Of course, we might be talking about members of the Tea-Party, Radical Islamic extremists, Radical Christian extremists, or an ex-lover. The point is, we tend to de-humanize those with whom we disagree.

We tend to make them wrong.  Not just make their arguments wrong.  We make THEM wrong. And once we’ve made them wrong, made them less than fully human, then we can treat them like the animals they are.

So it might be good to remember that even though we think they are Orcs, they are actually human beings.  And it would be really good to remember that underneath it all, they probably just want to be happy.

Which brings us to the punchline of this posting.  Because I’ve found a way to make everybody happy.  To let everybody get exactly what they need to make everything all right.

Just click here.  And then click there.  It will be all right.

The recent terrorist attacks in Norway appear to be based in the same kind of thinking.  The following is from an article you might like to read in more detail.  The link it below.

Like many young men who search for some final battle between good and evil, Breivik was a dreamer of the absolute, who found his purpose in sacrificing himself for a cause greater than himself. In this, he resembles the extremist Jihadists he purports to despise, and like many of them, he seems to have been indoctrinated and then motivated into a medieval mindset through a quite modern source

via What Norway’s terror teaches us about Islamophobia and online hate | LabourList.org 2.0.2 | LabourList.org.

Life for Sukhvir Singh has been full of unease since 7:59 p.m. Nov. 24. That’s when Luis Vazquez climbed into the back seat.

Vazquez had been barred from the Apple Cup football game at the University of Washington because he had too much to drink. Police hailed a cab. Singh barely had time to greet the young man before Vazquez exploded, his fists, bites and choke holds assailing him as he drove south on Interstate 5.

Vazquez saw Singh’s lush beard and the cloth wrapped on his head and came to a drunken conclusion: “Iraqi terrorist!” he screamed.

Read the full article at: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Meet-the-opposite-of-a-terrorist-1271017.php#ixzz1SJurYUxv

This barrier can divide me from the rest of the world, or my group from other groups (e.g., whites vs. blacks), or my nation against another nation (USA vs. Iraq), or my religious group against another religious group (Lutherans vs. Baptists). Kindness is based on taking care of others, and so it means reaching across some divide, to the other side.

Think of the devastation a terrorist is willing to inflict. Nobody (well almost nobody) can be deliberately cruel over a period of time to somebody who is “kin,” to somebody they feel close to.  So a terrorist has to define the “others” as totally others.  They have to see them as not worthy of consideration.

The first step towards genocide is to dehumanize those you want to destroy.  So the attempted Nazi extermination of the Jews did not begin with the concentration camps.  It began with defining them. First an non-Aryan and thus not real Germans.  And then as less than human beings.

So being kind, the way we are thinking about it, asks us to expand our circles of concern, to take responsibility not just for our family, but for our neighbours. Not just for our friends, but for those we don’t know.  Not just of “us” for for “all of us.”

What is interesting is that performing acts of kindness helps us break down our conceptual wall of “us” and “them.”  When we donate money to the people from some foreign country that has been ravaged by a hurricane or earthquake, somehow we become closer to them, they become less foreign.

The takeaway of this is that we can make an effort to expand our circles of concern.  Think about those you care for, those you might think of family or as “close to you.”  And think of somebody who isn’t quite in your family, or isn’t really close enough to care for.  You can actually make the effort to include them in your circle of concern.  That might manifest as nothing more than biting your tongue when a colleague says something stupid, or gets on your nerves.

Think about what the opposite of that might be.  You might decide that not only do they get on your nerves, but they are assholes and should probably be fired.  Or taken to an extreme: fired on.

Actually, in real life what happens is you see what is, are impelled/motivated to do something of benefit, and then need to see what actually could be done that would be of help. Which can be called “waging peace.”

For example, you recognize that many people go hungry every day (seeing what is), and want to do something about it even though you don’t personally know these people (true kindness.)  So you decide to click on The Hunger Site every morning, when you first log onto your computer.  That might not seem like much, but tell that to the starfish.

Different faith traditions talk about waging peace in different ways.

• In Buddhism this is called “skillful means,” and it is always linked with insightto seeing what is.  One of the most interesting images is that of the Bodhisattva Avilokiteshvara – the Bodhisattva of Compassion.  He is often pictured as having 1000 arms, and on the hand of each arm is an eye.  The combination of seeing what is and waging peace.
• In Judaism there is the idea of a “mitzvah” as in “Bar Mitzvah.” It means “good deed” and in a Bar Mitzvah the young person’s first (Bar) good deed is to read from the Torah.
• Christians have good works – and some debate about if you get into heaven through faith or good works. And of course, there is the Golden Rule.

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you

Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.

Do unto others as they need.

What this implies is that in order to benefit others we have to not only want to be of help, we need to know what they need.

We do this all the time, but rather than focus on what we call people who are in prisons, I’d like to direct your attention to “Good Vibrations,” an education project featuring Javanese gamelan, (that) has taken place in different formats in a variety of prisons in England and Scotland since 2003.  This is another DailyKos posting, and the gist of the article is that teaching inmates to play the gamelan is a useful intervention.

What’s special about Gamelan

Gamelan (Indonesian bronze percussion orchestra) is special for a number of reasons including:

• It is quick and easy to learn the basics and a beginners group will quickly get good results.
• It provides an extremely accessible creative experience (and we believe that the opportunity for creative expression is essential for everyone).
• It is exceptionally communal: there is no overall leader or conductor, everyone’s contribution is equally important, you have to listen to everyone else to fit your part in; and to a large degree, the shape and content of a piece is determined by a group as it goes along.
• It is endlessly flexible: it is adaptable for all abilities even within the same group; there are countless routes for progression and development.
• It allows for real diversity: it brings people together from diverse groups and allows for diverse ideas and approaches.
• There is evidence that the sound of gongs and similar instruments is therapeutic.
• Playing Gamelan creates the state of “flow” (total absorption in a task, and the ongoing satisfaction and loss of self-consciousness that brings) which is essential to a person’s well-being.

This morning I found the following post on Daily Kos.  I’ve pasted in part of the posting, but I urge you to read Did Osama bin Laden Win? in its entirety.

What happened to the United States on 9/11 was no simple thing. It was an enormous tragedy that played out over several states and touched millions of lives. The impact was deep, immediate, and painful. It was an acute infection of horror.

What happened in the wake of 9/11 was something altogether different. In the end, it’s what came after that is the biggest cause of prolonged suffering.

As awful as 9/11 was, it was not a threat to our survival as a nation, not a threat to our ability to project American power around the world, not a threat to our economy, not a threat to our freedoms. However, our response to 9/11 endangered all those things. It still does. Like an immune system eating itself from the feet up, we’ve surrendered thousands of lives, expended trillions of dollars both at home and abroad, abandoned friends, embraced enemies, and tolerated previously intolerable insults to privacy. 

Our reaction to terrorism isn’t unique. Similar overactive immune responses of government are present at several levels. For example, preventing violence and maintaining order definitely have benefits, but in the name of getting “tough on crime”, we’ve escalated our response until we’ve come close to bankrupting many states and put a significant portion of the population behind bars. At the same time we’ve created a pervasive, violent criminal class and eliminated programs of remediation that had actually proven to be effective. Intent on punishment, we forgot the purpose of the whole system.

This seems to be a good argument for thinking about doing the opposites.

The basic stance of meditation, as I understand it, is that most of our problems originate in our own minds, not in the external world.  Which seems rather different from the terrorist’s assumption that the problem is with “the enemy,” whoever the enemy happens to be.

In meditation the goal is to tame your own mind.

In terrorism the goal is to destroy your external enemy.

I can’t embed the video, http://vimeo.com/19563862 but if you click on the link,you should get it.

We’re much too young to deal with these problems, but they keep thrusting themselves on us until finally, we’re forced to think up a solution, though most of the time our solutions crumble when faced with the facts. It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams, and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I’ll be able to realize them! 

I share this because in the weeks immediately after 9/11/2001, many of us felt the same despair Anne felt.  And for at least some of us, the hope she shares in her diary was hard to come by.  And ten years latter, when we look around, it can still be hard to come by.

This blog is meant to remind us of our better angels, and hasten the day Anne was waiting for.

Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Every year storms washed hundreds of starfish onto the beach.  If left on the beach, they will dry out and die.  One day a young boy was visiting the beach with his family and after such as a storm had subsided, he went down to the shoreline.  He saw thousands of starfish littering the beach, as far down the beach as he could see.

He walked down to where they were, and stared at one.  There were ten or fifteen within reach, but he looked at one in particular. He was a little afraid of it, since it looked sort of sharp edged, but he picked it up, and tossed it back into the sea.

Then he picked up another one and tossed it back into the sea.  Then another, and another.  He spent the better part of an hour picking up starfish and tossing back into the sea, where they would be safe.

Then an older man came up to him and asked “What are you doing”

“I’m rescuing starfish,” the boy explained.  “If they stay on the shore they will dry up and die.  If I toss them back, they will be able to live.”

“But that’s stupid,” said the older man.  “You can’t possible save all the starfish on this beach. There must be thousands.”

The boy picked up another starfish, held it up for the man to see, and said “Tell that to this one.”  And he tossed it back into the sea.

The man walked on, and the boy continued to rescue his starfish.  A few minutes latter the boy looked back towards the man.  And the older man was standing at the shore, looking down at a clump of starfish.

Wondering what to do.