In today’s Daily Metta, Michael Nagler discusses the need to go beyond the trivializion of nonviolence to understand why violence happens, drawing from Greek philosopher Epictetus, President Obama, and a 14th Century mystical text.
Add your comments, questions and reflections below!
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By: Stephanie Van Hook
Stephanie Van Hook is Executive Director of the Metta Center for Nonviolence.
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It would be useful if you could list the source of the quotes you give.I see from Search that the first was from the Cloud of Unknowing but I could not find the Epictetus one. Is it Chapter XI The beginnings of philosophy: “Therefore there must be some rule.”??
I don’t doubt rage, frustration, and the media have a lot to do with creating violence, but so does does corrupt, fradulent BigPharma and fradulent biopsychiatry which has been working on the premise of bad or no science to reduce people to chemical imbalances and diagnoses for which there is also no scientific validity. One of the things the mainstream media has not told people is that these drugs actually cause chemical imbalances which make people suicidal and homicidal. Most of the mass shooters are known to have been on at least one of these drugs. Legislators have a bill pending in Congress to force more of these toxic mind altering chemicals on people and shift funds away from social supports such as housing and support proven effective for healing trauma. Proposing draconian mental health laws also shifts the discssion away from gun control. Guess who wins here and has the power to be heard and shape public opinion — Cross Disabilitoy or the NRA? If that isn’t bad enough, the premise of this legislation is pairing “mental illness” with violence for which there is no legitimate premise. People with psychiatric labels are more likely to be victims of violent crime than cause it. The scapegoating and threat of impending “medicalized” violence on people with psychsocial disablities has undertones of eugenics not unlike Nazi-Germany except that eugenics and death by psychiatric tortures can cause a lifetime of disability and take longer to kill. On an average people who receive psychiatric treatment live 25 years less than those who do not receive it. Thanks for letting me have my soapbox speech here. Nothing about us without us.