The sporadic ramblings of Emily C. A. Snyder - devoted to God, theatre, writing, and much randominity.
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Question:
Why is it, that when one does not agree with an action of a person, one is accused of hating the person and not the action? The two are related but do not - or ought not necessarily - make up the same thing. If I am a person doing good things, I would hope that someone else can look at the good things I do and approve of them jointly AND separately from who I am and who I am becoming. Likewise, if I am a person doing bad things, I would hope that someone else can look at the bad things I do and disapporve of them jointly AND separately from who I am and who I am becoming.
Regard those students I have who are into drug culture. I despise, loathe and will not tolerate within my sphere of influence their behaviour...but I love, cherish and welcome my students fully within my life. I recognize that what they do does not wholly make up who they are. However, I am also not so ignorant to wholly divorce action and being. What they do in part defines who they are, or who they want to be, or who they have in spite of themselves become. Thus, I can love who they are at HEART while despising that which they have grafted onto themselves which ought not be any part of themselves - which is, in fact, drawing themselves away from who they ought to be. Drugs narrow a person to a nothingness. I can despise this nothingness BECAUSE I love the person. I can despise the action which takes away their personage.
Same thing for other actions which are, in this present age - and only in the past forty years, really; century if you'd like to stretch it - considered "controversial subjects." I'm speaking, of course, about all those subjects having to do with one of Freudian's primal urges, or what Rousseau and Hitler called the means of controlling society, or what millenia of regular Joes have simply called the natural family. I am speaking about the whole gamut of means whereby we may either prevent life or destroy it: abortion, birth control, pre-and-extra-marital sexual relations, homosexuality, assisted suicide, euthenasia. Were we to side wholly with Darwin's social theory, we should rather demand that for the fittest to survive "the world must be peopled!" (to switch to Shakespeare :).
Yet those who beg for life are "fundie gay-haters" who apparently want to kill those with same-sex inclinations? All those who oppose abortion are naturally those who would blow up an abortion mill at a moment's notice (which is why 99.9% of protestations against abortion are non-violent? Do we point out the Civil Rights riots or do we champion Martin Luther King? Unfortunately, there are always wackos who garner publicity rather than EVERYONE ELSE who is simply and peacefully exercizing their right to assembly). Those who would deny a person's right to kill themselves are naturally in league with Nazis (who would champion such a death - ironic and self-defeating and self-accusing accusation! "Methinks the lady doth protest too much").
All this vitrolific is merely that. Sprung from well-meaning hearts that nevertheless believe a general idea that has been fed them that those who stand for life are those who would take it. 1984 anyone? Rather, why not believe that those who stand for life are FOR life? That those who stand for life can separate action from being; that they can hate an action because it is killing the person and wholly love the person despite their actions? Why is there the frequent supposition that those who are for life desire their opponents deaths...unless those who are so supposing themselves desire their opponents deaths and thus presume the same mentality on others?
This is the culture of death: someone opposes the culture of death; he must be killed.
This is the culture of life: someone opposes the culture of life; he must be brought to reason, and if he cannot be reasoned with yet we must provide him with laws that will at least keep him from making choices that will be detrimental to his and others' health, and if he still seeks out death by his own means then we will have done all that we could.
Simply put: there are some "rights" which cannot be allowed - which are, in fact, not "rights" at all.
In America, we have been told time and again that we have the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." To LIFE, to liberty - that is freedom TO do something, that is something that is within bounds of the first which is LIFE - and to the pursuit of HAPPINESS - not pleasure, not convenience, not comfort, although these things are certainly part of happiness, but happiness as the philosophers tell us (and our Founding Fathers were nothing if not well-vesed in their philosophers!) is longer lasting, is transcendent, is not a "quick fix," is in fact the pursuit of eternity. And whether we like it or not, each of us feels written on his heart this feeling that he must confront eternity - and eternity with a someone who will either be pleased or displeased with our actions, a someone who loves us but who can also see whether we have embraced who we were meant to be in life and through liberty, or whether we have abandoned goodness for simple expedient highs.
Hence, there are some things which, legally, cannot be allowed as a right. First and foremost among them must be that no one has the right to take a life from another person. The only exceptions must be in those situations of self-defense, either on a personal or a social level. And by self-defense, I do not mean the defense of selfishness - such is the reason for most abortions, uses of birthcontrol, assisted suicide and euthenasia, wherein to allow life is an "inconvenience" (how much more self-centered can we become?!) - but rather if one's own life (ability to draw breath, not to have a cushy income), whether individually or as a nation, is positively and actively threatened by another party. We do not allow the right to murder - why ought we allow murder of infants and grandparents and those unwanted?
Moreover, we do not have the right to abuse our own bodies and to deny ourselves the right to life, except again in self-sacrifice of one's life FOR another, such as in martyrdom or in wars. This one is a bit more tricky because everyone does have the incontravenable right to free will, that is moral choice, which is itself defended by God for our benefit and through His justice, mercy and unconditional love. So I ought not exercize my right of free will to kill myself either by a slow or a quick death. If a student threatens suicide, we intervene immediately: the threat to the student's life is immediate. If a student is caught with alcohol or drugs, we attempt to intervene immediately: the threat to the student's life is perhaps a longer journey to ruin, and yet we can see the road and legally and individually attempt to keep him away from ruin.
If a student is engaging in pre-marital sex, we ought not throw condoms at her: STDs slip through condoms, and thus we have just encouraged a slow death. Moreover, by encouraging sexuality outside of its place, we may have condemned her to pre-cancerous cells in her uterus, we may have just thrown off her entire reproductive organs, we may have helped her contract endometriosis, cervical cancer, infertility, blood-clots, cysts...the list goes on. By throwing the pill at her we've upped her chances for breast cancer and therefore have ourselves been the cause of her eventual death. Moreover, we may have ruined emotionally her ability to ever fully commit herself to any man and thus mucked with her psychosis, and emotional stability of any children she and her potential-ex(s) might have, and the ruination goes on. Moreover, we are upping the potential that she MIGHT get pregnant anyway and thus abort her baby and thus we have been the cause of the death of an infant.
Homosexual activity is likewise physically damaging. Although AIDS has since moved into the heterosexual sphere it certainly was prevalent initially in the homosexual circles. Homosexual culture does not promote monogomy but rather a series of increasingly meaningless "quick pleasure fixes" which have a damaging effect on the self-esteem of one engaging in such a lifestyle. He will eventually feel cheapened and yet unable to see any means of breaking the cycle, because of an ever-increasing need for love and attention - no matter how fleeting. For more on how emotionally and physically damaging participation in a homosexual lifestyle can be, see here: Eve Tushnet, a Catholic-convert who is still struggling to live chastely despite a same-sex attraction, ditto for Sed Contra aka David Morrison, who is also one of the members of Courage. For more health risks, take a look here.
We abhor pornography because it is degrading to those who make it, and degrades those who view it. (See my previous article on this.) We abhor smoking because it burns the lungs. We abhor tripping because it burns the mind. We abhor overeating (and I can attest to this) because it is a slow death. Why, then, are we not constant in viewing the difference between action and person? I am fat but I hope I am loveable. A good friend of mine smokes, and yet I don't despise him. Action and being are different; the one impacts the other for better or worse, but to desire a certain action out of a person's life does not desire the termination of that PERSON, rather the termination of that ACTION so the person may live.
Perhaps the answer is that the more sunk you are in something, the more you make that thing your identity. I certainly am sunk in my drama - and that is part of my identity. Should that become the ENTIRETY of my identity, I'll worry. Because anything to excess is bad. To engage in various actions which have a culture all their own is for the person himself to confuse his action with himself. I engage in drug culture, thus to criticise my actions is to criticise me because I AM my drugs. Same thing with sexuality: "don't tell me to stop because this is all of who I am."
Get out! Breathe the free air! There is more to each individual than occupation! I'm very much afraid I'm going to continue to refuse to allow anyone to define themselves solely by an action - good or bad, but particularly bad. I'm afraid I'm going to keep loving the whole person. Let me be Sam! "I can't carry [this burden] for you, Mr. Frodo...but I can carry you!"
Hmmmph!
Mood: Silly people. Oy.
Music: The Essential Baroque in prep for delving back into the Sable Valentine.
Randominity: Wicked, wicked cool logo for the newspaper Thine Ocular - tres proud of it. Can't wait to figure out the Happenny Press. Tee hee hee! Jules's stuff re: the Island of Carooga is faboo. And The Da Vinci Code is badly written! Oy! "Why are you telling me this?" Gah! Why in the world is this a best-seller? More on THAT later! ;P Right, off to write the exploits of Juste.
Why is it, that when one does not agree with an action of a person, one is accused of hating the person and not the action? The two are related but do not - or ought not necessarily - make up the same thing. If I am a person doing good things, I would hope that someone else can look at the good things I do and approve of them jointly AND separately from who I am and who I am becoming. Likewise, if I am a person doing bad things, I would hope that someone else can look at the bad things I do and disapporve of them jointly AND separately from who I am and who I am becoming.
Regard those students I have who are into drug culture. I despise, loathe and will not tolerate within my sphere of influence their behaviour...but I love, cherish and welcome my students fully within my life. I recognize that what they do does not wholly make up who they are. However, I am also not so ignorant to wholly divorce action and being. What they do in part defines who they are, or who they want to be, or who they have in spite of themselves become. Thus, I can love who they are at HEART while despising that which they have grafted onto themselves which ought not be any part of themselves - which is, in fact, drawing themselves away from who they ought to be. Drugs narrow a person to a nothingness. I can despise this nothingness BECAUSE I love the person. I can despise the action which takes away their personage.
Same thing for other actions which are, in this present age - and only in the past forty years, really; century if you'd like to stretch it - considered "controversial subjects." I'm speaking, of course, about all those subjects having to do with one of Freudian's primal urges, or what Rousseau and Hitler called the means of controlling society, or what millenia of regular Joes have simply called the natural family. I am speaking about the whole gamut of means whereby we may either prevent life or destroy it: abortion, birth control, pre-and-extra-marital sexual relations, homosexuality, assisted suicide, euthenasia. Were we to side wholly with Darwin's social theory, we should rather demand that for the fittest to survive "the world must be peopled!" (to switch to Shakespeare :).
Yet those who beg for life are "fundie gay-haters" who apparently want to kill those with same-sex inclinations? All those who oppose abortion are naturally those who would blow up an abortion mill at a moment's notice (which is why 99.9% of protestations against abortion are non-violent? Do we point out the Civil Rights riots or do we champion Martin Luther King? Unfortunately, there are always wackos who garner publicity rather than EVERYONE ELSE who is simply and peacefully exercizing their right to assembly). Those who would deny a person's right to kill themselves are naturally in league with Nazis (who would champion such a death - ironic and self-defeating and self-accusing accusation! "Methinks the lady doth protest too much").
All this vitrolific is merely that. Sprung from well-meaning hearts that nevertheless believe a general idea that has been fed them that those who stand for life are those who would take it. 1984 anyone? Rather, why not believe that those who stand for life are FOR life? That those who stand for life can separate action from being; that they can hate an action because it is killing the person and wholly love the person despite their actions? Why is there the frequent supposition that those who are for life desire their opponents deaths...unless those who are so supposing themselves desire their opponents deaths and thus presume the same mentality on others?
This is the culture of death: someone opposes the culture of death; he must be killed.
This is the culture of life: someone opposes the culture of life; he must be brought to reason, and if he cannot be reasoned with yet we must provide him with laws that will at least keep him from making choices that will be detrimental to his and others' health, and if he still seeks out death by his own means then we will have done all that we could.
Simply put: there are some "rights" which cannot be allowed - which are, in fact, not "rights" at all.
In America, we have been told time and again that we have the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." To LIFE, to liberty - that is freedom TO do something, that is something that is within bounds of the first which is LIFE - and to the pursuit of HAPPINESS - not pleasure, not convenience, not comfort, although these things are certainly part of happiness, but happiness as the philosophers tell us (and our Founding Fathers were nothing if not well-vesed in their philosophers!) is longer lasting, is transcendent, is not a "quick fix," is in fact the pursuit of eternity. And whether we like it or not, each of us feels written on his heart this feeling that he must confront eternity - and eternity with a someone who will either be pleased or displeased with our actions, a someone who loves us but who can also see whether we have embraced who we were meant to be in life and through liberty, or whether we have abandoned goodness for simple expedient highs.
Hence, there are some things which, legally, cannot be allowed as a right. First and foremost among them must be that no one has the right to take a life from another person. The only exceptions must be in those situations of self-defense, either on a personal or a social level. And by self-defense, I do not mean the defense of selfishness - such is the reason for most abortions, uses of birthcontrol, assisted suicide and euthenasia, wherein to allow life is an "inconvenience" (how much more self-centered can we become?!) - but rather if one's own life (ability to draw breath, not to have a cushy income), whether individually or as a nation, is positively and actively threatened by another party. We do not allow the right to murder - why ought we allow murder of infants and grandparents and those unwanted?
Moreover, we do not have the right to abuse our own bodies and to deny ourselves the right to life, except again in self-sacrifice of one's life FOR another, such as in martyrdom or in wars. This one is a bit more tricky because everyone does have the incontravenable right to free will, that is moral choice, which is itself defended by God for our benefit and through His justice, mercy and unconditional love. So I ought not exercize my right of free will to kill myself either by a slow or a quick death. If a student threatens suicide, we intervene immediately: the threat to the student's life is immediate. If a student is caught with alcohol or drugs, we attempt to intervene immediately: the threat to the student's life is perhaps a longer journey to ruin, and yet we can see the road and legally and individually attempt to keep him away from ruin.
If a student is engaging in pre-marital sex, we ought not throw condoms at her: STDs slip through condoms, and thus we have just encouraged a slow death. Moreover, by encouraging sexuality outside of its place, we may have condemned her to pre-cancerous cells in her uterus, we may have just thrown off her entire reproductive organs, we may have helped her contract endometriosis, cervical cancer, infertility, blood-clots, cysts...the list goes on. By throwing the pill at her we've upped her chances for breast cancer and therefore have ourselves been the cause of her eventual death. Moreover, we may have ruined emotionally her ability to ever fully commit herself to any man and thus mucked with her psychosis, and emotional stability of any children she and her potential-ex(s) might have, and the ruination goes on. Moreover, we are upping the potential that she MIGHT get pregnant anyway and thus abort her baby and thus we have been the cause of the death of an infant.
Homosexual activity is likewise physically damaging. Although AIDS has since moved into the heterosexual sphere it certainly was prevalent initially in the homosexual circles. Homosexual culture does not promote monogomy but rather a series of increasingly meaningless "quick pleasure fixes" which have a damaging effect on the self-esteem of one engaging in such a lifestyle. He will eventually feel cheapened and yet unable to see any means of breaking the cycle, because of an ever-increasing need for love and attention - no matter how fleeting. For more on how emotionally and physically damaging participation in a homosexual lifestyle can be, see here: Eve Tushnet, a Catholic-convert who is still struggling to live chastely despite a same-sex attraction, ditto for Sed Contra aka David Morrison, who is also one of the members of Courage. For more health risks, take a look here.
We abhor pornography because it is degrading to those who make it, and degrades those who view it. (See my previous article on this.) We abhor smoking because it burns the lungs. We abhor tripping because it burns the mind. We abhor overeating (and I can attest to this) because it is a slow death. Why, then, are we not constant in viewing the difference between action and person? I am fat but I hope I am loveable. A good friend of mine smokes, and yet I don't despise him. Action and being are different; the one impacts the other for better or worse, but to desire a certain action out of a person's life does not desire the termination of that PERSON, rather the termination of that ACTION so the person may live.
Perhaps the answer is that the more sunk you are in something, the more you make that thing your identity. I certainly am sunk in my drama - and that is part of my identity. Should that become the ENTIRETY of my identity, I'll worry. Because anything to excess is bad. To engage in various actions which have a culture all their own is for the person himself to confuse his action with himself. I engage in drug culture, thus to criticise my actions is to criticise me because I AM my drugs. Same thing with sexuality: "don't tell me to stop because this is all of who I am."
Get out! Breathe the free air! There is more to each individual than occupation! I'm very much afraid I'm going to continue to refuse to allow anyone to define themselves solely by an action - good or bad, but particularly bad. I'm afraid I'm going to keep loving the whole person. Let me be Sam! "I can't carry [this burden] for you, Mr. Frodo...but I can carry you!"
Hmmmph!
Mood: Silly people. Oy.
Music: The Essential Baroque in prep for delving back into the Sable Valentine.
Randominity: Wicked, wicked cool logo for the newspaper Thine Ocular - tres proud of it. Can't wait to figure out the Happenny Press. Tee hee hee! Jules's stuff re: the Island of Carooga is faboo. And The Da Vinci Code is badly written! Oy! "Why are you telling me this?" Gah! Why in the world is this a best-seller? More on THAT later! ;P Right, off to write the exploits of Juste.
posted by Emily C. A. Snyder | 1:42 PM
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