From Jill: brief summary of 4 different visions of human nature: Lord of the Flies, by W. Golding, The Course in Miracles, the Buddhist view, and the Shamanic view (Native Americans Jill has personally worked with). (doc file in Jill's own words)
From Mike: "Morals Without God?" by Frans de Waal (doc file The Stone)
From Isaac: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/the-science-of-success/7761/
Isaac suggests "thinking of the 'greenhouse care' for 'orchid children' as not necessarily always a matter of coddling, caution, climate-control and such, but as potentially including non-easy things like vigorous activity, discipline, and accountability."
From Sabine: Read Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" and "Mending Wall."
From Theresa: Michael Jackson's "Human Nature" - "if this town is just an apple, then let me take a bite"
From Anna: (swiped from her email signature)
In riding a horse we borrow freedom. ~Helen Thomson
____________________________________________________________________Good morning,
I, for one, have yet to read the Banter 12 readings on Human Nature, but look forward to it for evening reading tonight...& maybe a little saved for tomorrow. This is a reminder note that we're meeting tomorrow night, May 15 (Sunday), at 7pm at my house for Banter 12. (Or, for Anna, post-shift!). If you've received this invite to your inbox but have yet to come, please do. We'll envelop you like a bee hive (that is, like a fellow bee, not like a swarm with stingers out).
That bee note is a reference to the E.O. Wilson I was reading last night On Human Nature. I'm reading the chapter about Altruism, because this is an aspect of "human nature," or as it turns out bee nature, that I am interested in. I treasure the Amelies of life (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sECzJY07oK4), but disdain the times I (or others) approach an Amelie-like act and then end up talking about it, even when we think we're being modest, while instead engaging in full-on bragging in our subtle human ways. I think of people at my church, the Unitarian set out on Trumble Creek (lots of liberals, a fair handful of atheists, largely for social justice & tolerance), and I somehow resent the pressure to be a good human (when I go there lately). Last week I was at church, and I just wanted to carry on with the conversation I was deeply enjoying with two other people, when the wife of one (who is volunteer #1 at the church) swooped in and suggested that we all help put chairs away. Our conversation and connection was dispersed as if a bomb had gone off; our sentences stalled out mid-way; no grand conclusion was reached, no further camaraderie; and, we separated, a bit dazed by how quickly things went from really meaningful and engaged to much less so. Who in that scenario was being altruistic or selfish, really, I wondered to myself, as I watched the wife buzz around with little eye contact doing many needed-to-do things, as I watched the husband break from the conversation and quietly stack chairs, as I watched myself stack one and then go outside to resume deep conversing with two other people well-known to me to be generous in intellectual conversing, and frugal with church volunteerism. I see no altruism in that scene.
Here's a quote from E.O. that I liked from last night's read: "Generosity without hope of reciprocation is the rarest and most cherished of human behaviors, subtle and difficult to define, distributed in a highly selective pattern, surrounded by ritual and circumstance, and honored by medallions and emotional orations. We sanctify true altruism in order to reward it and thus to make it less than true, and by that means to promote its recurrence in others." (Wilson, 149)
I hope, to high heaven (and deep space), that no one will ask us to stack chairs tomorrow night right when we've gotten underway.
Can't wait,
Sabine
No comments:
Post a Comment