Blog 25

April 4, 2017

The Myth of Sisyphis -  Attrition

“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.” Albert Camus

From the beginning of the resistance to the current adminstration many have said it will be difficult to maintain our momentum.  However, the numbers of people involved have increased.  At an Indivisible  meeting with Sean Elsbernd State Director for Dianne Feinstein’s office he said that in comparing two days on the same date a year apart they found that on the first date in 2016 they received 24 calls and on the second date tin 2017, they received 700 calls with 2000 voicemails.  Our voices are loud, and we are being heard, and there is also attrition  At a meeting of  Northern California Individisible with twelve Indivisible Groups attrition of membership was one of the themes of the meeting.  Indivisible Euclid, our small affinity group, is still valued and people chose to continue weekly meetings when given the choice to meet every other week, but less people show up at each meeting.  Some of this is due to the many things individuals are being called to do and some of this is due to a loss of momentum and sense of being overwhelmed. 

At a recent Indivisible Euclid meeting one of our meembers, Hilary Worthen, spoke to us about the difficulty in groups, who like Sisyphus, have a huge job in front of them, with no end in sight. In our work as part of Indivisible we face up against one bad policy after another, ACA repeal , radical Supreme Court nominee, Tax reform for the rich,  rejection of Science and on and on.  With these frightening issues and possibilities come myriads of of possible actions : hold our members of congress accountible, work to flip red districts to blue, protest and rally n the streets and on and on.  What Hilary wanted us to consider was that without a clear vsion of what a better future might look like this kind of work can be demoralizing and difficult to maintain.  We all remember Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech.  He was talking to us about a better future.  Right now there is no one who we can rally around as we did with Obama and there is no vision coming from the Democratic party with a values change at its center.  Hilary also pointed me toward Jonathan Haidt and colleagues who work in the field of moral psychology.  You might want to check out his TED talk The Moral Roots of Lliberals and Conservatives,

https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind#t-1100341

Haidt makes a strong argument that as long as we stay in a “for and against” mentality there is little hope for change in the future.  He requests that we step out of our comfort zone and attempt to understand the other and find ways to collaborate on values that we share and search for the benefits in the values of the other.  Looking for an example of when this has occurred for the greater good can be seen in the Obama election where many people voted for him because he represented shared values across a spectrum of differences.   I am beginning to wonder if President Trump- the great divider- may be offering us a window into what it would be like if we refused to stay in our “us and them” boxes and began to work together to imagine what we can accomplish.  Congress are you listening? Of course we must resist the immediate threats to our democracy,but to carry on I think we have to envision a future that includes all of us, and I mean all of us.

Wise Words

Quoted in Jonathan Haidt Ted Talk from Sent-ts’an, 700 CE

“If you want the truth to stand clear

    before you, never be for or against.

The struggle between ‘for’ and ‘against’

    Is the mind’s worst disease.

Jonathan Haidt points us toward the Dalai Lama’s moral humility.  This is what the Dahlai Lama says about moral humility:

The Dalai Lama describes the 2nd verse of training the mind as:
www.dalailama.com/teachings/training-the... 

"Whenever I interact with someone,
May I view myself as the lowest amongst all,
And, from the very depths of my heart,
Respectfully hold others as superior."

Dalai Lama's description of lowliness:
"Moving on to another line of the verse, I think it is important to understand the expression "May I see myself lower than all others" in the right context. Certainly it is not saying that you should engage in thoughts that would lead to lower self-esteem, or that you should lose all sense of hope and feel dejected, thinking, "I'm the lowest of all. I have no capacity, I cannot do anything and have no power." This is not the kind of consideration of lowness that is being referred to here. The regarding of oneself as lower than others really has to be understood in relative terms. Generally speaking, human beings are superior to animals. We are equipped with the ability to judge between right and wrong and to think in terms of the future and so on. However, one could also argue that in other respects human beings are inferior to animals. For example, animals may not have the ability to judge between right and wrong in a moral sense, and they might not have the ability to see the long-term consequences of their actions, but within the animal realm there is at least a certain sense of order. If you look at the African savannah, for example, predators prey on other animals only out of necessity when they are hungry. When they are not hungry, you can see them coexisting quite peacefully. But we human beings, despite our ability to judge between right and wrong, sometimes act out of pure greed. Sometimes we engage in actions purely out of indulgence--we kill out of a sense of "sport," say, when we go hunting or fishing. So, in a sense, one could argue that human beings have proven to be inferior to animals. It is in such relativistic terms that we can regard ourselves as lower than others. One of the reasons for using the word "lower" is to emphasize that normally when we give in to ordinary emotions of anger, hatred, strong attachment, and greed, we do so without any sense of restraint. Often we are totally oblivious to the impact our behavior has on other sentient beings. But by deliberately cultivating the thought of regarding others as superior and worthy of your reverence, you provide yourself with a restraining factor. Then, when emotions arise, they will not be so powerful as to cause you to disregard the impact of your actions upon other sentient beings. It is on these grounds that recognition of others as superior to yourself is suggested.

Actions

Write to the 18 Republicans who said they would vote “no” on the ACA bill.

Go to Town Hall meetings if your MOC;s are showing up during the April recess.  If not write to newspaper editors about their not showing up.  Dianne Feinstein is an example of a senator who is now saying she will not have a Town Meeting after she said she would.  We are writing letters to our editors here in California.

Look to work with local groups who represent the people who are most threated by the current adminstration. 

Look for Migra Watch in your community.  http://fox13now.com/2017/02/28/ice-officers-arrest-mother-family-concerned/

This group is training commiunities in how to defend themselves against ICE raids and training allies and community members in how to be observers of such actions.

Join The Sister District Project working to change Republic state and national districts into Democratic districts. https://www.sisterdistrict.com

From Amy Gorman:

Dear Friends,

The Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology--Lamar Smith-- believes that Science Magazine is "not objective".  See:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lamar-smith-science-magazine-us_us_58dbae95e4b0cb23e65d06f5

Truly this is the age of Disenlightenment.  See also: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/heartland-institute-climate-pack_us_58db4c63e4b05463706323d4?tvdenwghi7jlfecdi&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/03/29/a-university-is-eliminating-its-science-collection-to-expand-a-running-track/?utm_term=.bd196bd50c35

On Aprill 22 (Earth Day), there will be a March for Science in San Francisco (as well as Washington DC and many other cities).  See:   https://marchforsciencesf.com/ . 

And the following Saturday, Apr. 29 is the Climate March in SF.  See   https://www.facebook.com/events/246019099143823/