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   %SHOULD OUGHT MUST RESPONSIBILITY PLEDGE HONESTY+940717
 %OUGHT LOYALTY EXPECTED ANTICIPATED CONTRACT AGREE+940717
 %PROMISE COVENANT LAW REQUIRED ESSENTIAL NECESSARY 940717

     Our   sense  of  what  we  should  do  is  intimately
associated  with  our need for approval,   friendship  and
community.   To become and remain a member of a supportive
community, we court approval, respect, and support for our
attitudes, thoughts, decisions and actions.   We care what
other people think,  feel and say about us; but especially
what we think they think, feel and say about us.

     Often  we  are  not well informed  about  what  other
people think,  feel and say about us---but we care a great
deal,   nevertheless.    In  our  alienation  we  seek  to
manipulate others to achieve their approval,  respect  and
support   of us by how we manage our attitudes,  thoughts,
decisions and actions.     Such  manipulations  of  others
through  our  manipulations of ourselves  often become the
primary focus  of   our   attention   in   addictive   and
codependent  relationships.   We play collusive  games  of
mutual  self-deception  to  convince  ourselves  that  our
manipulative lives are normal and healthy.

     Our duties and sense of what we should do are defined
in  both  informal  and  formal  ways.    Often  they  are
engendered   by  informal  expectations  which  are  never
verbalized in any way,  but are communicated in non-verbal
ways.   We develop tacit and implicit agreements regarding
what   is appropriate to expect of each  other,  and  so
agree on what we should do.   It is not a simple matter to
violate  such  informal expectations which define  for  us
what  we should do---for we care about others'   approval,
respect and support.

     We fear excommunication; i.e.,  being rejected and/or
ejected from opportunities for open and honest dialogue in
intimate  relationships.    Our  fears  of excommunication
often drive and  lead  us to be dishonest in  manipulative
ways which engender alienation through formal and informal
judgments,   condemnations  and rejections.  In efforts to
control   anti-social   behaviors  we   often    formalize
excommunications,  rejections,   and alienations  in  ways
defined by laws, moral codes, and ethical systems; and the
judicial processes associated with all of them.

     Our  fears of alienation are often misguided  through
misinformation,   disinformation and ignorance which  have
been  engendered by our alienation---and so we act in ways
which    engender    additional    fears,      alienation,
misinformation,  disinformation and ignorance.   We  often
respond to such chaotic developments by trying to  restore
law  and order through formal and informal definitions  of
what   we   and   others should  do.    We  create  rules,
regulations,  prohibitions,  proscriptions, prescriptions,
disciplines, codes, laws, taboos, etc.  Rarely is adequate
attention given  to  the  alienative  consequences of such
efforts---for  the  attention is focused upon  visions  of
perfect  behavior in  expectations of  conformity---rather
than upon visions of increasingly open and honest dialogue
and   the  prerequisites to increasingly open  and  honest
dialogue.

     Personal  and  communal integrity are the  fruits  of
increasingly open and honest dialogue; not of increasingly
sophisticated   articulations  of   rules,    regulations,
prohibitions,  proscriptions, prescriptions,  disciplines,
codes, laws, taboos. etc.  We cannot achieve true security
through  manipulations which discourage openness,  honesty
and  dialogue.    Such manipulations may give us  a  false
sense of security, but they never give us true security.

     True  security  is a gift we give each other  in  the
process  of  building healthy communities,  where  we  are
truly safe in being vulnerable in open and honest dialogue
with  the people who are most different from us.   We  are
truly   secure  when  we  are  genuinely   interested   in
intimately  getting-to-know  people  who  are   different;
rather  than    in  fearfully defending ourselves  against
them as perceived threats to our security.

     We  are  often lead by others,  our  ideals, and  our
values, to  believe that we should  do  things  which  are
dishonest, disintegrative and alienative.   We need to ask
why we are lead by others,  our ideals, and our values, to
believe we should do  things  which  lead to  personal and
communal  disintegration.    How can anybody  regard  such
leadership as reasonable, respectable or sane?

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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