerland is viewed as a great country because of their reputation of remaining neutral.

The argument of the dangers of being neutral was further proven in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail.” In his letter, King discusses how the white citizens who remain neutral and silent is the biggest obstacle facing the success of the Civil Rights movement. King says “…the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is…the white moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice…”(pg 282). This quote from one of the most famous and known Civil Rights leaders, shows he saw the danger in neutrality and how it keeps citizens following the majority instead of what they believe in. Neutrality keeps people from fighting for what they want out of life and their society. When talking about learning and social change, Horton says, “…you’ve got to take sides. You need to know why you take sides; you should be able to justify it” (pg 102). Horton is saying that to create change and be an active member in your society, one has to know what they are fighting for and why.

The readings taught me a to look at situations and issues more critically, and that being neutral is not always the best policy. Instead of going with what everyone else believes is right, I have to take it upon myself to discover what I believe is right and search for the facts and reasons to back up my beliefs.

"We Make The Road by Walking"

The title of this book is so appropriate. As Mr. Freire states in the first paragraph, “Do the people have the right or not, in the process of taking their history into their hands, to develop another kind of language as a dimension of those who have the power?” This statement is one of the most powerful insights I have ever heard on the topic of education.
What struck me in the first paragraph was the simple intensity of the statement. Mr. Freire has obviously studied the dynamics of education and its outcomes. The belief that a good education requires three basic elements: love for people, respect for people's abilities to shape their own lives, and the capacity to value others' experiences. Mr. Horton expands on this theory with his idea of “starting where people are,” not where he is. What a concept. Teaching in the lower grades has become so wrote. Teachers are teaching math and they are not mathematicians, teachers are teaching music and they are not musicians. How can education be an education when each child is so individual and their learning abilities are on different levels? If education is to help with social change, especially for poorer students whose ability to learn has not been valued, the system needs to be radically changed. As each of the authors pointed out, it is not just for one child, it is for the “universal right.”
One of the questions we are to answer is: “Is there knowledge without practice?” Knowledge encompasses experience that we garner when we are educated. Acquiring knowledge involves complex cognitive processes: perception, learning, communication, association and reasoning According to Mr. Freire no, there is no knowledge without practice. This makes perfect sense to me. If we are being taught, say math, if we do not practice it, we will not have the knowledge we need to do the problems.
The question, “how do we change ourselves in order to change the world,” strikes a chord within me. If we are tolerant, listen to other ideas, be patient with outcomes, become involved with making a difference in our communities and stay committed to these beliefs, we can change the world one step at a time.

Prompt for week of Feb. 1st. . .

The frame for this week's reading is provided by the discussion between Myles Horton (founder of the Highlander Folk School, that educated Rosa Parks and many others in civic engagement, non-violent protest etc.) and Paolo Freire (Brazilian educator/philosopher/activist, a major proponent of popular and critical education). There are many themes present in their discussion that are supported/illustrated by Paul Loeb's writing about "Radical Dignity" and the other pieces that I have included from his book. What are some of the threads that you see running between these pieces, such as the relationship between theory and practice, leadership, education, universal rights and responsibilities and individual moral calling? You don't need to pull in every reading. Write about what struck you and use quotes from the pieces your refer to.