This is http://www.essayz.com/a8803161.htm         
Previous-Essay      <== This-Essay ==>     Following-Essay
Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words.
{Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.}
==========================================================
                      %SERENE FREEDOM FROM CONFLICT 880316

     We  may  be  serene  and in peace in the enjoyment of
freedom   from   conflict,   when  we find  how  to  avoid
coercive conformity to non-integrative expectations.

     The  expectation of coercive conformity is not worthy
of respect,  because it is disintegrative; yet many people
respect   the  expectation of coercive conformity---and do
violence   to   themselves   by   trying   to fulfill such
disintegrative expectations. Coercion of human behavior is
disintegrative. Trying to control human behavior leads  to
disintegration.  The expectation that others will yield to
efforts to control them is a disintegrative part of a game
of  mutual  self  deception,   a  collusion.   There is no
serenity  and  no  prospect  for peace for participants in
collusive  games  of  mutual  self deception.   They   are
committed to trying to control each other through coercive
expectations entailing ambiguous threats of punishment and
ambiguous promises of rewards.

     Coercive  conditional   promises   of   rewards   and
threats of  punishment  are  the tools by which we try  to
control each other's behavior.   We usually regard the use
of  such  tools  as  good  or evil,   in  accordance  with
whether we regard the behavior  which they seek to promote
as evil or good.     We  judge   attempts  at  controlling
human behavior  good,   if we regard the expected behavior
to be  evil. We  judge  attempts  at   controlling   human
behavior evil,     if we regard the expected  behavior  to
be good. In such judgments we are confused.

     All  coercive efforts to control human behavior  tend
to reduce  open and honest dialogue;    i.e.,   they  tend
to generate human estrangement, alienation. Human behavior
which  tends  to  generate  human  estrangement  is   evil
behavior;     for  the  essence   of   evil  processes  is
estrangement.    Attempts to coerce   others   to   behave
in     good    ways  generates  estrangement,    and    so
such   attempts    constitute    evil  behavior.       The
character  of  a  tool's  use  is not judged as  well   by
the    intended result   of  its use,    as by the  actual
result of  its use.      The  actual  result  of  the  use
of  tools   of psychological coercion is alienation,   and
so  it is  evil behavior  to  use tools  of  psychological
coercion;     even  when    the   intent    is to  try  to
control people  so  that  they will behave in "good" ways.

     It  is  not  coercive  to help people to do what they
would  do  naturally  in  the absence of coercion.   It is
coercive when an attempt is made to get people to do  what
will not come naturally in the absence of coercion.    The
essence  of  love  is to remove coercions,  so that people
can do what is natural to them, in keeping with their  own
internal  integrative  guidance.  It is coercive to try to
get  people  to  do  that  which  is contrary to their own
internal integrative guidance. Coercion leads to conflicts
between  internal  integrative   guidance   and   external
expectations.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
==========================================================