This is back-dated one year, to remove it from the front page.
Regarding sexuality, I can see how someone would think it’s a matter of doubting her or his main orientation. I once thought of it, alternately, as doubting my heterosexuality, at one point in my life, and, at another point, as doubting my gayness. In my opinion, it’s actually a matter of failing to recognize one’s bisexuality, or, if not that, not understanding the fluidity of one’s orientation, depending on the circumstances.
Another misconception regarding bisexuality that seems to exist is the idea that it means one’s romantic ties are therefore ambivalent and otherwise not as full-fledged and not as genuine as a non-bisexual, that is, a completely gay or lesbian person or a completely hetero person.
I had that notion, until I started to have sex with and romantic feelings for women during the past few years. An additional misconception is that bisexuality means that someone has to “have both” concurrently and polyamorously.
In many respects US society (and Western Europe) has a lot of social and cultural freedom, when compared to many other parts of the world. I try to bear in mind the good things about my native country, and not make the mistake, which is common among some people on the political left, of thinking that everything is bad about the US in specific, and Western Culture in general.
A mistake among the political right is to assume the opposite. People reading my blog might assume I’m a leftist or that I’m a liberal or radical liberal. But I try not to let labels confine me. Also, I’ve come to see some of the faults of the political left and maybe some of the merits of the political right, though, of course, it’s very unlikely I’d ever describe myself as a conservative.
As for conservative publications, the American Conservative seems better than National Review. Progressive publications seem better in terms of writing, reporting and photography that is focused on peoples’ concerns; whereas a lot of the writing in the National Review seems like someone having a conversation in their own head.
This calls to mind the importance of reading, writing, and working with people (head, heart, and hands) instead of being propagandized by some or a lot of what’s on TV or the radio. Or maybe it’s just me, in that I have a sort of weakness whereby I tend to fall into brain-washy habits when I consume a lot of TV.
I don’t know, but I feel more connected to people in general and seem more of an independent thinker when I avoid TV and talk radio, opting for reading and writing and in-person engagement.
I’ve not researched whether choice-of-medium actually has a scientifically measurable effect on one’s critical thinking and capacity for ‘expansive empathy,’ or if it’s effects are idiosyncratic.
As for sexual practices, context determines its ethical caliber, not the practice, per se, as other writers have pointed out to me.
Regarding kindness having the potential to be condescending if love/compassion is not present, Bertrand Russel said something similar in his essay What I Believe. He also said love involves delighting in the company of the other. This reminds me of how some people doing charity work seek to materially assist those in need but keep themselves at an emotional distance, seeming to think it’s unseemly to relate to them in a friendly way.
Erich Fromm is another writer who made good points regarding love. Check out his book The Art of Loving. More recently, writer Navid Kermani had this to say :
“The love of one’s own – one’s own culture, one’s own country and also one’s own person – manifests itself in self-criticism. The love of the other – of another person, another culture and even another religion – can be far more effusive; it can be unreserved. It is true that the prerequisite for love of the other is love of oneself. But one can only fall in love, as Father Paolo and Father Jacques did with Islam, with the other. Self-love must be a struggling, doubting, constantly questioning love if it is to avoid falling prey to narcissism, self-praise, self-satisfaction. How true that is of Islam today! Any Muslim who does not struggle with it, does not doubt it and does not critically question it does not love Islam.” Kermani is Muslim.
In terms of how your point about love and compassion applies to my daily life, my recent falling out with a friend I’d been helping while she was in hospital and rehab is probably an example of what you say. I was focused on being kind, but upset her, unintentionally in the process because I did not empathize and thereby did not understand her needs.
Instead, I strove to be kind to her according to my assumption that what I would like in her situation is necessarily the same as what she would like. For example, I assumed she wanted reading and writing materials, and nagged her about watching too much TV.
Now, I just phone her to let her know I care, while honoring her wish that I stay away. I’m coordinating with others so that they can visit her instead of me, as an aspect of what Buddhists refer to as non-attached or non-possessive love.
Regarding nominal Christianity, how far can one go with it and with, for example, interfaith work, before it no longer makes sense to say “I’m a Christian” ?
The common thread which runs thru all faith traditions and beyond them into science and nonreligious philosophy is loving kindness. Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill wrote about a science of morality about 200 years ago, and currently researchers in the social and physical sciences (such as neuro-science) are studying the causal factors relating to, for example, empathy and compassion (as well as unloving phenomena such as aggression and sadism).
That should help address the problem of atheist thought leaning heavily on criticizing religion and going lightly on emphasizing loving kindness. Of course, atheism is not a belief system; positive claims that seem so far to be alternatives to theology are to be found in Humanism.
But, to me, Humanism needs to be enhanced so as to do more to account for nonhuman lifekind. An ethical framework and ontology that may hold promise for the future may be ‘Post-Humanist Ecocentrism,’ instead of what’s known so far as Humanism.
I like your term ‘compassionate imagination.’ But one possible limitation is that compassion pertains to how we treat someone who is suffering, as Andre Comte Sponville points out. A more general concern for others, such as Christian agape, would include those who are not suffering, as we, for example, work to ensure that those who are not suffering remain well.
As for a better term than ‘spirituality,’ we might, with careful writing, work around the problem. The word ‘spirituality’, to me, connotes intention and meaning, as in “the spirit of the laws,” and not supernatural conceptions about reality.
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