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May 31, 2020, during the Covid-19 lockdown, with rioting beginning in the U.S., Emily Strength wrote this on her facebook page:
When we see people enacting violence of various sorts—murder or destruction of property—some tend to explain it as a personal responsibility and moral choice problem, and some tend to explain it as a societal factors problem. The Personal Responsibility people say "Murder is wrong and one person made the choice to murder. Destruction of property is wrong. The protestors should protest peacefully. They are responsible for their own actions, even if someone has acted wrongly against them."The Societal Factors people say, "Murder is wrong and factors like racism and entitlement lead to the murder. Destruction of property is maybe justified or at least understandable, because of years of pent up anger at injustice. Society needs to change so these things don't happen."
Here's where I see the disconnect:
Most people on the Societal Factors side absolutely understand about personal responsibility. They go to work, pay their bills, and raise their kids. They would never loot a store or burn a building themselves.
So how can someone who is kind and generous and responsible try to explain, or even justify or defend, acts of violence that they themselves would never enact? This confuses the Personal Responsibility people.
I wish I could remember which book it was in, but I read about how the Jewish rabbis said each person has their own tipping point in their conscious where they have to make a deliberate choice to do the right thing.
For someone who is raised keeping God's laws or even the secular versions of moral uprightness, and who have adapted those principles for themselves as adults, this point is very high. They don't have to make a conscious choice not to hit people when they are angry, not to steal from their neighbor or not to murder. These things simply never cross their minds. But they may have to make a conscious choice not to speak unkind words or gossip.
For others, the point is lower. If they have had to steal to survive, and then they try to stop doing that, they have to make a conscious choice not to steal. In order to level up, spiritually or morally, they have to consistently make that choice again and again until it's no longer a difficult choice to make. They hit a point where they simply would not consider stealing.
If someone has committed small acts of violence- hit a dog, thrown something at their wife during an argument, arrested someone and twisted their arm too hard just because they could- and they feel entitled and justified in these acts (as opposed to repentant), their point of choice will keep getting lower, where each act of violence becomes easier and easier until they are capable of murder.
The rabbis recognized that while we are each responsible for making choices in the place where we realize we have a conscious choice, society bears some responsibility for creating an environment in which people start out and continually grow in such a way that their point of choice is higher- where they don't even have to consider whether it's right to murder or steal.
Personal responsibility is, well, personal. We can't make anyone else's choices for them. We can only influence a small number of people within our immediate circles. At that point where you have a choice make, make the right one. At the point where you can influence someone close to you to do the right thing, influence them.
But when people are far away and we have no power over their personal choices, all we can do is seek to understand the societal factors that led them to those choices, so that If and When the situation arises within your circle of society, you know which choice to make so that you and hopefully those around you, level up.
Emily Strength
At an Always Learning Live conference in Albuquerque, Heather Booth and Renee Cabatic said they were there "to level up" as unschooling parents. The idea of raising oneself in abilities, awareness, virtues.... some humans never do. Some humans consciously want to.
This website exists for those who have an interest in exploring what might be better (for them), and stepping toward it, gradually but surely.
In 2011, I had the concept, but not the term. I used "ratchet up." If anyone's unfamiliar with a ratchet wrench, it has a sort of cog that keeps it from going the wrong direction, so every crank you make tightens (or loosens, if it has been reversed—don't do that in your life! 🙂).
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Ratchet up your quality of life
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