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[sophiaserpentia]

This essay about "New Age Bullying" has been making the rounds on my friend's list for a couple of days now.

I think the author of this list left out the most significant form of new age bullying i've seen: where people tell you to "not let your pain control you."

There's a point in the healing process where you can finally do this. I've experienced it myself -- one day, the pain just doesn't overwhelm you anymore and you wonder how it could ever have controlled you the way it did.

Well, it happens that way because there is so separation between body and mind. An emotional or psychological injury affects the way your nerve cells communicate with one another and the ways your nerve cells react to neuropeptides and neurotransmitters. It takes time to fix this. Recovering from trauma is very much like healing a physical cut. And some injuries of this sort are too deep and big to heal in the space of a single lifetime.

So, while some people find they suddenly have the ability to own their hurt and not be controlled by it anymore, it is wrong for them to then turn around to people who haven't healed yet and demand they snap out of it. To do so is more injurious than simply listening and offering compassion while someone is still healing.

But the article also made me realize i can't hide anymore how much contempt i have developed for almost all spirituality. Every now and then i come across something which is genuinely healing, but most commonly what i see is emotional manipulation, collections of platitudes meant to make us feel better about injustice.

What if people stopped believing there was a big daddy-figure in the sky who was going to punish all the bad guys after they die, a Santa Claus type figure watching everything that happens and keeping a list of everyone who's good and everyone who's bad? Maybe people shouldn't find comfort in this idea. Even if it's true. Because maybe then they would be more moved to seek justice in this life.

Comments

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Yeah. This is why i talk a lot about misappropriation of the language of dissent. People who are being oppressed are usually denied a way of speaking about it. Sometimes this is really overt -- like when the native language of a conquered people is forbidden. But sometimes it's really subtle -- when the words oppressed people use to describe their experiences are rendered meaningless by misuse in other contexts, subtle redefition so that it carries a safely non-radical meaning.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

> People who are being oppressed are usually denied
> a way of speaking about it.

I have seen that in court. In one instance, a woman was explaining to the judge how her boyfriend abused her. Every time she uses explicit language, the judge stops her and scolds her for using forbidden words. She said "But, your honor, my boyfriend called me a worthless whore, then crammed his cock down my throat. How am I supposed to phrase that?" The judge banged down his gavel several times and yelled at her for using such language and threatened to hold her in contempt if she did it again. The judge then said "it is sufficient if you say he cursed at you and abused you."

Such tame language, of course, does not explain anything to the jury, and makes the jury far less prone to want to put the bastard away for a long time.