Moral Alienation

  In this entry, I want to coin a term 'moral alienation' to describe a belief that a person cannot possibly please an authority figure (either inward or outward), due to a sense of pervasive shame or failure to live up to normative standards or expectations. This phenomena, I believe, not only applies to external authorities but might also describe an experience of failing to live up to one's own ethical standards, which might sometimes feel too high or unattainable at certain points in a person's life.

   "Losing face" is one example of moral alienation. A person might lose their reputation in front of one's peers and suffer from public humiliation as a result. This can create a sense of low self-esteem, or a sense that one is not as competent as one's peers in fulfilling moral requirements such as being generous, hard-working, and so on. Sometimes, this also happens when a person perceives others as being superior in their capacity to fulfill moral requirements or be good people. A lot of this talk about who is good and who is bad, of course, is based on subjective perceptions or consensus, but it's also reinforced by a tendency to think in terms of binaries: either a person is absolutely "good" or absolutely "bad", with no in between or spaces for acknowledgement of both qualities within the same person.

   One of the causes, to my thinking, of moral alienation, is a tendency to reduce complex matters to slogans that are designed to "wake people up". This happens a lot on social media, where a person will write a message or post a graphic that seems to sum up all the things that are bad about the world, and blame certain people for that badness. People are targeted or scapegoated, in other words. Slogans are justified as being rightful expressions of moral condemnation for things that are deemed indisputably wrong. But one of the problems with slogans is that, quite simply... they are too short! Short and trite statements don't really expose the complex or nuanced nature of problems, and often leave readers feeling that there is one simplified way of looking at the issue. I don't think this approach is particularly helpful, and it often leaves people defensive or lost, rather than truly "woke". Such kinds of statements don't necessarily foster dialogue, collaboration or even the work necessary to resolve problems. It's very easy to click that "send" button and try to state a strong case for something, but again, most of the situations that people face require efforts and long-term, everyday working on problems. They can't be resolved simply by shocking people or trying to assign blame.

  Moral alienation seems to be best addressed by acknowledging complexity and cultivating a space of compassion for complexity. If my objects of compassion are only certain kinds of things and not other things, I become selective in my compassion, and this selectiveness leaves some without a voice. It's important also that people can make a choice not to fall for shock appeals or statements that are designed to arouse anger or defensiveness. Instead, a respect for nuance and complexity is an antidote to moral alienation, and can allow people to continue the path based on their own conditions rather than trying to reduce everything to absolutes or binaries.  

   

Nature Views

   I am much more interested these days in the spaces between things: I will take photos out of focus or sometimes very quickly, without really looking to see what I am taking! Is there a logic to this? Well, it has to do with trusting in a judgment that doesn't arise from words alone. It's perhaps a subtle discernment-I know what I like, but I have yet to find the words to put it together.

  Nature photos are a good example. We often joke about how apps like Tik Tok or even Instagram have ways of enhancing one's appearance, but nature does not require this. Going outside, everything in nature seems to have its place, and it would be a bit absurd to try to "brush up" a nature photo so that something looks "younger" or "more symmetrical". And yet, this is the kind of thing that people will consider when taking photos of themselves or other people. With nature, there is a kind of accommodation that sets in: a notion that this scene that I am seeing is much too complex to be curated by a human, let alone decorated to look more "human" or more artificial.

 This reminds me of two dominant paradigms that I have read about in education. While one paradigm suggests that the student is a blank slate to be filled with the customs or rituals that are most conducive to building a cultured or educated mind, the other suggests that a student is already gifted and waiting to be discovered as a gift by teachers. Montessori and Steiner seem to belong to the latter category, while the former seems to accord more to a traditional view of education. With the first paradigm, there is a template to which humans are meant to conform. With the second paradigm, there is something that needs to be discovered and even honored in the other.

  Talk about nature is of course somewhat misleading, because there are different cultural views of nature. But overall, the idea of nature seems to accord with an orientation of surrender; trusting that what is in front of us is more complete than any designed or created thing, and even having faith that whatever is happening is part of an unfolding, interdependent process that does yield significance and meaning, without our actively needing to frame it as such. Very few people have analyzed what this "nature" is---and I am sure it's a cultural meaning--but I do try to get the underlying view of it.

New Starts and Gratitude

   This Christmas Eve is the first time I have spent away from family. I would like to reflect on gratitude and how the new year might be one of being grateful.

     Gratitude, at least to my understanding, is not about being positive or joyful about everything that one has. In fact, I think it starts more modestly with taking stock of what a person has. Small things do count, and in fact, turn out to be very big things. Recently, I felt grateful for the fact that I am still working, and can make some kind of income to be able to make choices about my life and how I go about doing it. These kinds of things are gifts, because we never really can create the conditions for them entirely ourselves. At the same time, cherishing those things allows me to feel less attached to setbacks or things that appear to be imperfect to me. I think these kinds of considerations help me to frame gratitude as a way of honoring and respecting what's truly given in life rather than striving for an absolute kind of perfection.

   One other aspect that I am reflecting on recently, is that there is no such thing as an "absolutely" good or "absolutely" terrible situation. There is a symbol in Taoism which reflects a very similar idea, namely that white contains black, and black, conversely, contains white. This visual image, I believe, is supposed to reflect the principles of Yin and Yang, but more so the idea that everything contains its opposite. Extreme pleasure or bliss contains a painful moment; extreme triumph carries the seeds of pride and, hence, failure. Conversely, illness can lead to a discovery of life's preciousness and values; or, a difficulty can make a person more mature and eliminate unnecessary worries or preoccupations. I could go on with these examples, but the point is that there is never a point where a person throws up their hands and says that there is nothing good at all in their life, since everything is nuanced and textured. Hopelessness contains hope, as does its opposite. So when I start to think in this way, my mind softens and I start to actively look for the kinds of things that could be well in my life.

   A lot of what I am thinking on this subject is in alignment with what I have learned from Buddhism, Stoicism and a lot of cognitive psychology--and yes, a bit of Taoism--, but I think it's important to remind myself that these teachings do exist, and can operate on microlevels to curb depressive thoughts or change the direction of one's thinking altogether. I certainly hope that this piece offers some inspiration to learn more about these philosophies.