Peaceful Sustenance?

Our identities are merely a summary of our prejudices that we have inherited during the course of our lives. conflict naturally follows these prejudices; since they are prejudices, they bring to light opposing ideas.

so i ask: is it possible to live without conflict? to survive, without conflict?

now if there is one thing that i have learned, it is that there are always going to be negative forces in this world. they might manifest in many different ways. the question is not whether there are negative forces, but how to deal with them.

i can hardly think of a more blatently obvious example than a terrorist. he will kill you, and he cannot be reasoned with. now in order to overcome this threat, one must defend themselves and kill the terrorist. this is hardly taking the way of love, or the peaceful route. what makes your side so 'right'. after all, it is just the clash of two conflicting prejudices, which are entirely subjective. what makes your prejudices more correct than the terrorist's, enough so to justify all-out conflict? because it is in defense? there is no justification, you are both as bad as eachother. prejudices are no justification, you are both on the same level. so, this is hardly the right path to take.

you might think to take the higher road, the peaceful route, and just let the terrorist overtake you. he will kill you, but then you go on existing in love after death. this isn't sustenance though, since the whole idea is to stay alive. heh.

so it seems there are two paths that you could take: a peaceful road, or a path of sustenance.

is there no middle road? how can you survive a threat, without lowering yourself to the level of the threat, or succumbing to the threat? maybe one must just let go of their prejudices...

the example with the terrorist is a bit extreme, but it doesn't always have to involve dieing, or a physical threat. we all deal with some kind of negative force.

 

These are good questions. I believe that conflict is necessary. To use a more mundane example, in disciplining children, a parent must often assume a confrontational role and be a 'bad guy'. When your kid is poking the dog in the head with a fork and asking him to stop nicely doesn't work the first ten times, well, you've got to escalate.

There is indeed a middle ground though. I haven't started a fight that I know of ever, but I've both won and lost some. Last time, I tried running away, but finally said, fuck it, and started swinging (I was being jumped by several drunk guys in a racist attack). Anyway, Yeah, conflict is necessary, but it's ok to be kind (which is often mistaken with weakness for some reason), and try to do your best to inspire peace and love in others while knowing that you will may fail.

Good luck! love- Sheerdrunkiness

 

Conflicting views are not always prejudice.

I agree that there is a lot of prejudice in the world but most of the conflict that I see around me in my life is a result of stubborn misunderstandings. I see why you might apply the word prejudice to these type of situations but by doing so you undermine other situations that are more deserving of the word prejudice.

A person who believes that all businessmen are selfish ass holes is being prejudice. A person who believes that all drug users are useless is also being prejudice.

Two people spend hours arguing over who they think the best band in the world is and neither one of them are being prejudice, they're just unable to accept that someone else feels differently than they do. When someone is upset that a friend or family member's drug use is destroying their life, as long as they are basing this on what is actually happening to their life instead of what will happen to their life because it's happened to others, they are not being prejudice.

I think the word prejudice should be reserved for situations when a group or certain type of people are unfairly judged because of the actions or beliefs of one or more of their peers. According to the dictionary it is okay to use the word prejudice outside of this context but when you do this the word loses its impact. There are many conflicting situations in life that would be better described with words such as stubborn and ignorant.

 

Man Desos, I used to be plagued by exactly your dilemma. Now I understand that it's ok to submit and let him kill me and it's ok to plunge a dagger into his heart and it's ok to hug him and it's ok to cry like a baby

Just do it.

There is no hierarchy of action. All actions are useless and disgusting, and all actions are glorious and enlightened. It is only your perception which slices out your view of which are which. In reality all is all.

 

i wasn't meaning prejudice as in ignorant views. i meant it in more of a difference in views kind of way. so people have different views, their views conflict.

well see i do do beleive there is a hierarchy of actions. you might say that nothing is true, everything is permitted. but if nothing is true, then falsities are as true as it gets.

 

That philosophy is psychotic!

 

see. two conflicting philosophies. what is one to do? surrender to the other philosophy, peacefully? or argue his own philosophy, for sustenance?



is there no road of both peace, and sustenance?

because surely your philosophy is correct. how does one maintain his own philosophy, without it being invalidated, and without degrading the other philosophy?

 

No need to argue, he can learn the hard way.

 

yea i was just using it as an example. sure you can just write it off as being wrong and go on about your day, but what if his being wrong posed a direct threat to you? how do you handle it then, without fighting the threat or succumbing to it?

 

No, that philosophy is so much more than psychotic. Psychotic is only a subset of my philosophy. Here are some more subsets of my philosophy:

-passionate
-loving
-artistic
-utilitarian
-confrontational
-evil
-good
-psychotic
-non - psychotic
-engaged
-apathetic
-etc

It is the philosophy of everything.

Everything.

Not a speck of dust is not included in my philosophy. It is so much more than any of it's subsets. From previous posts and this one, you seem like one of those people who, without rules from "god", would go around raping and killing people. What you don't understand is that you can take whatever you want out of this philosophy. You see "psychotic", because that is what you naturally gravitate towards, and that is why you so desperately need "god" or "karma" to hold you in place and make you a functioning member of society, because your true self has not yet evolved far enough to be a good person because you WANT to be a good person. You still need your metaphysical carrot and whip, and I'm sorry for you. But hopefully you now understand that this is the philosophy of pure affirmation of the cosmos, where both a beautiful baby being born and your mother dying of cancer slowly are met with a peaceful and resounding YES :cheers2:

It's all part of the same cosmic dance my friend. Why you choose only the bad things I don't understand, but have fun choosing them I would recommend choosing some of the other things sometime though, just to mix things up!

 

see, there you fought the threat of 3xi's philosophy in order to preserve and justify your own ideas. now how can you preserve and justify your own ideas without discounting or discrediting opposing ideas?

in the end the difference between the two ideas is just a differnces in prejudices gained throughout your own seperate lives. neither of you are more right than the other.

but since the the point of this thread has pretty much been questioned, and is essentially a prejudiced philosophy, let's just pretend for now that it is correct; or that the point is to acheive no conflict during situations of dissension, while also preserving one's own disposition.

 

I did no such thing? I answered a retort he had about my philosophy. There was no fighting, no threat, and my philosophy requires no preservation or justification; it is the un-philosophy. It is the philosophy which exists before any philosophy is used to surgically slice reality up into little slices of concepts.

That's like asking how can preserve the life of someone with Ebola without harming any Ebola virii. How can I make an omelette without harming any eggs. You might as well ask How can I breathe without ingesting air . . . it is simply the nature of this universe; consumption, transformation. This applies to ideas as well; ideas meet ideas, battle each other, and one emerges, or both synthesize into a new one. I don't understand what's bad about this?

Well if you like you can go down that path, but that is the path that leads to beliefs about reality which do not translate to facts about reality. That's fine, you can do that, and you can think that someone who believes the earth is flat is "just as right" as someone who believes the earth is in fact round. But then the argument is null, as anyone can just believe anything they like and there are no criteria for determining which beliefs are better than other. I argue that the best criteria for which beliefs are better than others is the criteria of applicability to reality. Believing the earth is flat is super, until you get in a plane, fly straight in one direction for a day or two, and are shocked to find you've come back home. Understand?

Again, you're asking for a contradiction. Don't be afraid of conflict, violence, agony, death. That is in the same pile of things as peace, tranquility, pleasure, and life. You are just artificially slicing them out as "bad" because you'd rather not endure them. But in fact, we endure them as often as we endure the good things, and just as every single person experiences the pinnacle of life (being born), every person experiences the pinaccle of death (dying). It is a great tragedy that that half of the spectrum of existence is deemed "bad" by the western mind.

Read some taoist, buddhist, and hindu literature, and I think you'll find your dilemma is answered as a non-dilemma.

If you want to combat an idea, combat it. There is a reason why samurais were buddhist, and there was no conflict there. Yes, samurais, warriors who kill and maim, were adherents to a religion of peace. But that is because buddhism is misunderstood in the west. Buddhism also embraces all things, including the death side of the coin of the universe.

 

conflict, violence, and agony stem from fear. i'm asking how how to handle the situation through constructs forged through love, while also preserving one's disposition.

maybe it's not possible.

 

I think you need to examine this premise. I can think of an infinite amount of examples of conflict, violence, and agony, which have nothing to do with fear. When a hawk swoops down to catch a mouse, where is the fear? When you stub your toe in the morning, where is the fear? When a war is fought over two opposing religions, where is the fear?

Yes, fear can cause those things, but those things also arise in situations where fear is not even a factor. In fact, in the natural world, fear is often NOT the factor with conflict, violence, and agony.

Another western misconception

So this is simply mistaken thinking; love and fear do no create all reactions. Many reactions have nothing to do with love or fear, many are a combination of love and fear. Throw this distinction out of your mind, it is the source of great confusion within you.

To handle conflict with only love? Sure it is, as long as you're ok dying because you tried to hug a madman with an automatic

If you're ok with dying, then you can handle the situation with only love. This is a solution. The fact that it ends with your death is beside the point.

If you're asking for a solution that does not end in your death, only further conflict can prevent that.

Conflict is amazing It's what caused the sperm that held half of your genetic information to make it to the egg first.

Conflict is just another word for interaction. It is not inherently bad; nothing is

 

Conflict will always stem from the desire for something better for one of the parties, on a base level, it's the instinct to survive. Assuming peace is the negation of conflict, peace is also the negation of our survival.

 

That's a good point. It's exactly why red & green traffic lights are necessary. If all traffic signals were flashing yellow all of the time, traffic just wouldn't flow properly.

There are some people who will yield by their nature or disposition, but others who will cut you off in traffic to get ahead.

Perhaps many people don't know when they're supposed to be pulling or pushing. Misunderstandings, misinterpretations of motives, and misanticipating what people are going to do leads to a lot of conflict in general.

While you can somewhat effectively manage this within your own realm of influence, good luck implementing it on a large scale.

 

yea i guess so. it just seems like survival also ought to stem from love and peace, instead of conflict and fear.

but i guess that love does not see our identities. it sees us all as one. so really there are no identities to have conflict if we are handling things truly though love. which means death.

i like to think that we live on a higher plane of existence through love if all our identities are destroyed on earth.

 

I know it's really hard to break this duality in your mind but just try. Love and hate are the same thing, just opposite ends of it. Conflict and peace are the same thing, just opposite ends of it. Neither end of neither thing is good or bad. YOU make that distinction as a rational and emotional human being in your day to day activities, but your decision does not actually correlate to anything outside yourself.

Just because you prefer love over hate, and peace over conflict, doesn't mean that love is in fact better than hate, or peace better than conflict. It's a logical fallacy and an empirical error.

The whole spectrum is where we are, in this universe, and there are an infinite amount of opinions on which points are the better points on this spectrum. Why not just embrace the WHOLE spectrum and choose whatever point best suits situations as they arise? Sometimes you might need to hug someone, and sometimes you might need to shoot someone. Be at peace with any decision.

Monks and suicide bombers my friend.

 

yea they are opposite ends of the same stick, but the way i see it is, the spectrum is a logical progression... not just something that you can tune into at any point and have it be ok.

fear --> in between stuff --> love --> ???

 

Why is fear so bad? We need fear to stop us doing things that are liable to get us killed. It's a major component in the survival instinct.

Also, off topic but your fear-love continuum rings a bell. Have you seen Donnie Darko?