Rites of Passage/Rights of Passage

Industrial society has subordinated the interests of the family to the interests of the economy. Once economics served social ends now society serves economic ends. The role of social education and acculturation is accomplished through the media and popular culture. The role of the community in traditional societies was to incorporate the technology for living (culture) in a series of classes or social experiences that were part of the educational system delivered through intensive experiential instruction at significant points in the social and physical development of community members.

Desire and duty
One of the most persistent and pronounced aspects of the human experience is the urge that facilitates procreation. On the one hand there is the spark that creates the flame that we call desire. On the other hand there is the patient tending of the relationship, the gentle stoking of the fires, the consistent feeding of the flames that sustains it that we call duty. Differences in expectation between cultures results from varying arrangements and approaches to acknowledging, addressing and responding to these two important aspects of the human experience. The grand design and purpose of both impulses serve to ensure propagation and continuation of the species. Each society due to unique environmental or emotional conditions, circumstances and needs adopts an approach and expression that best supports it. Knowing the role and responsibility in that dance is conveyed to community members through rites of passage.

Infatuation and obligation

There has been much research that is slowly catching up with the ancient wisdom that guided traditional societies. One area is in the science of the mind. The modern world is a manifestation of European culture. This cultural orientation is profoundly shaped by an experience called "the enlightenment." The basic orientation of this worldview is low context. In cultural terms it translates into individualization of relations (social, economic, etc.). The cultural kernel that was embedded in social relations of Europe prior to the enlightenment survived the protestant reformation. The low context worldview propagated by the enlightenment combined with the per-enlightenment binary cultural focus  allowed for the elevation of values like greed and self-interest to the exclusion or deprecation of values like sharing and collective interest.

The Enlightenment era was ushered in by objections to corruption of the Catholic Church. The desire to command and control, extract and exploit, created conditions where religion was used for secular purposes. While the church extolled the divinity of the head of the church, the Pope, accounts of the person in that role both promoting and indulging behavior and values that were antithetical to the professed religious values of the church. This behavior by church officials were common and rife up and down the church hierarchy. Violation of vows of celibacy and selling of indulgences, among other major and minor moral violation, were so rife within all levels of the church hierarchy that the protest movement against it, whose start is usually attributed to Martin Luther, resulted in the creation of a new religious Christian tradition, the Protestant movement. Those challenges to religious authority extended to secular and scientific authority and an examination of biblical based understanding of the world. However, this moral response did not root out the cultural kernel that made such behavior acceptable and desirable.

When faced with choices like "do I pursue that which I am fascinated with even when it conflicts with my obligation?" our worldview based on our values provides the answer. For low context individualistic cultures like modern (European) cultures, individual needs and satisfaction are held to be the highest value. For high context collectivist cultures like many traditional (non-European) cultures, collective needs and collective agreements are held to be the highest value. That does not mean that in either case the tug of infatuation won't be present. It also doesn't define or limit the range of emotional responses to infatuation. But it does determine and limit the range of behaviors one might engage in as a response to the infatuation.

Carnal/Lust and Caring/Love
The role of rites of passage is designed to lift up the ancient worldview and perspective we see reflected in the writings of Kemet. The role of education is designed to prepare members of society for appropriate and effective behavioral responses and promote the appropriate beliefs that support desired values. Inappropriate behavior is considered a failure of education not a failure of character. While it is not described in this way, popular culture educates a society in what is right and what is wrong. The images and ideas conveyed through media and formal educational processes also promote and provide behavior and values.

The low context thinking that characterizes european culture divides our lived experience in a way where we can only be one thing. We are horny or we are holy. We divide our physical expression of attraction that is mediated through hormones from our emotional expression of caring through compassion and caring. But what is love and how did it get conflated with lust? 

We love our parents, our siblings and our children (for example). But that has nothing to do with sexuality. It is all about sociality. When we say we "love" it speaks to affection not necessarily attraction. The two are not mutually exclusive. But neither are they mutually inclusive. Also, they can be present serially. The sexual attraction that is sometimes referred to as love is a product of the limbic brain system. It is automatic and often considered autonomic. But with training and conditioning that is part of a structured program, such as a rites of passage, and with reinforcement and support from society, our physical reactions can be mediated or provided the meaning that we determine. 

Of course, we may not be able to control our physical reaction but we can interpret its emotional significance and the appropriate response. You get a warm feeling and are appreciative of the sexual energy of a friend or associate. What is the appropriate emotional response to the physical activation? Whether you think "I want to get some of that" or whether you think "someone will be lucky to be with them" depends significantly on our cultural conditioning and what is deemed appropriate. We see this as part of the concept of "taboo" in more traditional cultures. But even in modern european culture and society the practice of sexual activity between immediate family members, i.e., incest, is considered taboo. Active and intentional socialization provides direction for society and guidance for individuals. 

 The role and need for intentional informal socialization that is provided by rites of passage programs
is real and present. It is lacking due to a general commodification of most aspects of capitalist consumer culture. The home is the first school and the care givers are the first teachers. In order to support the vision and values we hold for community and as a community, rites of passage are essential. They provide new entrants with the  "rights" of passage into a new social role. May it be so.

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Mindfulness as a waking, walking meditation

According to Maxwell Maltz (1960) there are behaviors that contribute to a "success-type personality." He developed an acronym as a mnemonic or easy way of remembering the elements of the behaviors:

S = sense of direction
U = understanding
C = courage
E = esteem
S = self confidence
S = self-acceptance

He provides additional explanation on how each of these elements contributes to accomplishing or having a "successful" life. He states that "(t)he reason .... that a man does not simply 'find' success or 'come to' failure (is that) ....  (h)e carries their seeds around in his personality and character" (p.102)

This viewpoint is of the social construction variety. We create the social world we live in by our actions and attitudes.  Our actions contribute to what happens. Our attitudes contribute to how we feel about that happens. A basic element of his prescription for success is to focus on the process not the product. Being successful is differentiated from wanting to be a success. Maltz suggests that success is hidden in the process of becoming rather than embedded in the state of "being."

"S" or Sense of direction is related to the idea that we are happiest when we are attempting to do something or engaging in an experience. Maltz says that the human animal is a "goal-seeking mechanism." We are happiest when we are busiest working on a project or doing something which "means something." He gives a nod to concept of "flow" without ever mentioning the word when he suggests that "(w)hen you are not goal-striving, not looking forward, you're not really 'living' ."(p. 102) This immersion in goal seeking is what I am suggesting is akin to 'flow' where you are absorbed in what you are doing.

But I sat down today to peck out a hunk of what Maltz has to say about the second element of the success personality. "U" or understanding is listed second. I don't think he necessarily intended to list them in order of importance just providing meanings to correspond to the letters in the work 'success."

"U" is understainding. Maltz says that:(u)nderstanding depends upon good communication. Communication is vital to any guidance system or computer. You cannot react appropriately if the information you act upon is faulty or misunderstood. Many doctors believe that "confusion" is the basic element in neurosis To deal effectively with a problem, you must have some understanding of its true nature. Most of our failures in human relations are due to "misunderstandings." (p.105)

The idea of understanding is further explained to include the idea that (w)e expect people to react and respond and come to the same conclusions as we do from a given set of "facts" or 'circumstances.' " Maltz reminds us that he had mentioned earlier in the book that people don't react to things "as they are" but rather as we see them to be based on our own perspective, perceptions and conclusions. This is very similar to the concepts propounded in the Landmark Forum which some have characterized as a cult or commercial scam. However, counsels "there is what happened and then there is the story we tell about what happened." This is very similar to maxim shared by Maltz but also consistent with existential thought and social constructionism.

Other aspects of understanding include being able to differentiate fact from fiction. An example used is a husband who cracks his knuckles and his wife who concludes that he does it only to annoy her. The experience is explained as the wife is making the assumption that the husband is deliberately trying to annoy her  which are fiction. But her assumption affects her experience of the situation and results in her choosing to be annoyed by the imaginary intent of the husband. We make other assumptions about the intentions of others with similar results. Also, being willing to see the truth is another element of "understanding" is to "be willing to see the truth." This is meant that honesty with ourselves and with others is necessary for true understanding. It sort of suggests that if you have an incorrect (false) diagnosis of the problem it will result in a incorrect (false) prescription for the solution. A suggested attitude in this regard is "it doesn't matter who's right, but what's right."

These first two steps are preliminary but important. While we have been talking about these concepts applied on a personal basis they are also relevant when we look at collective behavior. There are behaviors that groups adopt that reflect these same problems or their corrective principles. Healing ourselves emotionally is the purpose and intent of these ideas. Change the frame and change the future.




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China - Human Rights and American delusions

While our fearless leader George Bush is settling in for his retirement as President of the United States he is going around lecturing people to do as he says and not as he has done. We hear this loudest as people talk about China and its sweatshop human rights abuses that include denying non-Han ethnicities the right to their cultural heritage and tradition. Imagine that!

First, in terms of sweat shop economics we have only to look in the mirror as a nation to recognize the capitalist ideology that says "Greed is good" and the only good worker is an exploited worker. Isn't that the ethos of capitalism? While the Chinese factory workers are being exploited for their labor American workers are unemployed and have no access to the paltry crumbs being tossed to the Chinese workers. In fact, while the Chinese are paid a pittance for their labor, American workers are denied the opportunity to work and forced into peonage as they borrow against future earnings that they won't have and run up a debt burden on credit cards and borrow against the equity in the one (or two) assets they have. Home refinancing to pull out what little equity remains or car title loans to trade the tools required for future earnings for a crust of bread today. It is a joke to talk about slave labor in Chinese factories when the majority of Americans are indebted to whoever will extend them credit. Help! American workers have fallen into debt and they can't get out!

The capitalist owners of the factors of production are looking for the cheapest deal. They fund the Chinese capitalist labor extraction camps and hide their hand. Cheap foreign labor means no jobs in the U.S. economy but cheaper imports of consumer goods. It is stupid to think that the American economy can keep chugging along as it did for the first 20 years after World War 2 when the conditions of workers at home have been degraded to the point where they can not afford basic living needs.

Then the baloney about the Chinese repressing the identity of different ethnicities in China. What a bunch of hogwash. For those of us who have been paying attention it is clear that the United States was a forerunner in the creation of "whiteness" due to the need for suppressing the enslaved African labor force who powered its early economy. In fact, it was the melting pot idea that cleverly disguised the American cultural identity excision process. This same approach was adopted by Europeans around the world. We hear reports of the boarding schools for Native Americans in Canada. The boarding schools for the aboriginal people of Australia. American society was structured to indoctrinate all who fell under its sway to the superiority of the "White" race and the corresponding inferiority of all others based on the level of melanin content in their skin. So there were schools where the Native American was taught, taunted and trained to not be Native American. There was all of society that damned and degraded the African ancestry of the formerly enslaved Africans and their descendants and everybody else fell into a continuum from bright white to damned Black. How does Bush and his fellow ideologues (yes, I am talking about you and all the others who have internalized the white supremacist ideations or its corresponding Black inferiority degradations of American social thought and political economy) so smugly wag their finger at those who would be White? The concept of whiteness is similar to the concept of Blackness where it is more than a phenotypical feature. It is a culture, an ideology, a worldview, a manifesto that is shouted from the printed page, the electronic screen and the melanin deficient posturing of the savage beasts who have left a trail of blood and cultural destruction in their wake.

I am not pointing fingers. Externalized white supremacy through the workings of European institutions. Internalized Black inferiority through the suppression of dignity and the degradation of pride. But come on, who needs to point fingers when you know who you are!




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