Dave
Tomlinson and Rowdy Yates
Deeply
involved in social and political action as I am at the moment, your email on
politics and spirituality interested me very much. I do find it hard to imagine you, Dave,
in the role of the Miss Jean Brodie of the Left. Having started out in the public service, followed by journalism I learned not to
trust either bureaucracy or politicians, right or left. Mao, Stalin and Hitler talked the
talk but something else emerged.
I met many sincere people in public services but also the devious power abusers in
both groups denying rights to citizens. I feel that the only reliable
perspective is Healthy Scepticism about what these groups claim, and their
actual intentions and mirage programmes.
Loyalty to a party is a mistake, to my mind, and involves a loss of
independence and objectivity.
It becomes a fixed belief, a faith that we socialists, or whoever, have
the only sure framework, or prison.
I
think you will be interested in the following happening. Sometime towards the end of the 70s a
group here set up a well funded programme for drug addicts. Their plan included an agenda: to convince the participants that they
were victims of society, and it was the enemy and cause of their addiction. Stoking participants’ anger, and
their own ignorance, proved very combustible. One day the programme blew up and the staff took refuge in the
toilets until rescued. Rather
appropriate, I thought at the time.
It closed immediately.
While
there is great energy and satisfaction in the kamaraderie of a cause, I am very
conscious of the danger of it
getting out of hand and conviction in the rightness of the cause leading to vile
actions. We on this island are
still searching for bodies, North and South, victims of “the Cause.” Anyway , Dave, I tend to lean
towards the Buddhist view of interrelatedness/interconnectedness of all beings
as a spiritual beginning. But I also support Albert Ellis’s view
that we are all screwed up, fallible human beings. It’s not pessimistic but rather
compassionate. It is also a
reason why all human organisations are corruptible, but we can reclaim ourselves
and reform our organisations, by keeping a close eye on them, continuous vigilance
and reform and reappraisal,
adherence to ethics, and maintaining permeability of the programme’s interface
with society, as Bridger advocated in Rome and which I often discussed with our
dear friend Don Ottenberg. I like
the idea of “Listen to the talk, but only trust, or believe, what they
do.”
As
your know, the TC programme
embraces honesty, care for
others, responsibility, keeping commitments, and mindfulness of what we think
and do and the outcome, and an ethical way of living, to mention but a few
components of the TC that relate to how to live a more healthy, and perhaps a
happier life, and contributing to society. I think that the resident has a
lot to do making his/her own of a new value system and self nourishing way of
behaving, before becoming involved in social or political activism, which, as
you know can be a way of avoiding personal change, mindfulness, and
responsibility.
I
would tend to regard all of this, particularly personal mindfulness. as
spiritual and far from nebulous, but you don’t have to see it as anything more
than a practical and better way of living.
Of
course I also believe in social and political action as essential (protest and
votes), if fairness and democracy are to be achieved and taught to politicians,
and telling them what these are about, and we are having some success.
To
you Rowdy I would say that frequently AA and NA branches make a dog’s dinner of
“It’s a spiritual programme” and not satisfactorily explaining what they
mean. This often results in
endless arguments, confusion with religion, rejection and an escape route for the
disgruntled participants. I
often wonder how many actually do a ‘fearless moral inventory’, if I have that
correctly. A bewildered
member consulted me many years ago having been taken apart at an AA meeting for
quoting an American list of issues
that might be included in such an inventory. From the details of the abuse, I
concluded that few of them had taken the Step and resented being reminded. Nevertheless, I have to
acknowledge some good work by groups that I have known about.
From
your observations, David, I gather that you still relish a
joust.
Kind
regards to you both.
Jim
Cumberton
DPA