There are some fights you can't win. Even if you had all the fire power you needed (however you define fire power in your particular fight), if you used it, you'd destroy something too precious to you to make it worth it. So even though you might have every right to fight, you don't fight. Even though you really need what you might win in a fight, you don't fight. If you're angry and feel threatened, you master yourself and you don't fight.
This is a very hard lesson. But most people have to figure out how to learn it. Most nations have to figure it out, too. There are some fights in which no amount of force will get you what you want, need, or have a right to. You have to get those things in a slow, roundabout way. Sometimes the other party has to come to exactly the same conclusion.
It is usually perfectly obvious to bystanders when someone has started to destroy themselves in their quest to get what they need. It is rarely as obvious to the involved parties. And because the calculus of when, exactly the use of power becomes detrimental to the powerful is a very personal calculus, only the involved parties can actually know where the line is.
It's hard to watch.
18 comments:
I humorously define fire power in my particular fight (at least in its online form) as "an X86 Pentium, the least powerful computer in the world." Paranoid U*Us, some of whom actually seem to believe that I just might shoot up a U*U church with some real firepower, will be reassured to know that I firmly believe that the Pentium is more powerful than the Magnum. ;-)
So what exactly are you watching Rev. Robinson?
Here is the first part of my point-by-point response to your thoughtful and thought-provoking post Rev. Robinson. The rest of it may be read on The Emerson Avenger blog where it gets a bit too "hot" for some U*Us to handle, so I am hopefully sparing you from having to decide whether or not to delete my response to your thoughts.
Regards,
Robin Edgar
:There are some fights you can't win. Even if you had all the fire power you needed (however you define fire power in your particular fight), if you used it, you'd destroy something too precious to you to make it worth it.
Of course one does not always realize this before one decides to fight. . .
:So even though you might have every right to fight, you don't fight. Even though you really need what you might win in a fight, you don't fight. If you're angry and feel threatened, you master yourself and you don't fight.
See above.
:This is a very hard lesson. But most people have to figure out how to learn it.
Unfortunately it is not always possible to predict which fights are "unwinnable" or, even if they are "winnnable", will take much more time and effort to fight and win than one initially thought when one decided it was necessary and/or worthwhile to fight.
:Most nations have to figure it out, too.
The so-called "U*U World" has to figure it out too. . .
I'm still waiting for the U*Us at 25 Beacon Street in Boston, and at the Unitarian Church of Montreal, to figure out that they can't win the fight that they started with me and have dragged out for over a decade now. . .
:There are some fights in which no amount of force will get you what you want, need, or have a right to.
Or don't have a right to. . .
Some foolish people fight for things that they want but have little or no right to.
:You have to get those things in a slow, roundabout way. Sometimes the other party has to come to exactly the same conclusion.
Sometimes the "other party" deliberately makes things slow and "roundabout", as in far from "straight" if U*Us catch my drift, in order prevent people from obtaining what they want, need, and have a perfect right to. Can U*Us say "institutional stonewalling and denial"?
My post on the Gaza situation is up (http://kelseydatherton.blogspot.com/2009/01/gaza.html)
I link to yours as a wonderful example of how to talk about the issue in a respectful manner that doesn't deal with specifics. I really liked this post of yours
What?!!
Rev. Christine Robinson isn't talking about the Boston situation or even Montreal situation?
Coulda fooled me. . . ;-)
It turns out that the word verification code for this post is speru so I will take it as a sign from Google that Rev. Robinson is actually talking about the Peru situation. :-)
Of course it could be that Rev. Robinson doesn't deal with specifics precisely because she knows very well that the "social dynamic" that she is dealing with in this post has a much broader application than what is happening in the Middle East, and can in fact apply very well to fights and the misuse and abuse of "fire power" (however U*Us define fire power in U*Us' particular fight) within the U*U World itself. . .
For me, this is one more reminder of what Kierkegaard referred to as an "unnatural world-historical consciousness". I often wonder how much good it does us, or anybody else, that we are all so aware of what is going on around the world. Always, of course, being most aware of the worst things that are happening around the world.
On the one hand, knowing about the Gaza situation or the Rawanda situation, etc. doesn't seem to do much good for our psyches, as it can be quite difficult to hear and to see these things on a daily basis without becoming a little depressed. On the other hand, it is questionable, to say the least, whether our knowledge of these situations does any good at all for the people actually involved in them. In Gaza, it seems obvious, it has done no good for either side.
And if, as Kierkegaard claims, this "unnatural world-historical consciousness" makes us blind to the ethical, that is, that which is right in front of us, which we might actually affect by our own actions, one must question whether being an informed and aware "global citizen" is really a good thing or not.
I sometimes think that we'd all be better off if we ignored all but the local news and the immediate ethical issues in our individual lives. At least then we wouldn't become depressed over horrors that we can do nothing about, and might have more energy and positivity to face that within our lives that we can change.
Think of the Serenity Prayer: "Grant me the courage to change that which I can, the serenity to accept that which I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference." Do we possess the serenity to accept these undoubtedly horrid situations which we cannot change? Do we have the wisdom to know that we cannot change them? Should we, to put it bluntly, be concerned about Gaza or Rawanda or Mumbai or wherever? Should we seek to be aware and knowledgeable about these things? Does this knowledge and this awareness do us or anyone else any good?
Well said Diptherio. I believe that it is possible for U*Us to deal responsibly with immediate ethical issues in individual U*U lives, local communities, and ALSO the greater world but it is hard for U*Us to properly deal with large "real world" issues such as the Gaza situation when serious issues within the tiny, declining U*U World have not been responsibly addressed. U*U religious leaders lose credibility and appear to be outrageous hypocrites when for example UUA President Bill Sinkford engages in rather questionable amateurish diplomacy with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran while failing or refusing to engage in diplomacy to deal with *Problems* within the U*U World; or spends thousands of dollars to go to South Africa to ostensibly learn about it's rather questionable model of Truth & Reconciliation while failing or even obstinately refusing to deal with unpleasant truth and seek reconciliation with victims of U*U clergy misconduct. You have quite eloquently said what I have been saying to U*Us for some time now. Don't go pretending to solve huge and complex real world problems when you abjectly fail, or even obstinately refuse. . . to deal with much smaller and less complex *Problems* within the U*U World which U*Us actually CAN change if U*Us just make a reasonable effort to responsibly deal with them. . . How is it possible that UUA President Bill Sinkford can make a big show of talking to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who hangs people from cranes while absolutely refusing to talk to me and other people who have been harmed by the demeaning and abusive behavior of U*U clergy?
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