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  %RESPONSE TO IDEAL VALUE VISION IMAGE ASSUMPTIONS+960120
  %IDEAS PEOPLE BEHAVIOR APPROVE ACCEPT REJECT LIKE+960120
%TOLERATE RESPECT PERMIT CONTROL ACKNOWLEDGE ATTEND+960120
   %CRITICIZE UNDERSTAND RECOGNIZE APPRECIATE HONOR+960120
  %EXCLUDE INTEGRATIVE CREATIVE NONCONFORMISTS SINS 960120

     Our  personal and communal integrity depends  greatly
upon  HOW  we respond to other people and  their:   ideas,
ideals, values, visions, assumptions, behaviors, failures,
and creative efforts to offer integrative leadership.

     The HOW of our response may be pointed to with  words
such as:

     APPROVAL          ACCEPTANCE        TOLERANCE

     RESPECT           PERMISSION        CONTROLS

     ACKNOWLEDGMENT    IGNORING          CRITICISM

     RIDICULE          UNDERSTANDING     RECOGNITION

     ATTENTION         APPRECIATION      HONOR

     Our  responses  fall upon  various  places   along  a
continuous spectrum running  from  highly  negativistic to
highly positive.   In the middle of the spectrum there are
many ways in  which  we  may  respond  which  can  best be
characterized  by  what is absent,   lacking  or  missing;
rather than by what is obviously present.

     To say that something is absent,  lacking or  missing
is  to  suggest that there is some basis for  saying  what
might  be  expected  to be  present.     If  there  is  no
consensus as to what might be expected to be present it is
hard to have  any  consensus  regarding  what  is  absent,
lacking or missing.

     When  people  are engaged in  obviously  negativistic
behavior it is likely to be obvious to many people that it
is negativistic---but not obvious to all people that it is
negativistic.    To some people negativistic  behavior  is
normal,  natural, proper;  and not recognized as worthy of
being called negativistic.

     When   people   are  engaged  in  life   styles   and
communities which  are  not overtly negativistic,  but  do
lack   many   important  affirmative  aspects---they   are
unlikely to  be participants in  any  consensus  regarding
what affirmative elements might  be expected to be present
in a  healthy community  where  people  enjoy personal and
communal integrity.   Thus in such a community most of the
members of the  community  are unlikely to  recognize that
some  important  elements are absent and so  they  do  not
recognize what is lacking in important ways.

     See the next essay.

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