new name, better attitude

As you can see, I've changed the title of my blog. For this title, I'm indebted to a friend who said curmudgeonly thoughts were welcome, but compassion should be in there somewhere, Or words to that effect. So with thanks to my friend we'll proceed, and it will become clear shortly why I've changed of my sometimes-rumbly musings.

Whenever there's an overwhelming lot of something around, there's a reason for it. And you can probably be sure there's a deeper reason behind the surface one, the one that first comes to mind. Take the current Epidemic of Incivility, which exists along a continuum that goes all the way from Nobody Has Any Manners Anymore to Pre-Emptive Strikes, which are the ultimate invasion of space, whether it's personal or another country's. This is all part of In-Your-Face-Behavior. And it's all a form of bullying.

Why is this happening so much now?

You can't understand it if you go at the whole continuum, you have to take just one small part. For example, bullying. Bullies have always been around, but I don't think they've been emulated and even admired as much in recent past history as they are now. Why are so many young middle class white guys wanting to have the vocabulary and the moves of the young black rappers? If there's any group that gets in other people's faces, whose very presence is designed to intimidate, any more than these kids I certainly haven't seen it.

So, why do they do it? If you ask them, they'll say "It's cool." Maybe there's a more up to date word than cool, but that's the idea, the concept. Well, why is it cool? "So nobody don't mess with me." It's survival in a culture where bullying is accepted and tolerated and even expected.

Aha. The way to get rid of a bully is to hit first and to hit harder. This is, you might well say if you were a talking head, "pre-emptive behavior."

The other way is to turn your back, to walk off and leave the scene. In fact, both of these behaviors are pre-programmed into us as the fight-or-flight thing.

My personal preference when dealing with anybody anywhere along this continuum, all the way down to the ones who just have really bad manners, is to simply leave. But while I'm walking away I might try to figure out what, exactly, it is I'm walking away from. Especially if I might have preferred to stay.

I have another friend, not the one who suggested that curmudgeons should have a compassionate side, but one equally wise, who says that violence comes from fear. I think she's right. And I think our Epidemic of Incivility has its roots in fear too, though it's a little harder to see on the less consequential end of the continuum. Picking one's nose in public, for example.
It's easier when you're talking about a pre-emptive strike on Iraq.

The bully is basically a coward. Even little kids know it. That's why hitting him first and harder means, in most cases, that he'll henceforth leave you alone. He's really afraid on some deep, inner level, perhaps of something he can't even name himself, and so he picks on you or your kid. But hitting first and harder doesn't always work; sometimes the bully regroups and the next time will hurt you really bad. The deeper the bully's inner fear, the more that's likely to happen.

So here's what I think is going on now, why there's so much incivility around: As a whole society, we are afraid. I forget the exact figure, but something like one percent of the world's people hold 98 percent of its wealth. And the rest of us are afraid, to varying degrees, of what may become of us as a result. It is glaringly evident that the one percent with the wealth do not care what happens to anyone but themselves.

Personally I think we should get God to ship them all to Dubai ... but I digress.

We have a situation where neither fighting nor fleeing really works all that well anymore, yet we're pretty much stuck in the fight mode. We've toned it down to the in-your-face behavior, by and large, most of the time. As long as the person doing it isn't high on meth or something worse, I guess with understanding the reason behind the behavior, I can ignore it. But I think there needs to be a third way of responding

The third way is to acknowledge the fear behind the bad behavior, and by our own behavior to offer an alternative. This is going to be pretty hard to practice, on the level of the kid on the skateboard in my right of way to whom I want to give the finger. But to go from the ridiculous to the sublime, I think of the Dalai Lama. Sure, he didn't fight, he's like the ultimate flee-er. But if he'd fought, his whole country would have been obliterated; instead he moved the center of his religion to India, which is where it has roots anyway, and much of the Tibetan Buddhist culture has been preserved. What would the Dalai Lama do with the kid on the skateboard? Most likely he'd just wait, and smile at the kid while waiting.

It will be interesting, along this line, to see what the Rutgers basketball team does with Don Imus. Will they meet with him, and if they do, what will the individual girls say to him. I saw Al Sharpton with him on CNN last night, and Sharpton -- who can get up in anybody's face with the fiercest of them -- was unusually restrained. He was, actually, fairly close to what I mean when I say we need a third way to handle bullies, a way that quietly acknowledges the root of the bad behavior and shows, by example, that there's a better way to handle your fear. Imus is afraid of those female basketball players? You bet he is, no matter how long or how hard he might deny it.

And that's enough of this for now.

Coming soon: The Dark Matters