21-06-2012, 09:01 PM
Jeffrey Orling Wrote:... A bit more civility would be appreciated....
"... We are intertwined with one another to keep alive the notion that we will support the actions of others if they support ours.
This is the etiquette of "let's pretend." Let's pretend that if I am nice to you, then you will be nice back to me. Or, a more pathological version is, let's pretend that if I am nice to you, then you will be mean to me. We could all see the possible combinations are pretending, from the seemingly caring to the pathological.
When the social form is emptied of morality and virtue, and interactions become hollow and meaningless, we begin to see a form of anarchy best described as pathology. Psychology has labeled many different types of pathologies, but the root of them all is an inability to make sense of or give meaning to the social etiquette by which we are all expected to abide. Pathology and all of its ramifications is one of the tragedies that can motivate us to lift ourselves to a higher level of self-fulfillment.
With the introduction of morality, meaning begins to fill the hollow shell of etiquette. The line between etiquette and morality is not always clear. What is offered as morality is often really just social etiquette. Only if a moral principle within a person resonates as truth would begin to guide his or her behavior. Etiquette is about practices and forms; morality is more concerned with right, wrong, and truth in relation to human character. Morality vitalizes the form of etiquette. The person concerned with self-fulfillment must go beyond the etiquette of codependent safety to a more independent, courageous vision for his or her behavior."
Wendy Palmer, the practice of freedom: aikido principles as a spiritual guide, Rodmell Press, Berkeley California 2002, page 34
see http://embodimentinternational.com/
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"