Confederation and meat consumption

[rva_jeremy]

Thanks for expanding on your thinking, Jade. I agree that this is about integrating male and female energies, and I also think you are a good advocate for those female energies (my recommendation wasn't intended to imply you didn't have sympathy for carnivores; only that sympathy is generally helpful to communication). I was not trying to argue that folks fighting for justice should not be strident, only that Q'uo's position seemed to be more "yeah, this is going to happen" and less "you must be strident in your advocacy". It seemed more recognition than approval, in other words.

I also think what Q'uo said about living in the framework of repression is interesting. It's very similar to what I said a few posts back about the energetic dynamic of the society, how opposing something can express a similar energy as advocating something. I think this comes from the way that societies, especially our media-rich society, tends to develop narratives that silo news into "issues" that have these pro/con tensions. They appear designed to make news easier to report, but it ignores how all of these "issues" touch each other and make simple pro/con, "both sides"-style reporting quite shallow. I think we need to find ways to transcend these dichotomies, to pull out the social supports that make them so focused on a particular narrow narrative, and that real healing happens not when one side wins but instead when the both sides understand the match isn't serving them.

I really am sorry that when I talk about this issue it's taken as an attack or criticism. I really, truly don't mean it that way. To me this conversation is interesting because as an intensely political person in an intensely political time, I look to how people are interacting on seemingly intractable issues like this and try to understand the social dynamic that's going on, the unstated things that get taken for granted, etc. So it's really not about criticizing your approach at all, Jade; it's about getting into the misunderstandings and seeing how they get formed, how we can use what we know about the Law of One to cut through these rhetorical, emotional, and conceptual dead-ends. But there's baggage on this topic and I should know better.

It's really interesting, something I just thought about is that when my wife and I discuss issues like this, for example the pay gap between men and women, I think she has the same experience: that the way I engage it shows that I don't support her or agree with her, even though I often do or I am at least very open to it. But because I sort of want to see it from a meta-angle and not simply "get on her side", it's taken as a criticism or as me evincing skepticism. I just feel like so many of our third density conflicts are unnnecessarily oversimplified because it's more important to "make a dent" in somebody's psyche, make an impression or win an argument, than it is to understand that person.

Anyway, I appreciate your generosity and heart, Jade. I will always cheer your stridency on!