I didn't know you were heading to this particular "here" in your previous post.
Your post identifies a tangled mess - arguably an emotional mine field that is fundamental to the human experience all the way back to our pre-human origins, as I alluded to privately.
Having read and re-read your postseveral times now, I will offer this:
"If he had seen what he claimed to see, I strongly suspect something would have been done about it."
He saw what he saw. I have no reason to doubt it. I have witnessed child soldiering. You have nothing more than my assertion. Did he invent it out of whole cloth? Am I?
Clearly, nothing was done about what he witnessed. Objective reality informs me nothing has been done about child soldiering.
"..he couldn’t have stopped whatever he thought he saw, and that lack of control is frustrating."
What if he actually saw what he claimed? That he couldn't stop it is traumatic to him. His reaction to it is a psychological response to that trauma. "frustrating" is a long way from the very real horror of the experience as a witness, let alone as a victim.
In this case, "..those people just have no values.." is his psychological generalization of a specific traumatic event. It's a coping mechanism.
The rest of your post creates an inescapable logic loop. It's a tacit dismissal of his claim, his reaction to it, and I would suggest his humanity. There's no path through the loop that does not involve dismissal.
Did he generalize the specific to an entire group of people? Absolutely. Did he actually witness it? More likely than not. That he was wrong to generalize does not negate the truth of the event causing the generalization. He is, after all, human.
Thanks for the post. It has prompted me to revisit the excellent PBS series, "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth" (available in its entirety on YouTube)
I did make an error in assuming that he did not see what he implied he saw - I've never been in combat overseas, and I can only draw conclusions from what I've read and been told. I was going for the point that the problem lies in generalizing, so I both undermined myself by ignoring his experience AND reinforced the point by doing the same thing to him (generalizing from the observation that other people I have seen making this accusation did NOT have any credible experience, and undercutting his experience).
And I hope this admission can lead readers to where I wanted them to go: we need to show people some grace, and try to help each other get away from taking these shortcuts that end up perpetuating our cruelty.
Ah, old friend, the Abyss is real. When we truly see it, it looks back and hungers for our psyches. It sends emissaries clothed in seeming magnificance that campaign in vitriol and govern in chaos. Look at how many have fallen prey. These are indeed dangerous times.
In the interest of full disclosure, you have seen me have a bad day or two along the way, and your gentle well thought out insights were invaluable.
The subject of your piece is having a bad day that never really goes away. Even with help, it will still linger like a spectre in the peripheral vision of his mind's eye. I risk trivializing it, but there is a line of dialog from a movie that encapsulates it:
I didn't know you were heading to this particular "here" in your previous post.
Your post identifies a tangled mess - arguably an emotional mine field that is fundamental to the human experience all the way back to our pre-human origins, as I alluded to privately.
Having read and re-read your postseveral times now, I will offer this:
"If he had seen what he claimed to see, I strongly suspect something would have been done about it."
He saw what he saw. I have no reason to doubt it. I have witnessed child soldiering. You have nothing more than my assertion. Did he invent it out of whole cloth? Am I?
Clearly, nothing was done about what he witnessed. Objective reality informs me nothing has been done about child soldiering.
"..he couldn’t have stopped whatever he thought he saw, and that lack of control is frustrating."
What if he actually saw what he claimed? That he couldn't stop it is traumatic to him. His reaction to it is a psychological response to that trauma. "frustrating" is a long way from the very real horror of the experience as a witness, let alone as a victim.
In this case, "..those people just have no values.." is his psychological generalization of a specific traumatic event. It's a coping mechanism.
The rest of your post creates an inescapable logic loop. It's a tacit dismissal of his claim, his reaction to it, and I would suggest his humanity. There's no path through the loop that does not involve dismissal.
Did he generalize the specific to an entire group of people? Absolutely. Did he actually witness it? More likely than not. That he was wrong to generalize does not negate the truth of the event causing the generalization. He is, after all, human.
Thanks for the post. It has prompted me to revisit the excellent PBS series, "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth" (available in its entirety on YouTube)
Thank you for laying that out so succinctly.
I did make an error in assuming that he did not see what he implied he saw - I've never been in combat overseas, and I can only draw conclusions from what I've read and been told. I was going for the point that the problem lies in generalizing, so I both undermined myself by ignoring his experience AND reinforced the point by doing the same thing to him (generalizing from the observation that other people I have seen making this accusation did NOT have any credible experience, and undercutting his experience).
And I hope this admission can lead readers to where I wanted them to go: we need to show people some grace, and try to help each other get away from taking these shortcuts that end up perpetuating our cruelty.
Ah, old friend, the Abyss is real. When we truly see it, it looks back and hungers for our psyches. It sends emissaries clothed in seeming magnificance that campaign in vitriol and govern in chaos. Look at how many have fallen prey. These are indeed dangerous times.
In the interest of full disclosure, you have seen me have a bad day or two along the way, and your gentle well thought out insights were invaluable.
The subject of your piece is having a bad day that never really goes away. Even with help, it will still linger like a spectre in the peripheral vision of his mind's eye. I risk trivializing it, but there is a line of dialog from a movie that encapsulates it:
"The horror..the horror."