In general I agree, but I have one suggestion re: communication strategy.
I’ve thought similarly regarding the shared nature of the human condition and what that means for how we consider one another. But I’ve puzzled over how to properly share the idea, or rather the feeling, and experimented with different approaches.
So far, I’ve learned that once you start changing basic definitions of fundamental concepts, such as the self, you quickly lose others’ attention. This might be due in part to the prominence of that rhetorical pattern in a long history of mystic and gnostic traditions, for which it often seems confusion is the point, and “don’t ask me how i do it” is the answer (unless there is a “donation” for the instruction). For example, imagining “I as the cosmos” is fairly inaccessible to anyone who hasn’t spent the last few weeks stripping away layers of the self (or isn’t on at least some ayahuasca).
Martin Buber’s I and Thou spends a few hundred pages describing your idea, which boils down to (1) our notion of others (“thou,” the intimate version of “you”) being animated by an outward projection of self, and (2) our notion of self being constructed from inward reflections of ourselves in others’ eyes. Anthropomorphism, ascribing human personalities to animals, is an (otherwise curious) side effect of this distinctively human behavior.
As a social mechanic, it begets empathy and requires trust. Its antithesis is othering which always requires fear. It lends credence to the idea that the more you understand someone — their experiences, their motivations, their dreams — the harder it is to hate and the easier it is to love.
So if you’re looking for a way to communicate this notion of humanistic atonement (at-one-ment) to others, in a way they can use, consider how one might dispel fear and learn to trust.
In general I agree, but I have one suggestion re: communication strategy.
I’ve thought similarly regarding the shared nature of the human condition and what that means for how we consider one another. But I’ve puzzled over how to properly share the idea, or rather the feeling, and experimented with different approaches.
So far, I’ve learned that once you start changing basic definitions of fundamental concepts, such as the self, you quickly lose others’ attention. This might be due in part to the prominence of that rhetorical pattern in a long history of mystic and gnostic traditions, for which it often seems confusion is the point, and “don’t ask me how i do it” is the answer (unless there is a “donation” for the instruction). For example, imagining “I as the cosmos” is fairly inaccessible to anyone who hasn’t spent the last few weeks stripping away layers of the self (or isn’t on at least some ayahuasca).
Martin Buber’s I and Thou spends a few hundred pages describing your idea, which boils down to (1) our notion of others (“thou,” the intimate version of “you”) being animated by an outward projection of self, and (2) our notion of self being constructed from inward reflections of ourselves in others’ eyes. Anthropomorphism, ascribing human personalities to animals, is an (otherwise curious) side effect of this distinctively human behavior.
As a social mechanic, it begets empathy and requires trust. Its antithesis is othering which always requires fear. It lends credence to the idea that the more you understand someone — their experiences, their motivations, their dreams — the harder it is to hate and the easier it is to love.
So if you’re looking for a way to communicate this notion of humanistic atonement (at-one-ment) to others, in a way they can use, consider how one might dispel fear and learn to trust.