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The Banning of Helene

Last post 07-11-2007, 3:30 AM by vulgan. 22 replies.
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  •  05-24-2007, 2:03 PM 23243

    The Banning of Helene

    It has just come to my attention that Helene has been banned from posting in the Multiplex, which makes this plex oneless multi, for not staying on topic with her posts within the threads.  It's true that the mind of Helene was at the very least a multitasking unit that kept its own track, and did not feel oblgated for the most part to conform or censor itself.  Sighs...I for one will miss her.  She often times with the heart of a child allowed me to not take myself so seriously, to lighten u just a bit.  Don't get me wrong, it often times annoyed the heck out of me too, so much so that I asked her to keep her off topic posts to another thread that I started just for her to make such off topic posts when whe could manage to restrain herself and get their.  It was called Conversations with Helene.  I didn't feel obligated to always respond to her even in the post designated just for her, or even read her posts  promptly, but I found myself going back and reading them, even when I had skipped over them.  I found myself searching within for as much wisdom and compassion as I could possibly muster at any one time in order not be exclusive of her, to not be exclusive of anyone.  It's hard, but it seemed to me a worthwhile endevour.  She was older than me, and I have a certain fondness for old people.  I have often defended grandparents to their grandchildren by saying that I hope to someday be so old, to have been around the block for so long that I was liberated from any extrnal constraint, that in my oldness it would be acceptable to be grumpy even and certainly not politically correct.  I also realized that older people only get so far in the evolution of their own consciousness before they start reverting back downard towards the source from which they came and the process of involution will begin when they die.  Big Heart Big Mind Integral Eros Agape 2nd and 3rd tier vmemes, these things speak to me of an inclusivity of even those who are exclusive, and living in a state of fragmented flatland.  I have noticed a tendency for many of you to be exclusive, to simply refrain from responding to posts written by certain individuals because you are making judgemnets that are exclusive rather than qualitative distinctions that are already a part of your own self and shadow.  My heart is saddened by the fact that a thread about a poll on what you favorite Ken Wilber Book is would be the final straw to getting someon excluded.  Afterall, that's coffeeshop talk, and it is not violence against ones person.  Their's no torture, or murder going on.  No war or genocide, just some words that you can choose to take to heart or choose to ignore, but the your choice is where the power of those words lie.  If you choose to take them to heart, then often times you risk disempowering your own true self, and if you choose to ignore them at the very least you maintain you own empowerment, but perhaps in you're ignoring the speaker you disempower them, and curiously enough their is a third choice where one can engage in conversation, no matter how off topic, and still be empowred to conversate and not disempower the speaker.  Anyways, the Ban of Helene saddens me.  The fact that I've read other posts where, interestingly enough, other women have felt excluded from the integral perspective and integral embrace, and that even I myself have felt in some cases blatently ignored or a post ignored because only certain someones replied, saddens me as well.  WE are not all wise, all compassionate, all the time either because we have not evolved to relise that we are or because we have made the choice not to be.  Which is it with you?  Unevolved or Choice to be unwise and uncompassionate?

    Phoenix Rising Higher
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  •  05-24-2007, 3:14 PM 23252 in reply to 23243

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    Thanks, this was a great post, and a valuable perspective. I feel like your presence actually helped the situation a lot, she would have been banned sooner most likely... it just didn’t work out. I am saddened too. There are so many other ways it might have ended, but this is how it did. The decision was made not just based on that last little discussion, it was based on the context in which that arose. Looking at everyone’s opinion on the situation has been incredibly valuable, but after trying to take them all into account, I personally feel this was the best decision, not perfect obviously, but the best one feasible. We offered her a personal blog on the multiplex which she turned down, and banning her to the seventh circle would only work with her cooperation, and that failed.


    I’m truly sorry it ended up this way. If you are worried about censorship on here, all I can say is you have to trust the intentions put forth.  


    Peace


    Lindsey

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  •  05-24-2007, 4:13 PM 23253 in reply to 23252

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    Does anyone have Helene's e-mail address?  If so, please ask her first if it is okay that I have it, and then send it to my inbox.  Thank you.
    eros y agape
    jess

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  •  05-24-2007, 5:07 PM 23255 in reply to 23253

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    She was offered a personal blog?

    Do I get one if one if I start to behave badly?





    "With whom or with what are you in communion at this moment?"
    . . ."I?" he replied, almost mechanically. "Why not with anyone or anything."
    "You must be a marvel . . . if you are able to continue in that state for long."
    -Constantin Stanislavsky
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  •  05-24-2007, 5:14 PM 23256 in reply to 23255

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    lol, I believe you can blog all you want, without the offer, on other sites, with no need to behave badly.  I wonder if she felt like this offer was equivalant to building her a room and seding her to it?  I wonder how multiplex banishment affects her conscous evolvement or de-evolvment?  I wonder how it affects ours?

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  •  05-24-2007, 6:18 PM 23260 in reply to 23256

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    Hi - Jess. I notice that I'm feeling a bit timid, ambivalent and confused about this topic - and I think these questions you pose are good ones. Thanks for speaking out. Ambo

    Ambo Suno
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  •  05-24-2007, 6:21 PM 23262 in reply to 23243

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    Hey jess

    I originally posted this in the Frothy Edge, but i thought it was appropriate here too.  Forgive me for duplicating a post.  I hope i don't get banned....


    Hey there Jess--i can see that you are understandably upset about our decision to remove Helene from the forum, it was not an easy decision to make and i've always been concerned about the precedent banning her might set with the forum community.  This was actually the primary reason that it took so long to ban her in the first place: it was my own desire to be as inclusive as possible, as well as to find a way to work through the problem with Helene rather than kicking her off outright.  It was my hesitation which, in the end, ended up driving our most active members out of this forum and into Zaadz, which is the real reason this place has been somewhat of a ghost town lately.

    And just as i take personal responsibility for not banning Helene when i was originally asked, so do i take responsibility for banning her now.  It was, in the end, my decision, which was then executed by Member Services.  I am in the unfortunate position of being accountable to a) Helene detractors, b) Helene sympathizers, and c) the community as a whole.  After considering all necessary perspectives, i made a decision which i felt most closely aligns with option c.

    If you would like me to rehash all the reasons why i made this decision, i can do so for you.  But it's really nothing most people don't already know--we have tried for months to work with Helene, asking her to keep her posts relavant to the threads, banishing her to the Seventh Circle when she refused to do this, letting her back in only when she assured us she would change her behavior, and then watching as she did the same exact thing all over again.  It has been an extremely frustrating and circular process, and at some point the hammer simply had to drop.  Too much energy has been squandored on both the administrative side and (more importantly) the community, because of a single disruptive person--sweet as she certainly was.  Please recall that, until recently, this forum's most popular thread EVER was titled "Banish Helene to the Seventh Circle, please" and became a major drain for the entire forum culture--i weep to think of all the beautiful posts that could-have-been, if only we hadn't spent so much time eclipsed by such an unhealthy energetic fixation as the Helene controversy.  Again, my responsibility, and if any of you need someone to be angry with for any of this--from whatever direction--i am your guy.

    Anyway, returning to my initial concern, which was about the precedent this sets for the community, a concern which obviously echoes through your heart as well, as evidenced by the somewhat dystopia-tinged terminology of your last post.  To be clear, here are the facts:

    -Helene was the third person in Integral Institute history to be banned. 
      a) The first was Pi, who was relentlessly harassing some of our forum members, going so far as to post extremely personal information about one member in particular.  We've never had to ban anyone before, so we tried our best to reconcile the problem, going so far as to arrange mediation sessions between Pi and the member involved, moderated by Diane Hamilton, of all people.
      b) The second was Girard, who became verbally abusive to forum members, to Nomali, and to myself.  This wasn't as difficult a decision to make; no one messes with my Nomali =)

    -No one's posts have ever been deleted due to banning, nor will they.  The slope is really not very slippery at all.  Only duplicate posts and those flagged by the abuse button are removed, and always with the author being notified.

    -Banishment, like war, is something we consider to be an absolute last resort, after all diplomatic attempts have been exhausted.  Therefore, also like war, it is an option we will always keep on the table.

    -This is an incusive community, as cliquey as it might sometimes get.  The tenet is, after all, "transcend and include"--but there is no real "transclusion" without the simultaneous need to "negate and preserve".  This is not a flat, green, one-size-fits-all inclusivity, to the detriment of the whole.  We do not include Hitler.  (Something inside me just laughed at the thought of even comparing Helene to Hitler =) 

    The point is, just like the U.S. Constitution, everyone has the right to be whoever they want to be--they just can't behave any way they want!  As this is an intentional community of people, all more or less coming from a similar altitude, there is a collective code of conduct which actually emerges from the community itself and is then institutionalized/enforced by us.  And it is actually a LOT "softer" than that last sentence might indicate, what with all the mentions of codes, institutions, and enforcement  =)  For most, this ethic is unspoken, just a natural part of the discourse.  For others, it needs to be spelled out.  We are happy to spell it out, we are happy to help people understand it, we are happy to work with people as they slowly internalize the overall ethics of integral communication.  But we can't just look the other way when this ethic is so outright transgressed, over and over again.

    So there it is--i sincerely hope all of this helps in some way.

    I love you all.
    Corey




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    Brand Manager, Integral Naked
    Audio Manager, Integral Institute
    Managing Editor, KenWilber.com
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  •  05-24-2007, 6:28 PM 23263 in reply to 23262

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    Hi, Jess, I was probably the first person to respond to your post, but I did so by sending you a private message rather than posting online.  If you'll check your inbox, you'll find it there.  And you'll see it expresses pretty much the same viewpoint as others' here have expressed:  banning Helen was NOT the first option on the table, nor one anyone took lightly.  A number of us resisted it for sometime, until she proved that she had no intention of modifying her behavior at all or respecting other forum member's feelings and wishes, even after an initial (and long-time-in-coming) intervention by I-I forum management.  I personally believe we're in good hands with the likes of Lindsey and Corey at the helm, neither of whom is likely to start banning people as a regular practice, and who brought a lot heart and consideration into even doing it in this case.

    Best wishes,

    Balder


    May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

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  •  05-24-2007, 10:32 PM 23270 in reply to 23263

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    Sighs...my children are disruptive too, should I ban them? should I allow them to be banned? You're response is scary...it says that if you don't conform, reguardless that you are non-violent, then "the hammer will drop".  If Helene was disruptive it is because all of you allowed her to disrupt you, afterall to be disrupted is to give your power to the disrupter.  Does that make any sense?  Her disruption actually taught me that lesson.  Now we are not talking about Hitler here in the multiplex, nor are we talking about Helene having committed any acts of violence, and war, well for it to remain an option on the table when it is not brought to your doorstep is a problem, perhaps even a pathology.  I acknowledge that their will b times when indivuals will be pathologically aggressive and abusive and no one wants to include such a person, but disruptive because they can't stay on topic?  This is all together different.  We have a choice to not read her post in a thread, a choice to not respond to her post in a thread, excuse me, we had that  choice, now we have no choice, because however many of the multiplex could not choose to pass over her post or could not choose to not respond to her post and proceeded to choose to complain until you felt compelled to become exclusionary yourself.  I would go so far as to say that they stole your own power to choose not to read her post or respond to her post, so much so that you eliminated that very choice for those of us who were quite capable of doing so.  I don't know what else really to say on the issue, but this multiplex is definately losing its integral diversity and thats why the number of participants is dropping.  It is not just an issue of Helene.  There are many voices of dissent and unintegrated views on this site, and many who are feeling alienated by them.  I try to be as inclusve as I can, but their are times where I've been read as being exclusive.  It was not my intention I assure you.  There will be other Helenes.  They are the most lonely old people out their that will be looking for a place that their voice is heard, even though it will come from many directions and not neccessarily the ones we would pick and choose, but significant none the less.  I'm not advocating that you choose to revoke you choice to deny my choice only pointing out that you did, and how that made me feel, and how perhaps others feel.  Interesting how you use term sympathizer, since to be compassionate is to feel deep sympathy. I'm questioning the wisdom of denying the choice of this compassion to an individual who obviously needed it.  Remember, when you get old you also have the potential to regress back to the very stages that will leave you unable to stay on topic in a thread, as the red vmeme is comprised not only of the young, but also of the very old whom may be suffering from pathological disorders such as alzheimers, dementia, and senility, but between boughts of their pathology their will still remain clarity that will guide ones evolution in wisdom and compassion.

    eros y agape
    jess

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  •  05-24-2007, 10:46 PM 23274 in reply to 23270

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    This was in response to a private e-mail.

      Don't get me wrong.  I do feel though that Helene needed this multiplex, that she was most likely unable to conform to the rules, that perhaps even chose not to conform to the rules and be antagonistic.  If she was unable to conform then she was coming from a lower vmeme that we all most likely will regress to as we get older, a vmeme that we all have within us.  If she was antgonist and unwilling to conform she could very well have been coming from and 2nd or third tier vmeme which does not feel the obligations of conformitiy.  Either way, we missed the point of inclusivity.  Missed the point of embrassing all vmemes that are not violent.  Missed the point of personal empowerment.  That is my point.  I'm not trying to persecute anyone for missing the point, in fact, we often learn from missing the point.  A wise indian proverb says that good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement.  This is a lesson of inclusivity and embracing the fact that others do not always conform.  This is a lesson about wether or not we have it in ourselves to still embrace them when they do not.  I believe we failed that lesson, and need to rethink it so as to not repeat exclusivity again later in the future as we will encounter it again and again and again as this multiplex grows.  Lets not be exclusive to non-violent individuals because they do not have a sound blue vmeme present in there being wether they are below it or above it.

    eros y agape
    jess
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  •  05-25-2007, 7:08 AM 23287 in reply to 23274

    Re: The Banning of Helene


    jess,

    reading through all this i don't think anyone is denying the value of your perspective. that is what has been so agonizing about this.

    actually, i need to qualify that. we value your perspective except for its performative contradiction, to put it aqal-technically. it's a perspective that claims to be more inclusive than anyone else's, more sensitive, more caring, but it would exclude all other perspectives, balder's, corey's, lindsey's, etc. etc. etc., which, taken together, i feel include everything from your perspective except its exclusivity.

    am i making any sense?

    ralph



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  •  05-25-2007, 11:16 AM 23300 in reply to 23270

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    "If Helene was disruptive it is because all of you allowed her to disrupt you, afterall to be disrupted is to give your power to the disrupter.  Does that make any sense?"

    Actually, this doesn't make much sense to me Jess.  I think disruption is more than just your own perception.  Or rather, there are real, right-quadrant correlations to your own sense of disruption.  There was a mass exodus of IN members who left the forum and started a new one somewhere else.  This is a very real disruption, not just a perception.  I remember one member who tried to initiate a conversation here several months ago, starting a new thread (i can't remember which one) and Helene ended up hijacking the thread, replying with twelve of her own somewhat rambling posts, all of which were completely off-topic.  As a result, no one else ever responded to the member's inquiry.  This is such a tactile example of "disruption"--Helene became known as the "thread-killer."  If so many people were feeling so disrupted, to the point that they felt a need to leave the forum altogether, then surely you can concede that there was a real problem here.  You were able to skip through her posts, without effecting your sense of the flow of the conversation.  But the vast majority of our most frequent (and most brilliant) posters couldn't.  And that should tell you something....

    We cannot allow our desire to be inclusive to betray the unspoken mission statement of the Integral Movement: bringing the most depth to the most span.  If we do, we run the risk of pathological communion, at the expense of the whole.

    In terms of whether you should "ban" your children when they are being disruptive--well, you have the benefit of being able to see steady incremential growth within your children.  If they are acting disruptive, you discipline them and put them in line (or at least i hope you do), and eventually they internalize your perspective and establish a real sense of right and wrong, or at least learns what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior.  If you didn't have that feedback of constant growth in your own children, and they continued to act like a 3-year-old even when they hit their sixteenth birthday, well then yes perhaps you would "ban" them by sending them to military school or catholic school.

    We didn't have the luxury of witnessing any sort of growth with Helene.  As i said, all diplomatic attempts to work with her on this failed, and failed miserably.  Do you really think we should have all just turned our collective head the other way, and allowed her to continue disrupting the community, without any sort of recourse or consequences for her actions?

    Anyway, i am happy to continue processing this with you.  You might not ever agree with the decision, but i at least want you to understand it, and all the history with Helene that preceded your own membership, which informed this decision.

    With a heavy heart,
    Corey

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    Brand Manager, Integral Naked
    Audio Manager, Integral Institute
    Managing Editor, KenWilber.com
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  •  05-25-2007, 6:43 PM 23314 in reply to 23300

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    This Post is my attempt to share where I am coming from.   At this time I am working on looking at "Idiot Compassion" since I tend to lean toward compassion most of the time.   This thinking has been tested because of my daughter's problems with addiction.  The opposing factors are those who believe that she should go to jail for her crimes.  (stealing to get the drugs, becoming violent since she is bi-polar ). Without going into details, which are very sad .  The men in the family -father and oldest son, a lawyer felt strongly that jail must be done for the crime.  I agreed in a sense but I detested thier seeming lack of  compassion for her challenges and struggles and I believe in the re-hab centers which we do not have enough of nor are some of them having results because they are limited.  She also resents lectures from her father and needs him at the same time.  And there have bee a few we know where jail has been the factor for healing.   I was taking a look at all of my issues and realized that the crimes did need to be accounted for depending on the attitude .  She was getting more and more less acountable and saying "I am sorry" without being specific or making restitution.  The fear of her killing herself or another person was an issue and where the "idiot compassion" on my part had the most weight for me to look carefully.  This is  short version.   I happened to listen to the tape on BMI from the Kosmos as I mentioned before. 

    No we are not talking about war with this situation but  I tried to shake it down to rules in general.  Ken says that he does not see the UN becoming the force it should be for maybe 1000 yrs. but that the idea was a good thing.  I am fairly sure the l000 years is correct.  I also caught up with the Marianne Williams interview with Bert Pardee (he is so good at that) and her attitude that we can fix it all very soon if we do certain things sounded as if we can take care of genicide and all the other horrific ways people are being treated fairly quickly .  I cannot have a perspective that leans on my intuition and I do.  She seems to have a very quick and sure dependence on the course in Miracles and states that we can because of the MIracles cutting thru

    everything.  Her sureness has no consolation for me and her voice and her maybe noting that Bert is asking such tought questions may mean he does not agree with her.  He is kind and speaks her language to find out how she thinks.  So once again we have two sides or two perspectives.   I tend to think more like Ken since he has backed his ideas up with the growth and development and evolving and not just Miracles or Miracles at all.  And Mary Ann comes off very brittle .  That is just my opinion.  The reason for saying this is that what Ken is saying is that when we get to this place of the UN being the Police Force of the world, he then goes into what Corey has said about rules etc.  People will alwalys want to steal our stuff. And some will just want to cause drama and chaos.  Disruption- whatever it takes to make and upet which is usually a set up  etc.  So as I tried to find my own solutions to action with these different happening, I did start thinking about Depth and Span.

    I liked Helene and I have much patience with stuff like that since I feel that I have to deal with much more serious problems and I also feel that obsessive rule lovers are the ones who are more prone to be like Hitler.  (perfect world like he wanted).  I could overlook what I did not always want to read and would be amazed when she was right on target or had a lightness that worked.   However, when the tangents started,  I wondered what to calll that.   I said to her once.  "YOU do not seem to get out very often"  She said  "When I can get a ride."  I never thought of her as old and was shocked to find out that may have been true.  I am 71 and know that people will respond to the 19 year old in me and also to being 71.  Sorry but the age thing does not work for me.  A man mixed my paint once wrong 2x.  I took it backand they said he was old.  My time had been taken/stolen and so I told the guy

    that I did not care about age, the paint should have been mixed right.  Of course I believe that there is an age when we want say, a President to be strong and virile with good health and we also want wisdom which comes from experience and intelligence.  So age is looked at but Helene did not seem "elderly" unless she was wearing a mask of youth, somehow.  The point is that she did not want to follow the rules.  It took me awhile and some were so helpful and others were not there for me.

    That is life.  Helene was not going to follow the rules and there have to be a few or as has been said, a new way of doing and ways were tried even before "Conversations with Helene" was started.   I don't think she ever explained or apoligized and only came back with smart remarks etc. about her obnoxious ways of treating the Forums.  You might say she was giving everyone the Finger.  That is what it can feel like.  So as I try to see the whole picture or the middle of the road, I see that their are many many ways that I have to work these issues out.  It is not as abortion or war or banishment to Siberia.  Still it is not easy and I think the decision makers deserve some thanks for the time they take with this and I am all for compassion which everyone has shown at some time.   If she hadn't constantly seemed to delight in her self involvement and her "Fuck You I am going to do it my way" perhaps it could be different.  What threw me was the way she would change when given some attention that was no nonsense.  She would come back like a person who wanted to play right.  But then it would backfire.   All this time and energy is another reason for me to learn to look at Depth and Span in the so called

    small ways because it applys in so many ways.  I hope I have pulled this together in a way that makes some sense.  I cared about her.  I did not care as much when she

    became a real pest even tho I could jump over her Posts in a heart beat.  It came down to the message she was sending.  That she would do what she wanted to do, no matter what.  That just doesn't work and it is a small war.  I say this all the time to my family.  Communication has to be clear.  If not, that is how wars are started.

    I still lliked my suggestion to review that tape and then make a thread.  There is so much material and those who want to make discoveries that may lead to future discoveries can have a thread and so on.  I just do not want to start a Thread.  Later Pattye

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  •  05-26-2007, 3:59 PM 23359 in reply to 23314

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    Hi Pattye,
        Sighs...you don't come off as being old either Pattye...Idiot Compassion is double speak at best...to be an idiot is to be ignorant to be less intelligent and then to feel deep sympathy for another is compassion, so the term "idiot compassion" is either deep sympathy for an idiot or an idot feeling deep sympathy.  I'm not buying into that at all.  It's ad hominum and double speak.  To be able to truely feel deep sympathy for another we have already discovered thru spiral dynamics and that wonderful vmeme scale of conscious evolutionary stages that happen in each individual and each culture that to feel this deep sympathy is to be able to at the very least take on the role of another.  Irmeli defined comapssion in Finnish as also be inclusive of the action empathy.  Idiots don't do this.  Idiots do however take the half truths of exclusive fenatics say like Hitler then propogate them into haulocausts, and yet they feel no compassion...I know it is defined more along the lines of feeding a man a fish verses teaching him how to fish, but even if you teach a man to fish, you might still need to give him a fishing pole and a tackle box, some lures, and some bait, or what you've taught him is useless.
        With in the vmeme structure of stages their are at least one vmeme in first tier and another in second tier that are nonconformist.  They don't follow rules.  KW talks about the question "Is it okay for a man to steal medicine for his wife if he can't afford it."   The answer was first yes, then no, then yes again.  (I'll look for that video.)  Wether or not Helene is coming from a1st tier nonconformist or a 2nd tier nonconformist or perhaps a deevolving 2nd tier to 1st tier nonconformist we the multiplex missed the bar of our own empowerment and inclusivity because she was a nonvilent nonconformist, and boy did she include everybody and everything.
        On another note, Pattye, I do feel for what you're goin thru with your daughter.  I also have troubles with my husband at times.  I was really questioning my faith on whole over it, but I realized I was giving him my power, verses him taking it.  I realized that he had no power over me at all.  It liberated me to be compassionately wise, and to speak to him from my highest self, and though there is still much work to do, and the possibility that things will not work out that I too will have to exclude him  I'm careful to recognize in myself first that I do have repressed anger projected as fear, and that I really have to look at the values and the qualitative distinctions before I make rash judgements coming from my shadow.  Wars are started by those shadow judgments that people try to pass off as qualitative distinctions and facts, and that's what's been happening here.  They pass off there powerlessness to control a nonconformaist as disruption and the need to be exclusive and people bought it. I remember you wondering to me about if you were a thread killer, remember?  But really a thread killer is someone who makes the choice to longer respond for whatever reason.  Their reason is no the cause of their action, but a justification of their action, because if they were coming from their highest self, they would see that the original posts still needed to be addressed then address it and what really kills a thread is that either they are not in their highest self or that the post was allready answered from the highest self and their was no need to post a reply.  Don't buy into their judgements Pattye.  They had they power to act differently and they didn't.  They have had the power to not leave anyone feeling excluded in the multiplex and they have.  Their is some picking and choosing clicks going on and only a few that are not being exclusive all together.

    hope things get better for you in your persnal affairs.  i know just how difficult that can be.
    eros y agape.


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  •  05-27-2007, 12:31 PM 23402 in reply to 23359

    Re: The Banning of Helene

    Hey there Jess--i just wanted to clarify that saying that someone is coming from a place of "idiot compassion" does not mean anyone involved is an actual idiot.  It's really not an ad hominem attack at all, it is a technical term introduced by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to describe the act of giving someone what they want, rather than what they need, in the name of compassion.

    Forgive me if you already know all this; I just want to make sure you don't think anyone is actually calling you, or anyone else, an idiot.

    From Wikipedia:

    "Idiot compassion", in the words of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, is "the highly conceptualized idea that you want to do good". It refers to the tendency of spiritual practitioners (particularly Buddhists) to give people what they want as opposed to what they need, all in the name of being nice and compassionate.

    Complimenting someone's poor artwork in order not to hurt their feelings, rather than expressing your true opinion and helping them grow, would be an example of idiot compassion. In this case, the truly compassionate action is to help the other person understand what they did right, and what they need to improve - even though this may leave them feeling hurt and dejected for days or even weeks. However, application of this form of compassion should be carefully evaluated and calibrated given each circumstance, and should not be applied to inflict damage indirectly. A common misapplication of Idiot compassion could include those who would enable an individual or group with a temporary solution to their problem, in order to give them what they want instead of having the courage, insight, or other, to do what is necessary to help the individual or group in the long run.

    The phrase was first used by Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and is sometimes used in Buddhist circles. It is used extensively by Ken Wilber and practitioners of his Integral philosophy, as well as by spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen.



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