Disagreement with Leo about the stage Green video

[fluidmonolith]

13 hours ago, Alexandar Edwards said:

@Elisabeth Leo’s words have triggered me, and that’s something I must work on within myself. But the point I am making is not some defence of my opinions or morality, but a questioning of why “not caring about social issues” is stated as further development from green into yellow. I do not see this to be true, yellow itself is still concerned with sociological and natural issues but from a systemic rather than a moral point of view. Causing harm to others for an uneccesary reason IS a highly flawed form of thinking for one who understands social and ecological systems. 

Alexandar Edwards, I think you are correct - yellow does care about social issues. Yellow probably does care about reducing needless suffering. The question you may ask is "what is the best way to do this?" You may be able to educate some people to show them that industrial agriculture causes suffering, and that we can exist just fine without it. You may convince some people. Others already know this and you won't change their mind. Reducing the suffering of animals may just not be at the top of their priority list.

Remember that yellow is the first stage to be able to take on the perspective of stages that came before it. A green solution to the suffering caused by industrial agriculture may be to educate people about the evil they are causing. A yellow solution may be to give them incentive to get their food somewhere else. Perhaps developing soy or other vegetarian alternatives with improved meat-like taste and comparably costed compared to animal meat. Perhaps 'in vitro' meat, animal tissue cells grown in biochemical reactors that don't need a living animal outside of the initial source of the animal tissue which is propagated. These are very scientific solutions, and there are certainly other options as well based in other areas like policy, crop agriculture, logistics, etc. An orange person might not give up meat for some vegetable product that tastes worse or costs more, or deflates their masculinity, for example. But I imagine most people would eat vegetarian if the taste or nutritional quality of their food didn't degrade (in their perspective), if it didn't cost more, and if the social stigma in some circles that is associated with vegan / vegetarianism went away. Many people probably prefer that animals didn't suffer, but simply aren't willing to sacrifice too much to make it a reality.

I think when Leo says that green should care less, he is saying that one may need to reduce their emotional connection to a problem in order to think about it in a clear-headed manner and formulate the most practical solution. The best solution may be a long-term solution that could take years or decades to implement. In the meantime, many agricultural animals will suffer. Green may need to be sufficiently detached to accept that reality in order to pursue the best long-term solution.

 

[Charlotte]

Green does care to much @Leo Gura I am currently going through that myself. It causes suffering, exhaustion, emotional labour. I am trying to find a way around to reduce it. I won't even water my plants because of the insects in and around the plant pots ? ?

[luckieluuke]

 

 Thanks@Alexandar Edwards for a very interesting topic. I agree with @fluidmonolith

Also I think you are on the right track to becoming full green and in some time you will see the limitations of your current path. But also remember the strong pros that you told us about. I used to do similar stuff until i realized I was putting to much energy to it and forgot my own spiritual growth. I am still convinced that the ideas i supported were good but I had more personal development to do after which I could see how to better spend my time and effort.

[dorg]

On 7/10/2018 at 1:12 AM, Alexandar Edwards said:

@Elisabeth Leo’s words have triggered me, and that’s something I must work on within myself. But the point I am making is not some defence of my opinions or morality, but a questioning of why “not caring about social issues” is stated as further development from green into yellow. I do not see this to be true, yellow itself is still concerned with sociological and natural issues but from a systemic rather than a moral point of view. Causing harm to others for an uneccesary reason IS a highly flawed form of thinking for one who understands social and ecological systems. 

In my opinion, what we are concerned with here is not primarily particular issues, even particular systemic issues; we are primarily concerned with seeing what is actually going on. So 'stopping' and addressing a particular issue is not the primary point, no matter how well meaning and worthwhile the issue being addressed. 

Once you have made some progress in addressing the primary concern you see that addressing 'lesser' concerns without addressing the primary concern will not fix the lesser concerns in any really meaningful way. This, as I see it, is a critical and essential difference between tier one and tier two vision.

 

Edited July 10, 2018 by dorg