"... What we stand for gives us purpose, and that purpose dictates our job ahead" (10/5/15)
Which -- while ostensibly noble (insofar as Jack Dorsey appears to believe himself and and his companies to be so) -- anthropomorphizes entities (in this case, corporations) whose purposes arguably rarely deviate from ensuring progressively greater financial returns to investors and shareholders.
On the other hand -- as a human credo --
What I stand for gives me purpose, and that purpose dictates my job ahead.
-- there's something intriguingly powerful about the implicit inferences within this unassuming string of fourteen words -- for what if the stand is a stand for the greater good, the purpose is a purpose for the greater good, and the job itself is a greater good?
The Stand
If all of us stood for the greater good of all of us -- what heights could we not achieve?
Verily, would our hearts fester enmity and distrust, would our mouths espouse hatred and intolerance, would our hands tyrannize each other -- if our hearts, our mouths, our hands stood for the greater good of every heart, every mouth, every hand?
For hearts full of empathy, mouths full of compassion, and hands full of care are too intent on assuring a tomorrow for everyone -- to perpetuate mindless violence in service to a future for someone. For what else is violence -- but the actuation of narcissism? Certainly, if not our narcissism -- narcissism in service to someone or somebody.
The Purpose
If all of us set aside our weapons -- our distortions, our solipsisms, our bigotries -- how could we not achieve peace in our lifetime?
If our souls refuse to ferment bigotries, our hearts refuse to succor solipsisms, our minds refuse to entertain distortions -- the fertile ground within which our present animosities thrive and flourish will wither into extinction. For violence within, begets violence without and all violence without germinates from violence within. Until we avow our internal landscapes of violence, we will fail to pursue conscionable peace -- within and without.
As for unconscionable peace? It is peace at gunpoint. For peace won though coercion and intimidation is tyranny masquerading as enlightened freedom.
The Job
Lastly, what if our jobs were our lives and how we lived them -- whether we lived them for our selves and our personal advancements or whether we lived them for all of us and the greater good?
Surely, if we -- as creatures of incredible capacities for greatness -- concede the nobler imperative of life itself for all of us, the aspirations of transient titles to gratify vacuous identities and the affectations of transient successes to satiate avaricious egos would lose their prestige as preeminent ambitions. Because -- as creatures of awe inspiring inclinations -- we owe more to ourselves and each other than to champion our own comforts and pleasures to the exclusion of the greater good.
Rather, we owe ourselves and each other the gift of peace writ large. We owe ourselves and each other a tomorrow to treasure.
More
Who's taking a stand for tomorrow?
Label-centrists? Hypocrisy and solipsism -- endemic to label-centrism -- are incompatible with everyone's tomorrow.
Notwithstanding that we've been so unremittingly indoctrinated by label-centrists as to the righteous justness of our enlightened freedom, that our wherewithal to stand has dissolved into mute compliance and apathetic acquiescence -- if not you and me -- then who?
- M.
Addendum
While label-centrist agendas vie to upstage competing label-centrist agendas for disproportionate considerations and preferential advantages... who stands for peace and equality for all?
Case in point, every day there's a new feature by a major media outlet highlighting aggressions and microaggressions affecting label-centric persons and/or label-centric causes. Every day exemplifications of 'courage' amidst 'injustice'. Every day exemplifications of label-centrist appeals for peace and equality.
But...
Rather than self-empowerment... what if these features are exemplifications of self-aggrandizement via the aggressive advancement of label-centrist crusades for disproportionate considerations and preferential advantages?
Rather than courage... what if these features are exemplifications of ideological tyranny via the unreasonable presumption that dogmas espoused by label centric crusades are the one reality and the one truth to the exclusion of other realities and other truths -- sweeping intolerance of differences of opinion and dissent -- and hostile reprisal and retaliation against opposition from any quarter?
Rather than appeals for peace and equality... what if these features are exemplifications of label-centrist separatism via the overtly divisive xenophobia that propels label-centrist delusions of idealized homogeneity at all costs?
Then...
Isn't it possible that label-centrism fosters violence within via label-centrist intolerance and xenophobia? Isn't it possible that label-centric crusades perpetuate violence without via agendas drenched in ideological despotism? Moreover, isn't it possible that peace won at gunpoint by label-centrist coercion and intimidation is not peace at all -- that this tyranny masquerading as enlightened freedom is an hypocrisy of pretension?
Therefore, isn't it possible that when we abnegate our resolve to stand for conscionable peace -- by intention or torpor -- we concede to tyranny?
- M.
Note
Jack Dorsey's truncated tweet, referenced above, was posted here: Twitter Names Jack Dorsey Ceo... (TechCrunch 10/5/15). Needless to say, it bears noting that the ability to craft a corporate mission statement that imbues overtones of social good with self-promotional savvy does not necessarily lead one to assume that the statement maker (or the corporation in question) is a model of moral integrity.
In any case, with regards to label-centrism, our insistence on reducing our holistic humanism into arbitrary delineations by race, socioeconomic status, age, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, educational attainment, sexual orientation, etc. creates impassable bridges between all of us and each other.
Case in point: Wealth therapy tackles woes of the rich: 'It's really isolating to have lots of money' (The Guardian 10/17/15). Despite this article's ostensibly 'equitable' premise (viz. woe is a human experience, regardless of wealth), the author's inordinate fixation with illustrating wealth disparities in an article about therapy, hardly humanizes the gaping crevasse between 'the rich' and 'the poor' (not to mention, 'the poor' no more appreciate being labelled as such, than 'the rich'). Rather, this article corroborates and disseminates our label-centric bigotry vis a vis wealth.
Why does this matter?
Because articles like these illustrate how insidiously label-centrist propaganda amplifies our existing label-centric biases. For no true champion of freedom and equality condones the marginalization and denigration of a person or a group of people by virtue of their label -- including socioeconomic status. Period.
When everyone has a voice and a seat at the table, we can accomplish great things. Wondrous things. Like peace writ large and a tomorrow to treasure.
That's worth standing for.
- M.
