ChristianKl comments on What level of compassion do you consider normal, expected, mandatory etc. ? - Less Wrong

9 [deleted] 10 April 2015 12:57PM

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Comment author: ChristianKl 10 April 2015 03:07:43PM 0 points [-]

All true, just not relevant. I do think there is a serious problem of having too thin skins today and it is not directly relevant to compassion. As late as in the 1960's, in the hippie age, people were listening to Zen Buddhist masters and similar gurus, like Osho, who would telling them you are not helpless with your feelings.

Osho's right hand did run the biggest bioattack on the US at the time. I don't want to live in a world where when someone doesn't like how an election is going to go they try to poison a significant portion of the electorate to keep them at home.

With increased technological capacities, this gets more dangerous.

Todays 25 years old seem to literally think other people control their emotions, other people can make them angry or sad, and from this grave mistake they make their whole system of ethics, they say making others sad or angry is wrong, that it is basically the responsibility of person A how he made person B feel and not person B's responsibility to police his own emotions and so on.

There are certainly people who hold that position but I'm not one of them.

Comment author: TezlaKoil 11 April 2015 01:15:04AM *  5 points [-]

Osho's right hand did run the biggest bioattack on the US at the time. I don't want to live in a world where when someone doesn't like how an election is going to go they try to poison a significant portion of the electorate to keep them at home.

As far as I know, most other gurus teaching similar principles were not involved with bioterrorism. Do you think there might be a causal relationship between preaching you are not helpless with your feelings and committing bioattacks?

Comment author: Anomylous 11 April 2015 01:55:34AM 1 point [-]

There are certainly people who hold that position but I'm not one of them.

Me either. I wonder if someone's done a study to see if locus of control (internal vs. external) is a cohort effect due to the culture/spiritual teachings of the '60s, or simply age-related, so people who were in their 20's in the 1960's are now self-possessed and don't blame others for their feelings, while current 25-year-olds just haven't had time to learn it (although some may be ahead of the learning curve).

Comment author: [deleted] 12 April 2015 06:36:24AM *  0 points [-]

How is this relevant again? It is true that in some cases the spirituality of the era resulted in violent madness another example in Tokyo but quite probably not by these kinds of teachings. There were many kinds.

Comment author: ChristianKl 12 April 2015 02:04:27PM 0 points [-]

How does it matter if bioterrorism happens under the watch of a person you look up to for dealing with emotions? Normal people have inhibitions against committing acts like that. It brings up uncomfortable emotions. A person who disassociates his emotions doesn't have the same filters.

It is true that in some cases the spirituality of the era resulted in violent madness another example in Tokyo but quite probably not by these kinds of teachings.

You spoke in favor of Osho and not in favor of Shoko Asahara. That makes Shoko Asahara not related to this discussion but Osho is.

I think we have gone through massive societal progress in not having crazy cults anymore. Not having people like Osho anymore is progress.

We don't need dark arts emotional disassociation. We have mechanisms like Focusing and Nonviolent Communication that work well.

Are there cases where it makes sense to speak about distance and the far view? Yes. On the other hand having your viewpoint as that of a camera located three meters away isn't good and it would surprise me if that's something that a Buddhist teacher like Lama Ole Nydahl recommends as a default state.

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