SOCIOPOLITOMETAPHISIQUE-O
The Role of Comedy in (Slowly) Attaining A Non-Dual Society
Power for Everybody: The End of Dominance and Submission
Activist Models of Power
Cultural Appropriation & the Birthplace of Choice
Blasted Youth Looks Good in Digital: the Internet Generation
TRANSGENDER
OUR EARLY EXPERIENCE
When we begin our lives, we begin them as deeply submissive to our parents. How our parents handle their position of dominance will likely shape the rest of our lives. If our parents respect that we are their equals, eternal souls temporarily and necessarily helpless, they will treat their dominance over us with delicacy and gentleness.
My parents, I think, did a very good job at this task. They nearly always treated me as an old soul, who was only temporarily operating through a small body and young mind, and through them I saw myself the same way. They treated their dominance over me in a way close to the ideal: As a temporary situation, best treated with the aim towards service: to do right by the one necessarily being dominated.
A few times, I think they did believe I was only a child, and not the pure and eternal being of light that we all are. They shamed only themselves by doing so, because they violated their own natures as beings of light. They exercised dominance over someone who was helpless. Though our parents can teach us to think about dominance and submission in many ways through the respect that they accord us as dependent children, they cannot change who we actually are. Having a childhood in which you were not respected and your parents believed you really were what you appeared to be--a weak and helpless being--is simply unfortunate.
GROWING UP IN A WORLD BASED ON DOMINANCE AND SUBMISSION
We grew up in a world that was based on the ideas of dominance and submission. Whether our parents were abusive to us emotionally or physically or not, eventually most of us entered school and began learning how how the larger world handles dominance and submission. Most parents do not teach their children about dominance and submission as thoroughly as the schools do, and that is because most parents love their children very deeply. Even though they may inadvertently deliver hurtful messages to their children, parents' ability to delivery the dominance/submission model worldview is impaired by their loving bond with their children. At age five, the state mandates that children begin daily schooling, in which their bodies and minds will be subjected to the beliefs of an individual teacher as well as to a comprehensive set of worldview beliefs, with which they will be indoctrinated for twelve or more years.
The schooling years are not so much for teaching subjects as for teaching a way to relate to the world. Children will naturally, without any type of formalized schooling, seek out educational experiences that are relevant to their lives. With the part-time guidance of a single motivated adult, there is unlikely to be any problem with their learning; they will take in a wide variety of subjects that they like, and will gradually learn more about those they dislike as they grow older. On the contrary, school dulls the young mind and inspires stupidity and aggression. This is exactly its express purpose, as these ingredients will become essential in later life--not to the individual, who loses on every count, but to the system, which requires an individual who does not know him or herself.
Most teachers do not respect students. Some do, and can see beyond the childish exterior and see a person. These teachers could begin to make up for whatever's happened to the kid with their family, if they were able to cultivate a relationship with the child that lasted more than a school year. Many people have told me about that one special teacher that believed in them. Their stories inevitably end with "But then I moved on to my new school/moved up a grade."
Teachers that love students and parents that love their children are not dominant over them. They understand that they have been placed in a position of dominance and should occupy it with as much grace and humility as possible, but take every opportunity to step outside of that framework. A child and parent playing or just hanging out together are equals. If you have no time to play and your child plays, how can you be equals? Our outlook on playing as childish is a cultural phenomenon, and nothing more. A teacher dedicating herself to helping a child understand is operating as an equal--"I know this, and you can know this too." A yelling, belittling parent or teacher is saying,"I know who and what you are to me: a little nothing, a child. I do not believe I am big enough to control you, and that makes me feel angry and helpless, because I am supposed to be in charge."
Parents and teachers, of course, are the grown-up childen who experienced these things. No moral judgments are neccessary, nor strong emotions of indignance. Judging a parent while holding innocent a child ignores that time has separated them into their roles, and nothing more.
Why do societies teach submission? I have said that they intend to create confused, unhappy adults. The first step is to create confused, unhappy children by squashing their natural impulses and teaching them that a moral authority exists and sits in judgment of them at all times. Submission is not brought upon children with the attitude that they are eternal beings who temporarily do not know how to make decisions in their best interests, and thus must be guided and restrained from some activities. It is visited upon children as an alleged reflection of who they are. Since we get our bearings of life on the planet Earth as children, and remain children for a long period of our lives, we will likely carry our beliefs from this time throughout our lives. Thus, all of our lives we will believe that submission is appropriate because of who we are. In time, as adults, we will come to believe that dominance is appropriate because of who we are, as well.
DOMINANCE
Dominance and submission are not very different, because you cannot have one without the other. Like any two opposites, they are dependent on each other to exist as concepts. Not only does the presence of a dominator imply the existence of a submissive, and visa versa, but these forces are also always present in each individual. In fact, it is their dual presence in each person that allows them to manifest at all. We could even say that because they are co-dependent ideas, they are not different at all; they are two sides of the same coin. So even though submission is what we're taught as children, we are also being taught all the ins and outs of dominance.
Dominance and submission are not only alike because they are opposite concepts that are part of the same structure, but also because they are both about one thing: a lack of power. Both dominant and submissive positions lack power. Submissive people are obviously not in power (although we'll discuss their power later) but dominant people also lack power, because they lack conviction in their dominance. They don't really believe they are good enough, strong enough, or in control enough; that is why they must continue to exercise dominance. No dominant person is without that insecurity. Even if one is totally self-assured in one's present, there will always be a past in which one was not. With a past, one can never be completely secure.
Children use their learned dominance/submission concepts in play, and may begin to act out dominance over their own body, harming themselves as a way to exert control. As we grow older, we learn to relate to others in exclusively dominance/submission paradigms. Dating, workplace relations, economic status, looks, age, gender: the way we interact in these arenas are all based upon subtle or overt dominance/submission patterns.
I'D RATHER NOT HAVE POWER OVER YOU OR YOU OVER ME
Activists claim to work for the end of oppression, for equality for all. Nonetheless, people who identify as activists usually reinforce the dominance/submission paradigm in their thoughts, speech and social patterns. We are anxious to establish who is different from us. Gossip, cruelty and judgment can abound in activist circles. None of these is worse than self-judgment. Activism starts within; it is secondarily an outside struggle. It is essentially the abolishment of internal dualities to bring an enlightened non-duality to the world; a struggle which encompasses, enlightens and neutralizes its opposer. It is the only thing that can't be fought; it destroys dominance by comforting it to death; it joins its dominator in compassion and gladly becomes like its submissive.
NOW YOU CAN'T GO WRONG
We must not struggle against anything. Find the open channels and use them. Open yourself to the highest obedience, to God's silenter word. There can be no conflict in making yourself your most glorious self. Long activists have said that they do not know how to choose between themselves and the work; whether to sit in an ashram or fight in the protest; to retreat to the farm or organize in the cities. These choices are meaningless; in both situations we are of the world and working for ourselves. Everything we do is equally for the transformation of the world and for the transformation of our selves; there can be no separation.
Being your HIGHEST SELF is the greatest refutation of duality, the highest absorptive principle.