The existence or need of any group; political, religious or social such as men’s/women’s groups, implies that there is an opposing group that one must resist.
If there is harmony, then there is no need for a group of people to gather and unify in order to resist an opposing force. However, the creation of a group implies or even at times creates, the opposing force. Thus the existence of any group enforces separation and prevents unity, regardless of what it may claim. You can say anything you want, but the reality of the natural laws of action and reaction will reign.
Any qualification that separates people from each other, American vs Muslim, men’s group vs women’s lib, Israel vs Palestine, means that they oppose each other and opens the door for a conflict. Certainly it brings unity to the members of the group, aside from the common internal power struggles. Using a very well known example, if you could take all the Jews in Israel and all the Palestinians, and wipe out from their mind that they are what they think they are, and implant the belief that they are all the same, which could be anything at all, even a poodle, they would not have a conflict.
I have met a group of people who liked me very much, we spent a lot of time together, in fact months in harmony in the same archery club, until one of them found out I was Jewish. All of a sudden that was the end of the friendship. This is what groups do. They create rifts between people and that makes them change how they treat each other.
Men are taught in the men’s group that they should behave a certain way to and around women, to account for their differences. That only creates a falseness, whether it is what they learnt growing up or in the mens’ group as adults. Either way there is a learnt attitude. What if everyone was treated as an individual, not male or female, Jew or Christian, but just as Jack or Jill. There would be no need for any of these support groups.
Only when there are no separate groups and every individual is simply an individual, without belonging to any type of group whatsoever, then we can finally have unity in humanity. We can at last relax and be open and honest with each other. Only then can sincerity be the rule, and isn’t that the key issue in finding a new relationship, finding someone who is sincere? The irony of course is that the insincere person is the one who demands sincerity.
Often I have found, if you are sincere, no one trusts you. That is a very telling point of the root of the problem. If we all seek sincerity, yet distrust it when we find it, how can we expect to ever have that in our world. This is against the Law of Nature, and of course, the Law of God.
Jew–Muslim–Christian, American–Arab–Russian, people separated only by their culture, color, country, religion and sex. Humanity cannot say we are evolved and in a modern society as long as there are individual groups fighting for the rights of that group. Those very protests state that they themselves are the cause of trouble by maintaining separation. As long as there is a need for a fight by one group separating themselves from another group, we are still in the stone age.
Let there be a group whose unity is to dissolve all groups. The purpose of this group is the expression of the individual. The ultimate group is called humanity, which will separate itself from animals. Then we can go one step further and respect even the animals. Once we have achieved that, we may be able to respect the plant kingdom as well. This may sound silly, but if we do not find the unity in all things, how can we expect to maintain the planet in a life supporting condition?
There is no way separation of individuals into groups can lead to harmony, period. When a person comes to truly believe, understand and live that way, then that person is a harmonious link between all beings. That is the only state in which true compassion and love can be felt as it is void of separation and prejudice.
This is the ultimate seeker of truth who sees all beings as a soul rather than a labelled individual. Only then can a person truly acquire a state of spiritual enlightenment and freedom. And, only that person is capable of being a truly useful part of society as they bring harmony and remove the concepts of separation.
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I have no problem at all with the statements made but I wonder whether it is necessary to carry the generalizations quite as far.
To mention some sex based groups that may in fact be sex based for good reasons: Women’s breastfeeding groups, women’ breast cancer groups, women’s cervical cancer groups, men’s prostate cancer groups, men’s testicular cancer groups etc.
To mention race based groups that may exist for good reasons: In Australia, various indigenous groups exist and no doubt have counterparts in New Zealand, Canada, USA, Brazil and no doubt others. Although many unions have themselves exploited and abused powers that the law given to them, there are still countries where workers are badly exploited and need to use some sort of unity to survive.
On a personal level and in support of the generalizations, I spent more than a decade believing that I belonged to an “evil” group called men who were responsible for the terrible problems that men had. It took me a long time to find the appropriate middle view related to that problem.
The need to form groups is probably in our DNA to some extent – a remnant of the survival nature of selection that remains with us now as a remnant, like the appendix, that is not particularly useful or even useless or deadly.
What I find fascinating and hopeful is the degree to which we are able to co-operate with each other within groups and between many different groups
Bill H
You make good points Bill. What I was trying to convey is that any group by its creation separates people from being in the group or outside the group, regardless of what the group is about. This is a separation that can, not necessarily will, but can, separate people and given certain emotional or political influences, can turn people against each other.
Even sports can cause violence to the point of people getting killed such as the soccer games in Europe.
The support factors of a group are of great value, however only if the group is maintained as a support for members without developing a view that anyone not in the group is an enemy, as in the thought, you are either with me or against me.
Thanks David. I figured I might be being a bit too pedantic.
Bill