Vegan Debate Gets Out Of Hand

[Jordan Welsh]

 

 

I thought since debates  are becoming more popular I would share this short video. However as you watch this debate despite your point of view regarding animal & environmental welfare I want you to recognise the limitations of the ego mind’s ideology in developing a holistic non-biased understanding of reality. 
This example being vegan & meat eater debate. Despite the content of their conversation the ideology of each person colours & distorts their perception of existence. This is because tier 1 cognitive Development is coloured by the limitations of ideology which are: close mindedness, confirmation bias, inability to introspect or self-reflect deeply & not being able to appreciate a diversification of perspective.

They are unconciouss of the mental gymnastics & emotions being played by each other to win this ego battle which has nothing to do with truth.

Notice! all they care about is mainteening their mentally constructed made up notion of reality. No interest in truth. Number 1 rule don’t be ideological.

[Jordan Welsh]

 

[Shin]

They both see each other as stupid, but you can't see that if you're biased towards one of the ideology.

[Preety_India]

There will be certain things that will be removed from the face of planet Earth only when people become ideological about it.. 

Although veganism is not one of them. 

 

[ilja]

What would be your solution here?

you are judging too, give us something productive.

Edited April 27, 2021 by ilja

[Jordan Welsh]

I am not making a judgement but simply pointing out how tier l cognitive development & ideology distorts an individual’s perspective by being self-biased towards one’s own worldview of the world. The solution as Leo so elegantly displays in the video above is to develop mindfulness & awareness of one’s own ego structure as well as worldview to step back & see the world from a bird’s eye view.

 Developing mindfulness of one’s own emotions & thought processes is essential in revealing how we unconsciously deceive ourselves by maintaining a worldview held up by certain assumptions & interpretations about the nature of reality.  This commonly arises from our early upbringing. For example if you are born into a Christian family you’ll probably be a Christian by default.

[Danioover9000]

@Jordan Welsh

22 hours ago, Jordan Welsh said:

 

 

I thought since debates  are becoming more popular I would share this short video. However as you watch this debate despite your point of view regarding animal & environmental welfare I want you to recognise the limitations of the ego mind’s ideology in developing a holistic non-biased understanding of reality. 
This example being vegan & meat eater debate. Despite the content of their conversation the ideology of each person colours & distorts their perception of existence. This is because tier 1 cognitive Development is coloured by the limitations of ideology which are: close mindedness, confirmation bias, inability to introspect or self-reflect deeply & not being able to appreciate a diversification of perspective.

They are unconciouss of the mental gymnastics & emotions being played by each other to win this ego battle which has nothing to do with truth.

Notice! all they care about is mainteening their mentally constructed made up notion of reality. No interest in truth. Number 1 rule don’t be ideological.

   Yikes! You're right, despite how short the debate was, it definitely got into personal attacks on character and interrupting each other. I don't like how the debaters are sitting at arms length from each other, it felt like  it could've gone into a physical fight at any moment.

   Rhetorically, the vegan guy was doing better than the woman. I felt I needed to help her out with dealing with his attacks. For example, he attacked her use of analogy of her personal experience with being a vegan and experiencing negatives as invalid proof to discounting Veganism, in her place I would've countered exactly the same, bringing up his personal experience and benefits, such as his weight loss from such a diet as just his story, having no validity, and bring up malnourished raw vegans as one example of going too far. Throwing in other fallacies as well.

   I felt like the woman was slightly better at trying to maintain neutrality in this debate and didn't come off as defensive and aggressive as the guy.  

[Danioover9000]

@ilja

29 minutes ago, ilja said:

What would be your solution here?

you are judging too, give us something productive.

   A simple solution would be to become better at clarifying what you want, what the other wants in the exchange, and probing, and being aware of social context. If it's decided beforehand that the discussion is a debate, prepare beforehand, in a debate context. If the social context is different, like in a party, and somewhere in a conversation it's getting heated, or getting into an informal debate, you can always exit out, or go along depending on your skills of rhetoric and mindfulness.

[Danioover9000]

@Jordan Welsh

16 minutes ago, Jordan Welsh said:

I am not making a judgement but simply pointing out how tier l cognitive development & ideology distorts an individual’s perspective by being self-biased towards one’s own worldview of the world. The solution as Leo so elegantly displays in the video above is to develop mindfulness & awareness of one’s own ego structure as well as worldview to step back & see the world from a bird’s eye view.

 Developing mindfulness of one’s own emotions & thought processes is essential in revealing how we unconsciously deceive ourselves by maintaining a worldview held up by certain assumptions & interpretations about the nature of reality.  This commonly arises from our early upbringing. For example if you are born into a Christian family you’ll probably be a Christian by default.

   This is really good if you want to go meta on a situation where you are already debating, regardless if you win or loss a debate on a meta level. Although I don't see how going meta could improve my ability to get an edge while debating?

[ilja]

@Jordan Welsh yes, many of us heard that and you seem to be pokee about it. What do you think will happen when both become aware of their respective bias?

Edited April 27, 2021 by ilja

[Jordan Welsh]

Self-awareness = self-reflection = increased ability to be mindful of how one bullshit’s one’s self. Hope this makes sense. Who looks outside dreams, who looks inside awakens-Carl Jung

The purpose of life ultimately is to be happy & fulfilled. Everyone wants to feel loved. This is what every human being wants but how we pursue this is what differs from each person dependent on their level of consciousness. Life is a process of self-growth & discovery with everyone being at a different levels. The highest levels of understanding result in universal compassion, love and gratitude for others as you and others are one. 
Once you have become whole & complete with your soul reunifying with its source there’s no need to play ego games through debates. 

[Scholar]

There are some deeper dynamics that are being missed here. The analysis or this "Tier 1 debate" is very much a Tier 1 level of analysis. Shallow, biased towards "pointing out the flaws", rather than the inherent necessity and importance of what is going on. Ask yourself, what insight has been provided here? Was this creating something new, or merely criticism of the old?

"Look, this is Tier 1! Look, they are being Tier 1!"

Your number 1 rule, "Don't be ideological", is itself an ideology. And the reason why it is clearly an ideology is because you have adopted it as an absolute, rather than having truly understood the depth of this issue. Ideology is what gave rise to all of civilization, all of technology, all of ethics, all of progress mankind has made. It has given opportunity of consciousness to prosper and evolve. Ideology is magical. Society is so full of it precisely because it is so useful.

A Tier 2 Thinker will not judge ideology the way you do, as something inferior, to be pointed out and simply ridiculed. A Tier 2 Thinker will appreciate the reasons for why these ideologies exist, what their purpose is in the grand ecosystem of this planet. What part they play in the story of life. This is what Tier 2 will focus on. To Tier 2, this debate is magical, beautiful, necessary.

 

There difference between Tier 1 and Tier 2 is not merely being opposed to ideology, it is fundamentally a stepping outself of operating from ideology. This stepping outside of ideology is due to the limitation of ideology. This means ideology is what allowed this stepping outside to happen in the first place. Tier 2 it viewing ideology as the tool it is, not to dismiss it merely because it is ideology.

 

There are multiple fascets of development, you are witnessing here a debate that showcases two kinds of stages of moral development. Now, the question is not whether you are Tier 2 or not, the question you should ask yourself is "Do I fully understand these two perspectives, and have I embodied and surpassed them?".

See, if you are morally underdeveloped, and you do not care about animals, it is very easy to not fall into ideology. If you do not care about animals as much as this vegan activist does, then to be non-ideological is effortless. This is because you are not developing anything, you are simply void of development. There is nothing for you to protect.

 

 

See, once you start truly caring about your brothers and sisters, once they are part of your identity, fully integrated, there will be a completely new depth of challenge for you, to remain non-ideological, to remain objective, to remain conscious. You are playing a game, and you are at the lower levels, calling out those who are playing it at much higher levels than you do, and pointing out how much they struggle. Of course they struggle, because what they are doing is far more difficult than what you are doing.

Another important insight here that I will give you is the following. If you cannot understand the depth of struggle, and if you do not have deep respect for it, it is obvious that you are below, not above, those who your point fingers at. When you sit at home, theorizing about someone who is witnessing the death of his family, it is easy for you to remain objective. But when it is your family that is being murdered infront of your eyes, your attachments will be revealed in no matter of time at all. You will then realize that it will take a new dimension of non-attachment to go beyond this.

 

Another key insight is the following: There are two pathways to detachment. One is to stop caring about that which you are attached to. This means that you stop caring about your family, so that you are spared from the pain of realizing their suffering as your own suffering. This is dysfunctional, this is survival. Another type of detachment is one that flourished in care, compassion, empathy, while yet managing to be distanced from this in a way to allow Love to flourish. This is harder to achieve than you can imagine, and as long as your are not tested, truly tested, you will be completely ignorant of your own level of development.

It is only when you can feel all the pain of your brothers and sisters, and remain loving, that you have achieved Mastery. It is when they murder your family in front of your eyes, and you can forgive them for it. Not because you did not care about your family, but despite that fact that you loved them to infinity. This ideal is what we would look at as the Sacrifce of Christ. To forgive despite the pain, not because of an absence of pain.

 

 

Now, I ask you my brother. Notice that all they care about is not merely to maintain their mentally constructed notion of reality, that there is something far deeper at works here. Something you need to start to recognize and respect. Something that is part of the Gracefulness of Reality, a contribution to the Whole that is integral to it.

 

 

Development of ego is different than the mere destruction of ego. If you want Non-Attachment without Development, there are much faster ways to achieve it. But this is not what Nature if Evolving towards. Seek to understand how this fits into Evolution, how what is happening here is important, significant.

Notice that the spider is detached from it's victims. The Spider is non-ideological. It cares not about the suffering of others. The spiders would scoff at all of this and call it Tier 1, believing itself to be Tier 2.

 

Things will become much more ideological. Ideology is precisely what is needed, because ideology has the power to move Civilizations. One day it will be Consciousness that will have this power, but for that to happen, ideology must enable this first. There would be no animal rights movement without ideology, as much as slavery would have never been abolished without ideology. Just look at reality, look how powerful of a force ideology is. It grips people, it controls them, it unifies them. It allows for progress on a scale unimaginable. It is utterly beautiful, a Divine Creation.

[ilja]

•  

@Jordan Welsh forgive me for stepping in, but i believe those should be implication signs (actually i am on the fence)

that was very well said and i like it, but i believe my question was with respect to the linked discussion asking for a bit explicity, after all most of us are beings of time and instant god realization feels deeply buried, so some weighing of biases may appear necessary, don't you agree?

Edited April 27, 2021 by ilja

[Jordan Welsh]

@Scholar Thank you for your feedback. I will sincerely take your feedback into consideration. However I have decided to engage rarely on the forum as I think some use this forum to distract from doing the work. I think I have to remain humble & take a life long learning approach to develop my understanding of myself & life. 
I appreciate your criticism of my analysis. 
 

@ilja Yes, I agree which is actually inevitable.