The forum description also says, "fundamental likenesses".

Gehanna said:

Why does humanity tend to promote ideas that focus on our differences? Religious tolerance would be an example of what I mean.

I have such a desire to celebrate and promote our likenesses. How can Peace thrive when the approach taken to advance it is through a primary focus on our differences as opposed to our similarities?

The words "tolerance" and "acceptance" when used in context of our differences does not sit well with me. It feels forced no matter how gently the words are applied. This is because I am less interested in our differences and very interested in our "fundamental likenesses".

Where illness is concerned, have you ever had someone "gently" push a suppository into your rectum for purpose of healing? I don't care how "gently" the person thinks they can put it in. If this same person refuses to work with me to consider alternatives, there will be conflict. I would be more likely to "tolerate" and "accept" if for some legitimate reason there were no other alternatives.

Where attempts are made to heal the illnesses of Peace, there are other alternatives. One alternative I would like to suggest is shining more light on our likenesses.

Gehanna

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Perhaps differences actually cause less trouble than similarities. In the Geopolitical world, for example, everybody used to really like narrow straits where nautical traffic could be controlled. This similarity of desire to control nautical traffic and thereby trade and thereby lots of liquid assets actually caused more friction than if some people had thought that liquid assets were icky. I'm not sure what the similarities are there now except that there hasn't been a major confrontation focused on say the Straits of Molluca since 1964.

Gehanna said:

Hello Higgins,

You wrote:


That could be, but then I noticed something interesting. You mentioned a similarity of desire to control. It was the word control that stood out.

Strange, the want of control while also not wanting to be controlled.

Gehanna

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Traditionally "control" was pretty contextual. You would control shipping at a strait by sending out an armed vessel. The idea of a more general control was probably not as clear in say the 16th century when say Hawkins was in the middle of trading happily and illegally with Mexico (tied up at the docks in fact) when the locals decided it all just looked too bad. The Crown of Spain had decided that the similarity of everybody wanting to trade with Mexico was best narrowed down to only certain friends and allies of Spain and eventually the locals decided they'd better follow that set of regulations about the control of trade.
Control may always be more a matter of threat than actual penalties on the spot. Mary Beard makes a similar and somewhat unconvincing argument about Romans and violence in The Roman Triumph

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/dec/22/featuresreviews.guardianreview8

Identity means something (to me) when we discuss difference. It means little (to me) when we discuss likeness.


But also, I think learning about the "likeness" between faiths is sometimes a bit misleading. Some beliefs and rituals are cognates - a guy I like to reference often, Thomas Merton, was really really a Catholic. But he saw something in the zen concept of emptiness he thought was a quality of the divine (he wasn't alone, either). We can't say that emptiness and panentheism refer to the same thing, but perhaps from a third-party's perspective they certainly seem like cognates. By the same token, I don't think it's useful - ever, really - to say "so we practically believe in the Same Thing, we're just using different words to describe it" (I used to think this way before entering regular spiritual discussion)... especially when the rituals, practices, etc. surrounding these beliefs and concepts are in fact very different.

The words "tolerance" and "acceptance" when used in context of our differences does not sit well with me. It feels forced no matter how gently the words are applied.

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At a recent interfaith meeting, we discussed something very plain: the distinction between diversity and pluralism. Diversity would mean a pure factual statement of difference among individuals in a group. Pluralism in this context would refer to understanding difference for everyone's benefit; this process of understanding is beneficial in and of itself, especially in a spiritual context. We come to understand ourselves better as we understand others. Differences shed light on our beliefs and sometimes reinforce them positively by adding new ways of thinking about them. Tolerance needn't change our core beliefs - our faith, or way, or what have you - but it changes the way we see others in relation to ourselves, in that we can put ourselves in others' shoes and see from their perspective. This promotes the building of empathy and compassion most of all.

This is because I am less interested in our differences and very interested in our "fundamental likenesses".

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I don't blame you. I've written a book solely based on trying to discover these fundamental likenesses (I called it kommein). But I realized that a lot of these similarities aren't enriching, for one thing. Mostly the likenesses are organic - biological or psychological, say. We need food, water, shelter, and love. We suffer. We feel pleasure. We have in common the need for meaning. But when we move beyond these fundamental likenesses, we find a world of difference.

Where attempts are made to heal the illnesses of Peace, there are other alternatives. One alternative I would like to suggest is shining more light on our likenesses.

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I will disagree for the most part, then come back around to slightly agreeing.

I would say that concentrating on similarity is a very, very dangerous thing. It might be best to acknowledge we're all human and leave it there. Damn. I hate to bring Nazism into this, but I can't think of a better example. When I was in undergrad school, my mentor (who is gay) made a film that included all these vernacular photographs of Nazis essentially being gay together. Surely the fundamental likeness was clear as day to them. What stood in the way, then, besides layers of history and propaganda? A lack of tolerance, a lack of understanding of the other. Let's oscillate now.

What does understanding difference do, from this perspective? It also reveals a fundamental likeness and unity: that of being different, put simply. That of being an individual, an irreducible subject. In fact, individuality requires difference - for without difference there is neither an individual, nor the concept of individuality...

Tolerance, again, highlights individuality (or whatever shreds of individuality really exist - which is another thread, granted). The illness of Peace is healed, I think, through a growing understanding of every other where possible.


AMC

AMCrenshaw said:

I would say that concentrating on similarity is a very, very dangerous thing. It might be best to acknowledge we're all human and leave it there. Damn. I hate to bring Nazism into this, but I can't think of a better example.

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"All Human"...then the problem is defining "human". The Nazis decided that most people were subhuman, in fact so much of the population of the world was subhuman from their point of view in one way or another, that in the end the Nazis had to place more and more reliance on their subhuman allies (as Niall Ferguson points out in War of the Worlds...a book I found too horrifying to read, though I suppose I'll try again soon)...

http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/articles/waroftheworld/index.html

"All Human"...then the problem is defining "human". The Nazis decided that most people were subhuman, in fact so much of the population of the world was subhuman from their point of view in one way or another, that in the end the Nazis had to place more and more reliance on their subhuman allies (as Niall Ferguson points out in War of the Worlds...a book I found too horrifying to read, though I suppose I'll try again soon)...

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I was tentative writing that, at any rate, feeling that something was off (maybe because I'd been discussing this whole human/subhuman thing in another thread...)

AMCrenshaw said:

I was tentative writing that, at any rate, feeling that something was off (maybe because I'd been discussing this whole human/subhuman thing in another thread...)

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The idea that similarities create harmony and differences cause discord doesn't seem all that true. For example, the fact that everyone has some needs in common with a lot of other people is as much a source of conflict as anything I can think of. And even the most elementry need can be quite complex. For example water....well you might say everybody needs say two liters a day. is that true? Is that the whole story of water and human needs? What if somebody wants a bath or a shower? What if water is needed for irrigation?

Moreover even conflict isn't necessarily worse than the absence of conflict. Suppose you're sitting on the Nile six thousand years ago. In the absence of conflict or political messes of various kinds, the human population would just grow to the point where catastrophic declines and rebounds kept the whole ecosystem in a state of equal misery. If you add in the human propensity to errect savage local gods and fetish sanctuaries and petty cheifdoms manipulating insane religious imagery...you get some nucleation of settlements, improved storage of surplus food, better and more complex ways of handling production and probably less fluctuation in population since the demands of the savage gods and what not keep the population from going straight up and straight down.
So the conflict between the gods and cheifs would probably act to stabilize people's experiences, enable them to accumulate some surpluses and transmit things in more complex ways from generation to generation.

The idea that similarities create harmony and differences cause discord doesn't seem all that true. For example, the fact that everyone has some needs in common with a lot of other people is as much a source of conflict as anything I can think of.

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I agree with this. But it's also the place where harmony can begin to take shape, since this is the place we'd come to understand these needs are shared (and universal to human).

As for the rest of your post, nowadays I'd take my chances trying to keep population under control in other ways besides conflict.


AMC

AMCrenshaw said:

I agree with this. But it's also the place where harmony can begin to take shape, since this is the place we'd come to understand these needs are shared (and universal to human).

As for the rest of your post, nowadays I'd take my chances trying to keep population under control in other ways besides conflict.


AMC

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In my example, conflict is not necessarily in terms of violence, it can also be in terms of competing ceremonial complexes and so on.

In my example, conflict is not necessarily in terms of violence, it can also be in terms of competing ceremonial complexes and so on.

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Well I didn't think you referred to violence at all. But separating into petty chiefdoms, nowadays, seems like a bad idea. Then again, is there a difference between a petty chiefdom and a compartmentalized society?

AMCrenshaw said:

Well I didn't think you referred to violence at all. But separating into petty chiefdoms, nowadays, seems like a bad idea. Then again, is there a difference between a petty chiefdom and a compartmentalized society?

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Sure there are major differences. Basically, once you get to a petty chiefdom/savage god level of organization you start generating ideological stuff that stays in circulation for the next six thousand years. So to start with the current "society" has about six thousand years worth of more or less dysfunctional symbology stuck in its communal mental universe in the form of ideology.

On the other hand the state as an administration with responsibilities has less and less to do with violence and human sacrifice and such and more and more to do with administering complex societies.

It's not true that similarities only create harmony and differences only create conflict. If my farm grows apples and oranges, but my neighbours only eat apples then I have a problem. Likewise if my wife tells me I'm just like my father, that's a problem too. Not all similarities are pleasant; not all differences are unpleasant.

I really liked AMC's thinking about pluralism above. In my words, it's about making the most of fortuitous differences, while acknowledging shared ground. The other side of it -- tolerance -- I see as being about allowing equity in competing needs. I've said elsewhere recently that if equity doesn't cost us something it's probably not equity -- because equity only really matters when needs compete. So if we play 'my tribe first in all things' then we'll only offer equity when it doesn't count... which means that it's not equity at all. Likewise 'Do unto others' is not always equitable when what others need is not what we need.

But with all that said, I don't mind having conflict in my environment. Actually, I need it. 'You have toes; I have toes; we are toe-brothers' will quickly send me to sleep. I find no wisdom in it. On the other hand, I learn a tonne from people who are passionately and implacably different from me. Sometimes I learn from the differences; sometimes I learn from the similarities. Sometimes those things are pleasant; sometimes unpleasant. I don't care -- it's the truth that keeps me interested.

Then, what parts of human likenesses are constantly in our faces? I find that confrontation with genuine similarities is seriously lacking.

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I'd say most of our egotistical and tribal behavior is due to (perhaps too much) confrontation between likenesses.

AMC

Gehanna said:

Here is the saying, "There are two things we all have in common. We are born and then we die." That saying disturbs me. I do not like it because it is empty in the middle.

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It isn't empty in the middle!

It is just saying that the bit in between is what makes us different to each other.

Mac

Well said.

Gehanna said:

I think a desire for Peace is a fundamental likeness the majority of us share.

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I think it's only certain personalities to whom peace as an ideal is very important. I feel that much of the rest of society don't want peace -- they want bounded conflict to allow them to compete safely. People compete for grades, for jobs, for friends, for spouses and lovers, for parking-spots. I believe that if people genuinely wanted peace they'd drive differently, mate differently, make different purchases, choose homes and jobs differently.

There are species advantages to bounded conflict -- we weed out our least viable genotypes. Every species does this.

Where we differ individually is in where we set our bounds. Some people would rather have no conflict at all (or I think that many prefer to compete passively and deny that they're doing so). Others like the conflict to be obvious and wide-ranging. Yet others -- more predatory personalities -- believe that nobody has any right not to conflict over anything.

Conflict to me is background noise. I try not to seek it or flee from it. I don't always need to win, but I don't like to lose. Like most individuals in most species I prefer conflict to be bounded by time, space and stakes.

I find that confrontation with genuine similarities is seriously lacking.

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Yes, because our decisions are generally aimed at gaining advantage, which is informed by competition and the important part of that is our differences.

Under many circumstances I think it's very, very easy to live a peaceful life. Begin by giving everyone exactly what they need just before they ask for it. Bend our life efforts to that one aim and we can live peacefully. However we may also never learn who we are.

We can also focus on our similarities in times of shared crisis, however I'm not sure how much sustainable peace this produces. For instance, Afghanistan is a country renowned for its Balkanisation and tribal squabbles, and for rising against invaders whenever it gets the chance.

Things people believe said:

I and Somalia against the world. I and my clan against Somalia. I and my family against the clan. I and my brother against the family. I against my brother -- Somalian proverb

In order for us to win, someone else has to lose. -- Maurice Saatchi

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Whether you believe in competition determines your behaviour, but what determines your relationships is whether others do.

ColoradoGuy said:

We also believe the fundamental similarities of the aspirations (and essential goodness) among people far, far outweigh any differences.

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I'd agree with caveats: when people are prosperous enough to have enough, and educated enough to understand other people. Under those circumstances we have growing incentive and ability to seek good for others and not just ourselves. We also have plenty of historical examples to show that when one of these is lacking, our understanding of good and ability to seek it fall away.

For me, the decay of civilisation into vicious barbarism is only ever an economic collapse and a couple of natural disasters away. A robust morality requires a robust and prosperous society (a necessary but not sufficient condition).

Gehanna said:

Did you intend this literally, figuratively, or both?

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Literally. Most species engage in bounded competition to win the best breeding partners. The competition might be dance, or song, a race, decoration of a nest, or limited kinds of fighting. In humans it seems to be mainly decoration of the self and decoration of the nest, with a bit of everything else thrown in. Offspring engage in bounded competition all the time as part of their training to become predators and sexual rivals.

It seems to me that the removal of the need to ask would result in spoil and create a dangerous dependency unless we also lived in an absolute world. Our capacity for appreciation would also decrease.

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It wasn't a serious suggestion. Very few people go around trying to give others what they want before they ask -- and those who do are normally very controlling.

Is it an intelligent thing to limit the acknowledgment of our similarities to times of crisis?

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People usually enter a crisis already knowing whom they want to protect -- themselves, their family, their tribe. Some feel differently to that, but under pressure, very few change alleigance for any reason but self-interest.