Poirot

The thing about the 'core motives' of 'love' & 'fear' is that 'love' as contrasted with 'fear' is not really related to 'eros' or 'special love' - a biological drive akin to 'musk' in male Elephants that drives us into perpetuating the species and that can become very possessive ("I killed her, because she threatened to leave me, and I cannot live without her"!!). A better definition of the 'love' that contrasts with 'fear' is "Love is the dissolution of separation" - i.e., this is a concept of 'love' in which 'separate interests' are seen as simply manifestations of 'egoic fear' - the preservation of my unshared 'egoic self'.

Everyone seeks to protect their 'identity' and if that 'identity' has a boundary that is 'body based' [skin, tribe, race, etc] it will always be vulnerable and defended against ‘outsiders’. If, however, the 'Identity' is unbounded (and the mystics from Plato down came to understand this notion of the 'unbounded shared Self') it has no need to be 'protected'. And this is why 'love is the dissolution of separation' and hence - at another level of Life - 'all is well' - even though everything appears to be a mess in 'shadow land' [recall Plato's illustration of The Cave in the Republic] at another level - Reality - all is well. But the egoic mind does not know that all is well in Reality because it is asleep and having a 'nightmare' and prefers its 'chains' [again, see Plato's cave] and just as in the story of the prisoners in Plato's 'cave' (who were chained facing the back of the cave so that they could only 'see' the reflections of 'reality', which they took to be reality itself) they would kill anyone who escaped from their chains and attempted to showed them that there was a 'greater reality' than that which the separated, special egoic mind prefers to 'see'. Plato was referring, of course to Socrates, but the metaphor still applies today to anyone who attempts to alert the prisoners of 'fear' to 'another WAY of seeing'

Racism still permeates Australian society, in overt and covert ways.
Aka,
Sadly you're right. I hear that from just about everyone who returns from indigenous communities. From indigenous & non-idigenous alike. I believe it's worse in the urban areas.
I only wish people would listen & learn but alas...
Perhaps if racism wasn't taught it might gradually abate. But then again, you'd need to eliminate jealousy first, Or does that come before racism, I'm getting confused.

Joe,
I don't share your views on universal vs essential racial or ethnic traits, I don't believe those attributes are mutable or can be said to "progress".
You see homogenisation and unification whereas I see only greater and greater polarisation and fragmentation, you've expressed some race realist thoughts but have fallen back into the WASP pattern of simply pretending that egalitarianism is working and that everyone will eventually see things your way (they'll be redeemed in other words).
Current events both locally and globally argue against that rather hopeful yet naive standpoint.
I too am of mixed ethnicity, think of me as half WASP , half Irish, I have the same internal struggle between wanting to sink into the cocoon of the blind, de racinated WASP world but something in my nature holds me back, it doesn't feel right.
I'd take issue with the idea that the Indo European model of society is backward, to my way of thinking egalitarianism is a primitive and uncivilised way of life, you can see it's limitations right before your eyes in communities around the country.
The extreme egalitarian WASP's are forming Tribes and enclaves where their ideas of a formal equality do hold sway but only because they almost totally exclude other ethnic groups from their societies, including people such as myself.
We "Racist Bogans" on the other hand actually do have to navigate a multicultural landscape, we do have to live alongside other ethnic groups and we have to compete against them every day of our lives.
As I said, AKA shouldn't tar all Whites with the same brush, as a morally inferior being, a "Racist" I'm no more welcome in the WASP's polite society than Joseph Kony or Abu Bakr Bashir would be.

Namaste,

I hope you stick around on this forum. I appreciate the clarity of your expression.

'Love is the dissolution of separation....this is a concept of 'love' in which 'separate interests' are seen as simply manifestations of 'egoic fear' - preservation of my unshared 'egoic' self.'

I've been pondering exactly this question in relation to my own life lately. You put it so eloquently and succinctly - excellent - Thank you

Poirot,
I typed in egoic in the dictionary. I got "egoic' could not be found. ??

[Egoic – Google – ‘related to the ego’ the ‘egoic mind’ aka ‘local mind’]

The terms ‘racist’ and ‘racism’ are pejorative terms used to attribute ‘malicious intent’ to the ignorance and fear-driven actions of one party by another party, who are also driven by ignorance and fear!

What would happen if one party, or the other, were to follow the wisdom of the ancient ‘three wise monkeys’ – HEAR NO EVIL – SPEAK NO EVIL – SEE NO EVIL? First of all, it needs to be pointed out that these three maxims are NOT referring to blinding one’s mind to the mistakes and failings of human beings, but rather to shutting-off one’s mind from having any involvement in the ATTRIBUTION OF DELIBERATE INTENT to those mistakes and failings [aka ‘culpability’ – aka ‘sin’ – a particularly, and very dangerous, fundamentalist ‘form’ (vs ‘the substantive mystery of’) Judaeo/Christian concepts showing a deep ignorance regarding the real nature of what the shared ‘Mind’ actually has a ‘choice’ about – i.e., a ‘choice’ between a ‘state of Love’ (Neo) vs a ‘state of Fear’ (Mr Smith) a la The Matrix] – needless to say, perhaps, the little local egoic mind, despite its illusions of autonomy is a compete slave of the combination of its history, circumstances and motive of fear! Love does not condemn!

What would happen, is that the person who attributed no ‘ill-intent’ would no longer engage in negative conflict aimed at inducing ‘guilt’ in the hope that “the sooner you can see how GUILTY you are the sooner you will change for the better” [which never works in changing ‘attitudes’ even though it may be able to force a modicum of ‘guilt driven’ tokenism] but rather, if they were serious about change, would allow them to begin to work on solving the ‘root cause’ of the problem. Racism is not a ‘root cause’ but rather an effect of a common root cause to all such problems – ‘bounded identity’ vs ‘unbounded identity’ – ‘separate interests – separate solutions – separate outcomes’ vs ‘shared interests – shared solutions – shared outcomes’.