Responsibility and Guilt

pt. 1

I may be ambiguous about the creation of our universe. I am not agnostic; I am not atheistic; I am ambiguous.  Ambiguous because I do not believe there was a creator–I believe there was a creation.  Ambiguous because I don’t believe there was a designer but there is a design.  Ambiguous because I believe what is, is purposeful the teleological, but do not believe it could  not have been different, simply accept that what is, is as it is and not different than it is.  Ambiguous because what is, is diverse and ever changing, and what is, is always very different in kind while always being similar in kind.

But I have no ambiguity about the fall of man.  I even think the monotheists have the date right with the minor confusion of equating the date of the fall with the date of the creation. The universe, the solar system, the earth, and the evolution of life upon it, went on quite well for much longer in scientific perception of what is measured as a timeline.  And then whammo! Man recreated what was for what he wanted it to be. Namely he wanted superiority over what was, and a belief he could alter what was to what he wanted it to be.  

And frankly, in my not too commonly accepted opinion, man just mucked it up.  And also frankly, I see little substantive difference between the theist who believes in Grandpa in the Sky and the atheist who believes that he can recreate the universe in his image and somehow not only conquer and alter the isness of the earth, but that the universe is filled with other isness changers.  But the ultimate goal for seeking out other isness changers is a weird belief that the earth is our dominion, and our capacity to conform it to our own desires and our self-proclamations of assumed godliness.  Am I wrong?  Our plans for Mars are to “transform” it even before we arrive are they not?  And if we did discover other isness changers I see no indications we would be nice guy star fleet, rather than isness dominating cardassians.  As a matter of fact I doubt that if there are other isness changers it is highly unlikely that any two such beings could meet with a handshake rather than tossing projectiles against each other.

Now the fall, from my perspective, is God (Isness) creates.   All is good because all is what it is.  Adam, improperly nomenclatured  איש (man) instead of מלך (king) and king, in reality, is the man who would be god.  The king might have had a need to create a god to tell his “subjects” he was king which was a devious diversion formula to disguise his own need to be worshiped, and the business owner may say he is entitled to more wealth because he created (whatever he created) which is a devious diversion to disguise his own kingly desires.

Yesterday I read a rather scathing article by Rohn Kenyatta on his thoughts about whites saying black people should return to Africa. And this article is my (hopefully) more reasoned response than my immediate reply.  But it is essentially the same reply.  Before you continue reading I recommend you read his article:Black To Africa: Bargain Basement Deal For European-America https://rohnkenyatta.substack.com/p/black-to-africa-bargain-basement

It all comes down to accepting responsibility for injuring or wounding others feelings. If you wound another’s body or another’s property you can be held criminally responsible.  But if you wound another’s feelings maximally you can be held civilly responsible.  But why is wounding feelings and not accepting responsibility for those wounds only civil.  Herein lies the absurdity in civil lawsuit.  Because monetary reparations are insignificant recompense for those who refuse to accept responsibility for the wounds inflicted on the feelings of another.  After all if your property is stolen you are probably responsibly liable for being unwilling to share as much as the thief is responsible for stealing.  The solution to theft is for the thief to ask and the victim to share.  To take a page from the mouth of Jesus, if someone asks for something, give him all you have. Go naked or go hungry but give the other what he needs.  And of course, if no one lacked, no one would need to steal.  And if the one who is stolen from acknowledges his responsibility to share what he has, perhaps the thief would ask instead of stealing in the first place.  And perhaps if the one who has entitled himself to having too much by profiting from others instead of sharing with others acknowledges that by profiting instead of sharing he has himself stolen by profiting.  What is profit if it is not theft?  This is not a socialist diatribe suggesting everyone should have exactly the same, this is an idealistic diatribe that the more you give away the more others will give back and if you give enough you might be given more, but what you gain will not be profit that steals from another, or put another way a demand you deserve recompense for your gift, instead of giving to the community your idea and being recompensed by their gratitude.  This is the big man concept of ruling.  Some big men gained wealth from their gifts to the community that were returned in excess and some big men remained poor by returning gifts of gratitude back to the community.  And some big men kept their gifts and used the gratitude of the community to demand communal obeisance.  

When this is done then the community is wounded in their feelings, made to feel of less worth than the one who takes from them.  The takers, aware, or unaware, of the wounds they inflict , compound the wounds by granting some higher status—whether it is by monetary status or structural positions of authority over others—makes no difference to the end result which is to subterfugedly distort the wounds he is responsible for inflicting by creating conflict betwixt those he is wounding.  He does this by not taking responsibility for wounding others and blaming them for their own wounds.  He slices open the wounds he has inflicted and pours guiltsoline into them.

Donald Trump is often proclaimed to be lying.  I disagree.  Donald Trump is just so honest that he refuses to accept responsibility for his own criminality and attempts to place the guilt on others without subterfugidication.  “I did everything right and they (DOJ is guilty)indicted me.” “If you’re famous, they (women are guilty) let you do it.” “I don’t pay any more taxes than I need to, but they (IRS are guilty) want me to pay me to pay more.”  Trump is honest because in “confessing” his crimes, he is incapable of subterfuge and comes out and directly admits the crimes the powerful always attempt to deny.  “There are good people on both sides”, admitting that power continues only if both sides dislike and conflict with each other. “Lock her up! I understand the meaning of classified documents! I have a right to classified documents! I gave back some of the documents!”  admitting that the powerful are entitled to steal.  Poor Fred Trump.  He had one son that became consumed with guilt from the theft he was perpetuating upon others and another who attempted to hide his responsibility without the subterfuge.  Well poor Fred Trump, in that neither of his sons had the capacity to steal as they should properly, as all good profiteers steal  One felt consumed with guilt because he was incapable of not feeling responsible, the other incapable of not publicly admitting everyone deserved to be stolen from and unable to not publicly admit the subterfuge that enables impunity to responsibility, and throwing guilt onto others publicly and openly admitting that power succeeds by division and not harmony.

So let’s parse for just a moment why we are responsible when we wound others.  I posted an article on my substack about my own trials when I was accused of sexual harassment in 7th grade, and of rape in the 11th grade.  In this article I tried to not cast the women negatively but said I was responsible for their feelings.  Not too many replied on the substack forum, but I received multiple direct email responses.  The general  consensus was that they were “false” accusations and I shouldn’t feel guilty.  Well I did not feel guilty but I was responsible for the wounds.  The wounds may have been inadvertent on my part but nevertheless I made those two girls feel wounded, and I must admit my responsibility for their wounds.  I did cause the wounds and I am guilty of causing the wound.  By accepting my responsibility and admitting my own culpability in the wounds I assuage, hopefully, my feelings of guilt and their feelings of guilt.  When people cannot accept responsibility and place the responsibility on the wounded, then they transfer the guilt of responsibility upon the wounded.  

A woman is not guilty for being raped, the child is not guilty if he fails to meet the expectations of the parent or teacher, the bullied are not responsible for being bullied, but they are responsible if they return their being bullied by attempting to bully others.  The man or woman are not guilty if their spouse cheats, but they are responsible for placing expectations of faithfulness upon the other.  Once again, this is not about how people should behave, but creating sexual faithfulness as a standard that may or may not have anything to do with faithlessness.  Faithlessness, whether in a marriage, or in any interaction between people, is not about betrayal of one to the other but about denying to one to dictate (own) the needs of the feelings of one by other.  If love is only about sexual exclusiveness, then ownership rights of the other’s body then that ownership itself is faithless.  And to quote Jesus once more (he does have a lot of useful and quotable insights), “who among you has not thought about being unfaithful”. If one thinks faithless thoughts and only maintains physical faithfulness because he expects rewards from the other, from society, or from getting to be at the head of the choir in the churchpews in some heavenly palace, it is subterfuge. It shifts one’s responsibility to the needs of the other to the demands of the one.

If one steals by profiting from others labor is that not a subterfuge to gain power over others and make the other’s dependence upon them not cast upon them a guilt for not being capable of profiting.  Why is that not the same as the rapist who thinks the woman wants it.  No one wants to be profited from.  The only way it can exist is through a system of deception.  The other is not as deserving as the profiter, the profiter deserves more because he is smarter, because his stick is metal and not wood, because he just deserves to have more than you.  But who is the profiter to proclaim his own self-worth by accumulating what he has taken from others.  But if others give to him because they believe what he has given to them is valuable then both earn the rewards of feeling self-worthy and neither are victimized.  

At Christmas we become victimized because we have to give and not freely give. We spend more on “buying” gifts, jewelry,toys for children, luxuries for adults, etc. That is not giving at all.  That is buying to earn the right to expect the other into being forced to reciprocate to your control. “You better watch out, you better not pout” you better obey me or you won’t be “given” your new play station, your new gold-studded cufflinks (okay I’m antiquated), your diamond necklace.  

A gift is cutting your hair to buy your beloved a chain for his watch and the beloved selling his watch to buy you a beautiful set of combs.  The story by O.Henry is so beautifully sad I cry even writing about the story.  At heart I am a hopeless romantic waiting for the happy ending. I just don’t believe the happy ending has occurred yet and I become disgusted with the writer who interjects an ending to convince me it's all okay,and the hero achieves the Horatio Alger reward  through honesty and hard work.  My experience tells me the only true Horatio Alger cheats, steals and abuses  others to take his rewards away from others by taking their needs and their humanity. The heroes, Jesus, the man, not  jesus the god, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Tecumseh, Red Cloud, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, ad infinitum while not perfect beings, but certainly demanded others not be victimized become martyrs to causes that never went beyond, “oh yeah, we should honor him”  but never really created the willingness of others to sacrifice themselves to create the happy ending.

 I believe very much in a free market, but the operative word is free, giving to the other freely what they need and exchange of value in kind with the reward being the respect of the gifted for the giver and rewards that are prompted by what  others assume the giver has truly earned, the ultimate gift of making the other not feel they are indebted to the giver. But the giver has his life snuffed out.

 I think my computer is wonderful.  But having little  money to keep up with the latest model,it’s slow, it shuts down sometimes and interrupts what I am doing, it no longer receives automatic periodic updates.  I am grateful for its invention, but I despise how its inventor tries to continually force me into buying programs that I need after I already purchased the computer to do the work I want to do.  Why do each years’  programs become more complicated, instead of less, and why if I prefer the older programs do I have to pay for newer programs that I don’t like as well but am being forced to pay even more for.? Why do I need an intermediary (internet provider), why can’t I just connect directly with the site I wish to connect to?  Do I need a priest to be an intermediary between me and the information I am seeking?  So not only does the “business” proclaim what the people who create it are worth, but it determines my ability to use what I need in accordance to how much they determine what my need is worth to them.  

All of this is the consequence of the fall, the attempted diffusion of humanity into being subjected to being controlled.

And so last night I attempted to respond to Rohn Kenyatta.  The article created , I must say, a very strong emotional response of guilt.  I have always tried to deny feeling guilty by accepting responsibility for my wounds upon others.  By doing so, I don’t absolve myself by confession, I accept responsibility to assure the offended that they are not guilty for my offense   to  them.  And when I read his article and posted my reply, it may have sounded facetious and superior as if I were mocking him.  I tried to assure him I was not, but it sounded somehow superior in tone to me, nevertheless.  My point to him, and to everyone, is that the harm we have done to others, specifically white Americans, to, specifically black Americans, is far greater than can be reparated.  There is no possibility that we can ever repay for generations of harm to the dignity that was, and continues  to be, perpetrated upon them. It is not the harm to their bodies; certainly they were not the first people to be enslaved in the world. Certainly the slave market in Africa was established by Arabs that transported them from their habitat nearly three centuries before Europeans began to export them to the new world.  Certainly chattelization of slaves dispenses with the subterfuge and openly (like Donald Trump) admits its criminality, blindly unaware they are doing so.  And certainly it was an immorality perpetrated upon them.  I may not believe much in morality, I may believe almost all advocates of morality are creating a guise to practice immortality upon others by creating standards of behavior to belittle others so I certainly do believe in the fall that created from the good of the isness, into a very  evil immorality of holding others to a standard of morality.

But Mr. Kenyatta was correct in asserting the immorality of European slavery and empire they developed for themselves surpassed all other previous “slave” societies in degree, if not in kind.  It wasn’t just the importation of Africans into the New World, but the genocide perpetrated on the natives in the northern hemisphere, and almost complete genocide of natives in the Carribean, but their assumption of superiority to the entire world as they attempted all natives around the globe to a similar subjugation of culture and created a world order to fit only their culture.  They proclaimed themselves the true gods (authorities) and they placed that order upon all civilizations and even after breaking free in the mid-20th century, the perversion remained and the cultures around the world created European style governments (autocratic or democratic) and European ideologies of success of submitting the environment to terrorist submission, and the people therein subjected to living within a raped environment and a populace relegated to inconsequentialism.

I suggested to Mr.Kenyatta that what the Europeans owed was unrepayable to the world.  I suggested the only way to repay the world, and directly to black Americans, was not to deport Africans, or Alkebulans, as he called them, back to Alkebulan, but to send all Eurpeans back to Europe,  even though that probably would not be enough.  There is a saying sometimes when investigating financial malfeasance to “follow the money”.  I wish  to suggest we follow the history to see the crimes of history.