further reflection...
Submitted by Dirk Gently on May 16 2000 23:52:13
In reply to A long Statement -- Critical Comments Welcome! submitted by Chislon on May 10 2000 20:17:47
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Leaving aside for the moment the nature of this non-Christian spirituality which you claim is most often superior to that of even the most devout Christian, there are two other issues I'd like to comment on. First, you pointed out that hundreds of years ago, mentoring relationships were the norm. I suspect that they are still the norm in societies which have not been poisoned by modernity. It does take a village to raise a child. None of us are autonomously independent, and I suspect the myth of the successful self-sufficient rugged individualist explains a lot about the hellish state of modern society. From Giovanni Pico della Mirandola to Ayn Rand, we've been seriously misled. Second, it seems as if you're assuming that only men with "dangerous" feelings and desires become mentors to younger men, and a successful mentor is one who does not act on these physical desires. Is this what you meant to imply in the following? Its these men who become great leaders in our society but who would be scorned if their innermost thoughts and purest desires were know by the uneducated or unknowledgeable masses. Yet, today we have many organizations and even companies that give rise to mentorships that provide man to man relationships that seemingly never draw suspicion to the mentor or his feelings or thoughts about or for the mentoree. If these feelings were worn outside these mentors, then they would be labeled and jailed. I'm not claiming to be one of the elite spiritual mentors that you write about, but there are a number of younger men at church that I have "connected" with, without any fear of being labelled or jailed on my part. In fact, I am much freer to work with men than with women, simply because I know that with men, my motives are beyond reproach, while if I were to begin building the same sort of bond with a woman, I would be constantly second-guessing myself. As a single, celibate, heterosexual man, I can relax and be a man when I'm in the company of men. (That applies to my peers as well as to those younger than I.) When I'm in the company of women, I feel the need to keep a guard on my thoughts, words, and actions. Maybe I'm missing the point of what you're writing, but parts of it seem awfully overwrought to me. Dirk |
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