Level of consciousness of Antifa and BLM?

[Nyseto]

The groups of a political party heavily influence the party. The way they've both been going about their cause has been very questionable in 2020. All lives matter gets condemned for shielding racism and BLM gets condemned for racism towards whites. Thoughts?

Edited January 4, 2021 by Nyseto

[abundance]

BLM is the largest civil rights movement since the 60s. Its impossible to determine the conscious level of the millions of people who've participated in the movement. Overall, I'd say the movement as a whole is relatively higher in conciousness than the All Lives Matter crowd. You can argue the ethics of their tactics but the end goal results in a more progressive society. 

And to be honest given the track record of how America has treated its black citizens, they should be awfully lucky that BLM is as inclusive and 'peaceful' as it is. 

[Nyseto]

But what about the looting and vandalizing in the name of BLM? Here's a BLM leader saying that looting is reparations. Isn't fighting evil with evil only adding to more evil? 

Here's an article on a white girl who got killed by BLM because she said "All lives matter". https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thesun.co.uk/news/12110240/jessica-doty-whitaker-all-lives-matter-indiana/amp/

Police brutality is definitely a real thing. However, there have also been many instances where people were resisting arrest and didn't follow police instructions. Are victims always victims? That is the question. Police have to make split second, life changing decisions on the spot. Something that a lot of people wouldn't have the aptitude for. The left has been advocating to send out a psychologist in field to persuade a potential criminal. How well would a psychologist really work in an environment like that under so much pressure while the other person is holding some sort of weapon? It all sounds great on paper and I too, would love the idea of telling someone holding a knife, "Hey, we can talk about this. Think about what you're doing." But would the people advocating this do this themselves?

There was a man named Tony Timpa. A white man who died to police brutality as they were laughing which never unleashed a nationwide scandal.

 

Edited January 4, 2021 by Nyseto

[Nyseto]

8 minutes ago, datamonster said:

Extremely stage Green, even a little bit toxic. But still a lot better than the blue/orange status quo.

Spiral Dynamics has been a new theory to me after stumbling upon Leo's work. What I've realized is that it's only a theory at best to classify levels of consciousness. But consciousness itself isn't exactly small or big since it's infinite. I can see Spiral Dynamics turned into another tool of the ego by saying "I'm stage Yellow and you're blue, therefore I'm superior." If we are to be truly conscious, we'd have to leave Spiral Dynamics aside as it would become an obstacle. Not saying it can't be talked about or analyzed, there's just a bigger picture.

Edited January 4, 2021 by Nyseto

[abundance]

14 minutes ago, Nyseto said:

But what about the looting and vandalizing in the name of BLM? Here's a BLM leader saying that looting is reparations. Isn't fighting evil with evil only adding to more evil?

Dude the looting and vandalizing done by BLM is miniscule compared to the decades (centuries if we're being honest) of degradation the black community has gone through. Buildings can be replaced. Lives cannot. I don't agree with burning down your own neighborhood but if all else fails then I see no other alternative. It is the language of a people who've been ignored and are fed up.

14 minutes ago, Nyseto said:

 

There was a man named Tony Timpa. A white man who died to police brutality as they were laughing which never unleashed a nationwide scandal.

 

 

All police brutality is wrong (which BLM denounces btw). You asked why this wasn'tca nationwide scandal. Perhaps it would have been if the white community (as a collective) weren't so passive and accepting of police brutality.

[roopepa]

More or less green. And surely there are individuals from other stages in these groups.

Green is not some heavenly group of angels and a complete end to violence and other devilry. You just have to realize how much more stupidity and devilry there is in the lower stages.

Edited January 4, 2021 by roopepa

[Forestluv]

43 minutes ago, Nyseto said:

But what about the looting and vandalism

A handful of looting incidents does not define or nullify a movement against decades of systemic racism. Throughout history, every massive peaceful movement against systemic injustice has had elements of violence. Look at the suffragettes in the movement that fought against injustices against women.

Any framing that doesn’t include underlying motivation to correct systemic racism is incomplete, disingenuous and distorted. “What-aboutism” is a distraction from addressing that issue.

 

[trenton]

@Nyseto I think you make an interesting point.  Spiral dynamics can be turned into a ideology.  This is problematic if the limitations are not fully acknowledged.  Maybe if Leo has an episode detailing the limits of the model, it will change how these discussions take place.

Another interesting idea is that a military soldier might be considered stage blue, but he can be very developed and disciplined.  The soldier can be compared to an ordinary citizen who could be considered orange, green, or even yellow.  If you start questioning what should people be developing toward, then in a way stage blue can be considered more developed than stage yellow for a given purpose.  It therefore does not make sense to say I am better than stage blue because I am stage yellow.  Most developmental models assume that people evolve toward higher wisdom.  Given a different purpose, the assumption is limited.

I think it is important to understand the limitations of the models we use when participating in politics.

[roopepa]

12 minutes ago, Nyseto said:

Spiral Dynamics has been a new theory to me after stumbling upon Leo's work. What I've realized is that it's only a theory at best to classify levels of consciousness. But consciousness itself isn't exactly small or big since it's infinite. I can see Spiral Dynamics turned into another tool of the ego by saying "I'm stage Yellow and you're blue, therefore I'm superior."

This is obvious for everyone who actually understands the model. But it's not an excuse to ignore the shortcomings of lower stages.

18 minutes ago, Nyseto said:

If we are to be truly conscious, we'd have to leave Spiral Dynamics aside as it would become an obstacle.

At some point, yes, but we need to use these models to get to that point.

[Nyseto]

26 minutes ago, abundance said:

Dude the looting and vandalizing done by BLM is miniscule compared to the decades (centuries if we're being honest) of degradation the black community has gone through. Buildings can be replaced. Lives cannot. I don't agree with burning down your own neighborhood but if all else fails then I see no other alternative. It is the language of a people who've been ignored and are fed up.

All police brutality is wrong (which BLM denounces btw). You asked why this wasn'tca nationwide scandal. Perhaps it would have been if the white community (as a collective) weren't so passive and accepting of police brutality.

That's why I feel like BLM lives too much in the past. A lot of shit has happened to black people, and they aren't the only ones. Jews have been persecuted into the millions. However, we have come a long way. We have had a 2 term black president, we have rich black people. All those black people that got rich didn't get rich dwelling on the past of their race 200 years ago. They saw an opportunity and seized it. Hell, I voted for Obama even though I voted Trump in 2016. I vote for who I think is best in that -moment-. 

Edited January 4, 2021 by Nyseto

[Nyseto]

7 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

A handful of looting incidents does not define or nullify a movement against decades of systemic racism. Throughout history, every massive peaceful movement against systemic injustice has had elements of violence. Look at the suffragettes in the movement that fought against injustices against women.

Any framing that doesn’t include underlying motivation to correct systemic racism is incomplete, disingenuous and distorted. “What-aboutism” is a distraction from addressing that issue.

 

Of course. Although "what aboutism" can be used as a distraction, it can also be used to see the bigger picture. I'm coming from a place where I get a lot of flack for when I mention these nuances to people outside this forum. The vast majority of people and groups think they are saints in their head. It's their reaction to the nuances that I mention that gets me. Most people can't handle nuances or paradoxes. It flips life as they know it on its head.

Edited January 4, 2021 by Nyseto

[Forestluv]

27 minutes ago, trenton said:

It therefore does not make sense to say I am better than stage blue because I am stage yellow.  Most developmental models assume that people evolve toward higher wisdom.  Given a different purpose, the assumption is limited.

That is a core component of SD - that each stage has value relative to the environment. For example, in parts of the middle-east, stage red and blue has more practical value than stage green. Yet this doesn’t mean it’s more advanced. Sometimes algebra is more useful to use than calculus, yet that doesn’t make it more advanced. Calculus includes algebra and goes beyond algebra.

[roopepa]

13 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

Throughout history, every massive peaceful movement against systemic injustice has had elements of violence. Look at the suffragettes in the movement that fought against injustices against women.

Exactly. And a not so peaceful example would be the thousands of people who were shot or executed by cutting their heads off with a guillotine when stage orange emerged in the 1700s France.

Not pretty. But one could say we owe much of our freedoms today to those murderers.

Edited January 4, 2021 by roopepa

[Forestluv]

2 minutes ago, Nyseto said:

Although "what aboutism" can be used as a distraction, it can also be used to see the bigger picture.

Yet the bigger picture includes multiple points with proportionality. From a big picture view, zooming-in should not exclude key components of the larger context. That creates distortion.

9 minutes ago, Nyseto said:

The vast majority of people and groups think they are saints in their head. It's their reaction to the nuances that I mention that gets me.

I don’t know anyone that thinks those protesting against systemic racism are 100% saints. From my perspective, people get angry when the movement is portrayed as looting, vandalism and violence. This framing dismisses the underlying systemic racism they are protesting against. It would be like dismissing the movement to protect the environment from destruction by framing the movement as a bunch of “environmentalists” that drive gas-powered cars. Yes that happens, yet it is a distraction to the underlying cause. 

Bringing it up can have value, yet in the larger context. It is not the bigger picture to focus in on one point and extrapolate that point as the bigger picture. It would be a distortion to focus in on environmentalists that drive gas-powered cars and blow up SUVs and portray that as the bigger context. That implicitly dismisses the underlying issue of how society is destroying the earth, causing harmful climate changes and how toxic capitalism is profiting off of it. Similarly, portraying blm as a bunch of looters and vandals is a gross distortion and dismisses the underlying injustices the movement is trying to overcome.

 

[Nyseto]

1 minute ago, Forestluv said:

Yet the bigger picture includes multiple points with proportionality. From a big picture view, zooming-in should not exclude key components of the larger context. That creates distortion.

I don’t know anyone that thinks those protesting against systemic racism are 100% saints. From my perspective, people get angry when the movement is portrayed as looting, vandalism and violence. This framing dismisses the underlying systemic racism they are protesting against. It would be like dismissing the movement to protect the environment from destruction by framing the movement as a bunch of “environmentalists” that drive gas-powered cars. Yes that happens, yet it is a distraction to the underlying cause. 

Bringing it up can have value, yet in the larger context. It is not the bigger picture to focus in on one point and extrapolate that point as the bigger picture. It would be a distortion to focus in on environmentalists that drive gas-powered cars and blow up SUVs and portray that as the bigger context. That implicitly dismisses the underlying issue of how society is destroying the earth, causing harmful climate changes and how toxic capitalism is profiting off of it. Similarly, portraying blm as a bunch of looters and vandals is a gross distortion and dismisses the underlying injustices the movement is trying to overcome.

 

If only BLM did it the way Martin Luther King wanted it, they'd be much further off today. 

[Forestluv]

27 minutes ago, Nyseto said:

If only BLM did it the way Martin Luther King wanted it, they'd be much further off today. 

Have you studied MLK’s views regarding overcoming racism, looting and vandalism? His views are different than yours. He did not frame the movement as you are trying to do.

Saying that anti-racism protestors should be 100% peaceful and act like “good boys and girls” can be used to maintain the status quo of injustice. It can maintain asymmetric power dynamics. Look at the decades of purely peaceful efforts of the suffragists. They got nowhere. And look at the impact the suffragettes had. Similarly, there have been decades of peaceful efforts to overcome systemic racism with little progress. Quite often, making those in power uncomfortable is an impetus to progress.

And how can we make progress toward greater equality by focusing on untasteful incidents within groups that are subjected to injustice? If we wanted to help a Native American group being abused by a larger, more powerful group - how would it help to focus on the fact that seven people within the Native American group is alcoholic and abuse their wives? Cherry picking and portraying the group as a bunch of violent alcoholics is a distortion and a distraction to the larger goal of trying to correct abuse injustices being committed to a marginalized group. 

If our main goal is to correct systemic racism and move to greater equality, the focus should not be to portray blm as hypocritical, looters and vandals. That may be an issue to address, yet the deeper issue is correcting systemic racism. A common way to undercut movements by cherry picking and distracting from the underlying motivation of a movement.

And it’s much easier to be “tone police” when one does not have the life experience of those protesting. If you were a young black male living in an inner city, subjected to racial profiling, got unfairly treated in a judicial system and watched this happen to your friends and family - you would have a very different view than you do now. Yet you are unable to see and understand that perspective. You are wearing a particular lens are normalizing through that lens. That lens has partial truth and some value, yet it is a partial view of the whole. If you try to extrapolate with that one lens, the bigger picture will be distorted. To see and understand more points within a bigger picture, one must take out their lens and wear another lens. Yet this can be extremely hard to do since most minds are attached and identified to one lens. 

For example, in an effort to see through another lens, I lived in poor areas of Honduras and Colombia for months. This gave me a glimpse into very different experiences and expanded my mind. There were times in which I could not fully trust police or the justice system. There were a few times in which evading a police officer or resisting arrest was on the table - even though I didn’t do anything wrong. I never experienced anything like that in my life and it expanded my mind and allowed for multi-perspectival understanding. 

[Nyseto]

18 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

Have you studied MLK’s views regarding overcoming racism, looting and vandalism? His views are different than yours. He did not frame the movement as you are trying to do.

And it’s much easier to be “tone police” when one does not have the life experience of those protesting. If you were a young black male living in an inner city, subjected to racial profiling, got unfairly treated in a judicial system and watched this happen to your friends and family - you would have a very different view than you do now. Yet you are unable to see and understand that perspective. You are wearing a particular lens are normalizing through that lens. That lens has partial truth and some value, yet it is a partial view of the whole. If you try to extrapolate with that one lens, the bigger picture will be distorted. To see and understand more points within a bigger picture, one must take out their lens and wear another lens. Yet this can be extremely hard to do since most minds are attached and identified to one lens. 

For example, in an effort to see through another lens, I lived in poor areas of Honduras and Colombia for months. This gave me a glimpse into very different experiences and expanded my mind. There were times in which I could not fully trust police or the justice system. There were a few times in which evading a police officer or resisting arrest was on the table - even though I didn’t do anything wrong. I never experienced anything like that in my life and it expanded my mind and allowed for multi-perspectival understanding. 

I'm not dismissing anything else you're saying but I do feel like you're doing too much judging of me to put me in some kind of box. I am simply shedding light on nuances. I can say that the reason some people think I'm trying to frame Antifa and BLM a certain way is because they themselves, aren't comfortable with the nuances I'm sharing. Afterall, the guidelines here do say you've got to be flexible enough to handle nuances and paradoxes. At the end of the day I don't know any ultimate truth about anything, I'm sharing unpopular points and nuances.

Edited January 4, 2021 by Nyseto

[Village]

They're tools, and they aren't remotely aware of that. That's how conscious they are.

[Forestluv]

21 minutes ago, Nyseto said:

I'm not dismissing anything else you're saying but I do feel like you're doing too much judging of me to put me in some kind of box. I am simply shedding light on nuances. I can say that the reason some people think I'm trying to frame Antifa and BLM a certain way is because they themselves, aren't comfortable with the nuances I'm sharing. Afterall, the guidelines here do say you've got to be flexible enough to handle nuances and paradoxes. 

I don’t consider contextualizations to be “nuances”. I would consider nuances to be different angles that give a more complete view of a bigger picture. Everyone here already knows there is looting, vandalism and violence within any massive movement of injustice. I’m completely comfortable in looking at that within the larger context. Yet it is a distortion to focus on certain points and extrapolate into the bigger picture. Integrating points into a bigger picture is very different than extrapolating single points as a bigger picture.

You’ve posted several memes of white people protesting against black police officers. It seems to me like the intention is to portray blm as hypocritical and implicitly dismisses systemic racism. If we want to address systemic racism in the bigger picture, we may look at the effectiveness of hiring minority police officers. Is it effective? If not, why? Perhaps placing a few minority people into a realm of systemic racism will not help much. Perhaps we need to look at deeper systemic issues. For example, what percentage of the police force live within the community they serve? Are minority officers and administrators empowered to express their views and life experience? Or are they pressured to conform into a status quo culture. Are they being tokenized? I would consider these to be nuances. 

21 minutes ago, Nyseto said:

At the end of the day I don't know any ultimate truth about anything, I'm sharing unpopular points and nuances.

Be mindful of the mind’s orientation. The mind loves to think “I’m unbiased and open-minded. I’m just sharing unpopular nuances, yet I don’t know anything”. If that was true, the mind wouldn’t be hold onto the views and promoting those views. If the mind truly was oriented that it didn’t know anything, then it would be much more curious and open-minded.

A great example of this mindset is Richard Feynman. He is a clear example of stage yellow thinking and he was a master at zooming in and out. One exercise he would do is imagine that he was an alien visiting earth and seeing a situation with a mindset of not-knowing. For example, what is sleep? Aliens that don’t sleep would be not know what sleep was. They would get very curious and ask “How and why do humans go into a coma for 8 hours a day?”. They would want to know experientially what that is like. Similarly, a lens without racial injustice wouldn’t know what that is. They would have a very open and curious mindset as they ask “why do humans treat each other as they do? What are these things called ‘race and racism? Why are people so upset about it?”

To be able to wear different lenses, the mind first needs to become aware it is wearing a lens and then be willing to take it out and wear other lenses. 

[Nyseto]

18 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

I don’t consider contextualizations to be “nuances”. I would consider nuances to be different angles that give a more complete view of a bigger picture. Everyone here already knows there is looting, vandalism and violence within any massive movement of injustice. I’m completely comfortable in looking at that within the larger context. Yet it is a distortion to focus on certain points and extrapolate into the bigger picture. Integrating points into a bigger picture is very different than extrapolating single points as a bigger picture.

You’ve posted several memes of white people protesting against black police officers. It seems to me like the intention is to portray blm as hypocritical and implicitly dismisses systemic racism. If we want to address systemic racism in the bigger picture, we may look at the effectiveness of hiring minority police officers. Is it effective? If not, why? Perhaps placing a few minority people into a realm of systemic racism will not help much. Perhaps we need to look at deeper systemic issues. For example, what percentage of the police force live within the community they serve? Are minority officers and administrators empowered to express their views and life experience? Or are they pressured to conform into a status quo culture. Are they being tokenized? I would consider these to be nuances. 

 

No, I shared those memes because of the humor. Osho has always said how laughter is the highest wisdom. There's a meme out there for anything. I've always been more on the meme side of issues than the ones that love going deep. I don't know, just how the divine expresses itself through me 

Edited January 4, 2021 by Nyseto