People responded! I am so happy!
I thought this would float off into the ether. Maybe there's something to this interdependent thing....
Mercutio said:
The notion of autonomous humans, acting freely and independently of one another, is fiction. We are interdependent, and when we recognise this and accept our responsibility (no, as said above there is no "obligation" to do this, but I suspect that having an accurate picture of one's world is almost always better than having an inaccurate picture), we give ourselves the tools to make positive change. We see that Donne was right, that "no man is an island..." and we are better for it.
See, that's what I thought - how about the example that was raised in a Paltalk discussion that essentially boiled down to 'people who gain emotional gratification (or more accurately, owned pets, took care of their pets well and gained emotional support from owning pets) from pets are not emotionally mature / are not really behaving in the manner that defines them as being truly human'?
My view was that if you were an owner of a pet and took care of them then you were not only a 'humane' person but that the idea that you could exist with no human interaction at all (autonomous) wasn't really possible in this day and age. That everyone has residual.... impact?... upon themselves from other people and that this is somehow 'carried' with them. But this is starting to go into semantics and I'm digressing...
CFLarsen said:
When it jeopardizes the health and lives of people.
Yes, but what actually defines the 'health' and what is defined by as 'lives'? Argh, bloody language...
As sceptics / skeptics (ah, language, language...) where do you draw the line? Is it all just personal bugbears that you seize upon and say 'right, homeopathy, it's the last straw, I shall devote my efforts to this' or 'I have had x experiences with hauntings, it shall be my main focus', etc. etc.?
I could mention the practices of a variety of things (and we all know so many.....) and claim that they are challenging several notions of what is 'good health' and what is a 'good life'... but then how does one categorise the severity of these practices.... unless I take Darat's path and say 'does it affect me'? And what if it naturally cannot help influencing me as an interdependent person? Is there ever truly a line? I could look at some of the posts on this board, for example, and say 'they are on the other side of the planet, pah!' and turn off the computer. And yet I choose not to and respond to them in an effort to assuage, even in a small way. And that's only a small example.
Garrette says:
Garrette said:
No one has a right to be treated respectfully.
No one has a right to have their opinions, beliefs, conclusions, or viewpoints accepted.
No one has a right to go unchallenged.
But if your goal is something other than self-satisfaction, you must adopt the most difficult course of all in tailoring your response and analyze the situation and do that which is effective instead of emotive.
In a more personal example:
I could (and in doing so, break my employment contract according to what the very nice people in HR told me in a rather amusing and enlightening conversation), possibly define what is 'good health' and a 'good life' for my students involves not being taught what I consider to be fanciful and fictional notions of a supreme being. I could easily tally up, after investigating with relative ease, the concepts that are being taught to them and come to a decision that I could justify as being perfectly rational. Does this make it right? Certainly I have dealt with more challenging employment situations of a similar sort before with inaction and by not taking action, implied consent that this happens. Why change now (and I think I could answer that with my next case example, anyway)?
This then goes back to the statements that Garrette made and I may then conclude that what I am doing is possibly more emotive, self satisfying and eventually more destructive than effective.... and do I have the right to do this when I am not the parents of the children who let them go to this institution with the full knowledge of what is being taught there?
I could just leave. But then what of those students who said that I was one of the few they felt they didn't feel uncomfortable with, when they did raise questions about their different beliefs in opposition to the mainstream Christianity being espoused (or even burgeoning realisation that perhaps they didn't have to have a belief in any religion)? Am I then helping what I deride by what could be defined as a different form of 'inaction' - by not being there as a sympathetic ear?
With the case of an individual that has raised my concerns in a similar way - where a child has been told by parents that they are cursed with a demon and that they are to refuse any medical attention as it may interfere with their defeat of said demon... again, I have Garrette's overview come to mind, where I cannot move on the issue as I am up against some rather odd cultural beliefs... that I don't respect and that the school also does not accept (and they're not mainstream cultural or religious beliefs, I assure you). We have eventually come to the conclusion that we cannot implicitly support by standing back and doing nothing but 'let' this happen. It's going to result in this student being told to leave our institution as we cannot deal with it the way the parents want to and I'd imagine that it will not be long now before that student is gone.
Darat says 'adults no, children yes' - so do / should I interfere in that case? This student is still classed as a minor in our state. And again, I ponder Garrette's summation and wonder about the benefit / negative ratio. And in that case, I took action. So why in one case and not the other - is the individual somehow more important than the many?
Are there cases where you have found that you stand for one thing but let slide the other because the challenge seems too much? Or does the notion of 'there is no autonomy' somehow help?
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