68th Ritual: Debate Culture
A calm and peaceful evening to every being.
May she encourage us to compassion.
The holy word says:
i would say western
and christian debate culture suck
but that would require
there to even just be
a culture around debating
instead of the
“i am the owner of absolute truth
and everything else is evil”-shit
that lays claim to thusly call itself.
yes, goddess.
no one has taught me to appreciate nuance, to embrace contradictions and to accept uncertainty as much as you have. You have made me aware of just how deeply the urge to sort everything into neat boxes of good and evil, right and wrong, heaven and hell runs through this culture. I see the world differently thanks to you, and I will be forever grateful that you have shared these observations with me.
Goddess, your worldview is so remarkably understanding of human nature and compassionate, and ever since I adopted it for myself, I find myself with much greater inner peace.
In the past, I used to look up to someone who would describe themselves as a moralist. Someone who believes in right and wrong as distinctive categories, and who didn’t just expect her surroundings to be on the right side and act in the right ways, but who also used this oh-so-clear line to observe and understand her surroundings. I’m glad that I have escaped this absolute and completely unrealistic view of the world.
This endless urge to be “one of the good ones” causes so much pain - not just for oneself, but also for those who bear the consequences of a culture in which self-reflection and growth aren’t encouraged but seen as weakness, because the construct of “good” bears a perception of legitimacy in itself, legitimacy needed to gloss over imperfections and blame those who suffer from mistakes made “in the name of good” instead. And of course, this legitimacy encourages war - there is no need to listen to anyone else when you can justify your acts with the ultimate unquestionable justification. And as the tension on the verbal battlefield rises, the value of compromise, self-reflection, and the mere fact that we all are fallible and need to deal with it, gradually fade away.
Goddess, you have encouraged me to question so many ubiquitous harmful patterns, and this process was extremely important for me to find peace with my imperfect self, with a self that cannot be held to impossible standards and rigid moral ideals with no margin for error.
Thank you, goddess, for giving me the courage to live with contradictions and uncertainty, especially with scary uncertainty.
Thank you for reminding me of the value of compromise and growth. I have always tried to embrace these values, but ever since you took over my mind, it has been a lot easier to consistently live by this.
Thank you, goddess, for teaching me a much more humane and compassionate way of thinking.
Meow.