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Post by biglin on May 27, 2011 9:01:51 GMT -5
Sometimes in life we all do wrong things. Sometimes we fall out with other people.
It might be our fault, or theirs, or a bit of both.
Often it's just a misunderstanding.
Anyway, there comes a time when reconciliation has to be at least considered.
In South Africa Nelson Mandela set up a Truth and Reconciliation programmed which did a lot to defuse the understandable bitterness between whites and blacks and is a big part of why South Africa has not turned into Zimbabwe.
In Northern Ireland similar moves on a smaller scale have taken place between the communities.
Reconciliation is one of those aspects of human life which makes old hatreds fade and eventually die.
Germany, for instance, is one of the strongest European allies of Israel in spite of (maybe partly because of) the appalling treatment of the Jews under Hitler.
Quite a few countries have tried something similar and on an individual basis humans become reconciled every day.
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Post by Erasmus on Jul 4, 2011 20:29:41 GMT -5
It says something about different cultural attitudes. For some, the emphasis is on revenge, even when that leads to an eternal feud because right and wrong are not the issue, more primitive feelings about propitiating spilt blood are regardless of who was right or wrong, or even if the cause was a pure accident. At the same time, once the harm this kind of feuding can do to social cohesion became evident (or there was enough sense of a social cohesion to be harmed), reconciliation through compensation became regularized.
It even applied to national treason. While later times usually executed traitors, Anglo-Saxons and Norman-Plantagenates regularly accepted war against a king thought to be interfering too much in local affairs and as regularly came to terms with the rebel swearing allegiance - until next time. It was more likely for a captured foreign invader to be executed than a rebel. Notable cases in English history are Earl Godwin of Wessex and his sons falling out with the king and each other and son Harold as King of the English fighting his brother Tostig on the side of Harald Hardrada of Norway, and Henry II spending most of his life fighting his sons Henry (died of fever aged 21 on campaign with French help against his father while officially co-King of England) and Richard, his successor.
The best account I know of this mixture of blood-feud and reconciliation until everything breaks down in open war is the 60-year epic Njálssaga where the original main men who are friends desperately try to negotiate extra compensation for a succession of killings (it is only murder if you do not tell the neighbours that you have done it, and face the consequences) to the fury of their sons and their wives who immediately commission a revenge killing since the Law is agreement between landowning men and cannot hold women account, though women have far more authority than once Christianity is adopted in the middle of it.
The saga starts with a man's return from Norway where the Queen has bewitched him into her bed, to find that the news has preceded him and his wife divorced him and gone home without returning the dowry as the law requires. It ends with all main characters dead and their heirs to the feud accepting hospitality after pilgrimage to Rome.
So compensation and reconciliation is in our history, but it lapsed. In part, it lapsed because the compensation part allowed the rich to buy their way out of crime, but also because compensation could only ever have applied to those rich enough to afford it. Even in Njálssaga, it is the landowners who settle up between each other, not the field-hands their wives have commissioned to kill one of their field-hands.
So alien has reconciliation instead of revenge become to us, that we regard its option still operative in Arabia as primitive blood-money instead of more civilized than revenge. Reconciliation is just not our way. It never has been the way of people living under an authoritarian system. You may find it among tribal people with little rule of law but you won't find it where the Emperor or the King has historically defined The Law.
All the same, every religion has taught that harbouring grudges is A Bad Thing. What is usually missed is that the reason they say this is far less to be nice to offenders than to free the individual from the power of resentment. If anybody's reaction to being bitten by a small dog were to dedicate their life to hunting that dog down in order to get even knocking the daylights out of it, we'd think them obsessively deranged - and rightly so. A dog is not important enough to take your life over like that. Likewise, a bad turn done should not come to dominate anybody's life to the exclusion of all else. That only grants the evil-doer even more control! Nothing that can happen afterwards changes the original offence.
That is not a formula for getting all sweet and forgiving on predators to take advantage of it and carry on. It is a formula where something deeper is at work, usually cultural or political, where individuals did what they did out of genuine belief in what they were reared to believe. It is in the same vein as that while the concept of crimes against humanity developed with the Second World War, German soldiers were not prosecuted for their support of an evil occult regime, nor were Nazi idealists prosecuted for belief in a New Germany all working together for a brighter future free from disruptive elements - unless they had actually been involved on the dark side. Nazis were and are not the only racists or anti-semites by any means.
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Post by beth on Jul 7, 2011 1:23:11 GMT -5
I'm not sure failure to embrace reconciliation has much to do with anger or revenge. For myself, if someone exhibits beliefs or behavior I see with grave reservations, I won't hold grudges, but I very well might decide I do not want to have them in my life.
Energy vampires and other difficult people will sometimes create negativity whether they mean to or not. Not healthy, not happy. Better to step aside.
A friend of mine wrote a poem 15 years or so ago, centered on his belief in reincarnation. It was a "what if" poem that focused on the possibility the victims in WWII came back as "good German stock" and the villains came back as Jews. Finally, he said we should all be careful not to condemn on little evidence because our oppressors could have once been our family and friends.
Wish I could find it to post. It was on a computer he gave away and as far as he knows, it's been lost. The name of it is "Lest We Forget", by Kyle Griffith. If you see it, I'd love to have a copy.
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Post by mouse on Jul 7, 2011 4:19:51 GMT -5
I'm not sure failure to embrace reconciliation has much to do with anger or revenge. For myself, if someone exhibits beliefs or behavior I see with grave reservations, I won't hold grudges, but I very well might decide I do not want to have them in my life. i do like wise...i wouldnt say i hold grudges but i nrver forget and totally ignore that person from then on and have to say i get satisfaction when they get their cumpupence
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2011 4:53:26 GMT -5
All the same, every religion has taught that harbouring grudges is A Bad Thing. What is usually missed is that the reason they say this is far less to be nice to offenders than to free the individual from the power of resentment. Dear erasmus, It is possible that you do not even consider Sanatan Dharma (often called "Hinduism") to be a religion. Then FOR YOUR INFORMATION, IT IS THE FOURTH LARGEST IN THE WORLD.It is more likely that you know little or nothing about Sanatan Dharma. In that case, you should freely admit your ignorance.The most fundamental principle of Sanatan Dharma is that every single living thing is the INFINITE, which SD usually does not name but is often termed (especially by non-Hindus) as Brahman. That fundamental principle COMPLETELY NEGATES your argument.There is no such thing as offender and offended, in ultimate terms. Therefore your reason DOES NOT EVEN BEGIN TO APPLY to SD.Please remember that in future. Regards. Prashna
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Post by Erasmus on Jul 7, 2011 11:39:29 GMT -5
What there may or may not be in ultimate terms is not relevant to any situation in practical terms. In any case, awareness of that rather more supports my point than negates it. If all is one, then it is even more pointless to isolate out in a false separation governed by indignation and grudgery.
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Post by fretslider on Jul 7, 2011 12:28:09 GMT -5
I never forget....
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Post by fretslider on Jul 7, 2011 12:35:06 GMT -5
If the other party modifies or ameliorates their attitudes/behaviour there is always a chance of healing a rift. Of course, one has to be prepared to do the same.
What I dislike intensely is people who sound off behind your back, you know a little character assassination that usually starts with some thing like "a borderline psychotic and a Nazi"
And if these people are over 35, well....
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Post by beth on Jul 7, 2011 12:55:25 GMT -5
Yes, I don't want to pile on, too much, but it seems to me libel and/or slander are real and serious reasons to avoid someone. Not sure about the 35 age limit. Anyone over 25 with a working brain should realize such things are genuinely destructive and harmful and .. just say no.
Other reasons might be incompatibility, envy and wildly different world view.
This doesn't mean it's necessary to declare feud or warfare, but there are situations in which reconciliation isn't practical or possible.
jmo
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2011 13:52:07 GMT -5
What there may or may not be in ultimate terms is not relevant to any situation in practical terms. In any case, awareness of that rather more supports my point than negates it. If all is one, then it is even more pointless to isolate out in a false separation governed by indignation and grudgery. I don't think you understand or even wish to appreciate the basics of advaita or Sanatan Dharma. So I see no need to waste my time. Regards. Prashna
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Post by Erasmus on Jul 7, 2011 14:55:16 GMT -5
I don't think you understand or even wish to appreciate the basics of advaita or Sanatan Dharma. So I see no need to waste my time. Regards. Prashna Since advaita philosophy is not the subject and your only use of it appears to be to say that it renders questions of reconciliation or revenge meaningless, since All is One, it doesn't matter whether I understand it or not. In fact on the basis that All is One there is no 'I' to do any understanding, nor 'you' to say so, nor anything else except a magnificent Undifferentiated Unity. So we might as well shut up shop because without lowering ourselves to the practical mentality where these thing have some actual significance, there are no distinct events or ideas to discuss, nor separate mentalities to do any discussing. The issue to hand is this experience, not Nirvarna.
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Post by Erasmus on Jul 7, 2011 15:08:01 GMT -5
If the other party modifies or ameliorates their attitudes/behaviour there is always a chance of healing a rift. Of course, one has to be prepared to do the same. Reconciliation perforce has to entail mutual modification of attitudes and understanding, if not acceptance, of the other's position, at least at the public level. Except for a few criminal cases (who even then often contrive to justify themselves) both parties consider themselves in the wright and the other wrong, or there would be nothing to reconcile. At least for us they do. It may be that reconciliation has been a feature of tribal law more so because abstractions of right and wrong mattered less than practical issues of who experienced some kind of harm and how to try and rectify it. That looks to be the Icelandic situation where admitting that you killed one of theirs seems less concerned with whether you were right or wrong to do so, than with taking responsibility for doing something about the inconvenience. I suppose that is to some extent inevitable though, but reconciliation doesn't have to mean becoming bosom buddies, only ceasing to be outright enemies.
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Post by beth on Jul 7, 2011 15:32:54 GMT -5
Erasmus, I think you are right that people with serious personal differences can meet at a certain level to have putlic contact without drawn swords ... even work on projects together and belong to the same social organizations.
OTOH, are you suggesting reconsiliation must involve shared respect? If so, I do believe there are situations where respect can never be regained.
Wrestling in the street may be a bit over the top, but linking arms in friendship won't happen, either.
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Post by fretslider on Jul 7, 2011 16:00:38 GMT -5
Not sure about the 35 age limit. I was being exceedingly generous to the needy and immature.
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Post by Erasmus on Jul 7, 2011 16:20:01 GMT -5
Erasmus, I think you are right that people with serious personal differences can meet at a certain level to have putlic contact without drawn swords ... even work on projects together and belong to the same social organizations. OTOH, are you suggesting reconciliation must involve shared respect? If so, I do believe there are situations where respect can never be regained. Wrestling in the street may be a bit over the top, but linking arms in friendship won't happen, either. Well yes, that's what I'm saying. Reconciliation requires give (and presumably respect) on both sides, but burying the hatchet doesn't mean making friends, just ceasing to be enemies. We've learnt it in national politics a long time ago, that if you clobber somebody once they are down, you build a resentment that continues to fester. The USA did it to the Confederacy with results that are still apparent 140 years later, France in particular did it to Germany in 1918 (in part as revenge for losing in 1870) which gave Hitler his support, Ulster Unionist plutocrats did it to Catholics from 1922 and it blew up in their face from 1970 on. Now, they are prepared to accept their many opposing ideals and work together for the overall good of all their people. I doubt that Ian Paisley Snr. or Martin McGuinness have changed their mind about anything, but they are prepared to give credit when due instead of fight an eternal war for the sake of it that neither could ever win - even if it did take some big stick waving from Blair to get them to do it.
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