Flip the Script, Cont.

I finished up (as best I could) the project due Friday, and only have a few less problematic projects due this final, last week. Not just for the semester, but for my Master's in Computer Science.

So now I can breathe a small sigh of relief and catch up on some other things. Like what I meant by 'flip the script'.

I suppose my interest/fascination starts, as happens all too often, with my Catholic upbringing. In this case, Jesus's command to "turn the other cheek".

That phrase is far more problematic than you'd think, and Wikipedia does a rather excellent job of summing up the problems.

Are we commanded to passively allow others to attack us?

Did we miss some sort of cultural context, and the command actually subtly puts our attackers in some sort of dilemma?

Or is it some meta thing, breaking the cycle of violence by refusing to return it in kind?

The dilemma captures something about the mystery at the heart of Christianity, I think. 

Oh, there are legitimate reasons to criticize the religion. People have used their interpretation of the faith to justify all sorts of ills and evils, and claim that 'God' wanted it that way.

But what I consider the heart of it is something well worth engaging in.

And somehow, every time I try to put this into words I struggle. Bear with me as I ramble on, dear reader.

My brother and I used to have debates over free will, and my ultimate conclusion was... that I can't say for sure whether it exists, but true or not the concept is crucial.

See... people often act as though we're computer programs. Experience and genetics program us to act in certain ways, and we do so without thinking. You can debate endlessly how much of our actions are freely chosen decisions and how much can be traced back to nature or how we were nurtured...

But the concept of free will gives us a way to change the program. To rewrite it. To say "I don't like where this takes me, and I am not defined by my past. I can change, choose different, and end up somewhere better."

I believe we're all capable of change, but I admit it's hard. And all too often we don't seem to exercise that power. 

Someone strikes us, we strike back (and perhaps wind up in some sort of lethal fight as things escalate). Or we choose to ignore it and accept being treated poorly (and perhaps it happens again, and again, and again, so that we're forced to accept constant attacks).

People act as though it's a binary choice, either/or, and it's really not. Realizing that we have free will means realizing we can break out of such destructive patterns. A long time ago, when I studied tai chi and hapkido (during my exploratory college years) I felt martial arts illustrated this point beautifully. We're used to thinking that if someone punches us, we can block it or take the hit. (I'm simplifying that for effect, because of course we can also dodge it... so even then it's not truly binary.)

But there are other options... like using your opponents momentum against them, and turning their attack into a throw. Of aiding them in overextending themselves, so that they lose their balance and give you control. (This Tai Chi site has an excellent video showing Push Hands and how that works.)

Trying to give clear guidance is a bit like trying to tell someone how to do Push Hands just from watching this video. It's not something you can learn like that, it's something you have to do yourself. Something you need to build experience at. (Perhaps like wrestling?). You can't say "push here, yield there" because too much of it is situationally dependent. In the video, you can see how their arms are lightly touching. Through that connection you can sense your opponent, get a feel for where their balance is, where they are putting their weight. (And - another tai chi lesson with great military applications - if you lose that connection your opponent becomes unpredictable.)

The point is to get them off balance, because once they're off balance you have control. From the outside it doesn't look like much, just two guys going round and round - until someone moves too far from their center.

Anyways, I like looking for things that show people being... I dunno... self-aware and making great choices. People who know how to flip the script, change their programming, become a force for change in the world around them. (Perhaps that's why I've been so obsessed with Naruto the past few months. Also why the notion of 'killing with kindness' appeals to me. When someone opposes you and is all geared up for a fight, it's actually sort of amusing - in a totally not saintly way - to watch how off balance they get when you refuse to act the way they expect.)

Take trolls - most people see it as a binary choice. Engage, and degenerate into an online screaming match, or ignore. i.e. "don't feed the troll." I think I linked to something earlier that showed there are other options.

It's just...

Most people don't use them, or don't have the skills to do so well.

I sort of got on this topic because of an earlier post, where I talked about the marketplace of ideas and the need to shine sunlight on certain topics.

I then encountered a rash of posts (on various different social media sites) talking about what a bad idea it is to engage white supremacists. How they tried taking over punk culture, for example, until they were forced out. How they take your willingness to engage as a way to get their foot in the door.

And yet... and yet there's another story I'd linked to previously, where a community successfully engaged and changed a former white supremacist. It can happen...

It's just, well, most people aren't all that skilled at doing so. They push when they should yield, or yield when they should push, and then say it's a bad idea and tell everyone not to feed the trolls.

It's like...

I'm not saying they're wrong. Given their experiences, and given that it takes a massive investment in time and energy, sometimes that's what you've got to do. Not everyone is in a position for the sort of interaction it takes to engage in a life-changing sort of way.

And, tbh, if you can't engage without losing your cool and having that online screaming match, then disengaging is probably for the best.

But I admire and praise the ones who know how to 'flip the script'. Who can respond and engage in ways that break the cycle (in this case, not of hitting and violence, but of the political polarization we see today.)

Of people who don't passively accept, but don't retaliate in kind. The ones who struggle to find a way of achieving their goals without compromising their morals or integrity. (Veering off track, but I want to say it because it angers me if I think about it too much - any politician who decides that they 'have' to lie, or rig an election, or do whatever shady and unscrupulous thing they've decided is necessary to defeat their (to their minds even more shady and unscrupulous) opponent and stay in power has shown that they've utterly failed at being a gamechanger, a script flipper, or a force for good. Instead, they've allowed their experience and programming to make themselves part of the problem, just as bad if not worse than their opponent. Gerrymandering, as just one example, is proof you do not deserve to be in power. Whatever good you think you might do is totally outweighed by your willingness to destroy the social contract in order to do so.)

Counter-Terrorism, Oversimplification, Etc.

In college I took hapkido and tai chi.  Even a little bit of push hands.  It's been years since I've done any of it, but some of the lessons stuck with me still.

Push hands is a little bit like an old childhood game.  The one where you put your front foot next to someone else's foot, grab each other by the hand and try to unbalance the other person.  Except, of course, the stances and point of contact are different.

As for lessons learned - first of all, when you're in contact with the other person you can kind of sense where their balance is.  Where they're moving to, and from.  (In the military sense - when you're in contact with the enemy you have a sense of where they're moving to.  It's when you lose all contact that they become unpredictable.)

Second - in push hands, once someone loses balance the other person has control.  If your opponent loses their balance, you control where they go.  In order to win, you need to keep your balance while making them lose theirs.  If they're moving towards you, maybe you should go with it...even aid them in that movement.  Make them overextend.  Then they lose their balance, and you can direct them easily. 

So many people think battle is straightforward.  Attack.  Block.  Swing, block, swing.  A fight like that can easily become about brute strength, stamina, and speed.  It's comparatively simple...and makes you forget that there are other options.  Instead of blocking, just give them a little assist.  As they move farther and faster than they intended, they overextend and lose their balance.  Meeting strength with weakness can do the same thing.  (This is all situationally dependent, of course.)

So Vietnam, for example, could be seen as an overextension by the United States.  We lost our balance.  Funny enough, though, the Soviet Union then overextended in Afghanistan.

I brought this up for two reasons.  First because we all too often get locked into an 'attack/block' mentality.  It's important to remember that there are other options. 

The second reason?  We have to know when we're overextending. 

On a side note - when reading about the spy games during the Cold War it seemed that the Soviet Union regularly kicked our butts.  This may be a misleading impression, since I'm sure there are some things still classified...but the Soviets generally seemed to do better at building their spy networks.  Yet they're the ones that fell apart in the 80's...so apparently winning the spy game wasn't as critical as you'd think.

I'm part of that curious generation just old enough to remember the Cold War without being forged in it...and young enough to adapt to the internet and all the new technology that came out since then.  The logic of the Cold War was very black and white.  And during that time, we misread situations time and time again.  Focused more on communism, for example, and overlooked nationalism.  I believe our misreading the situation caused a lot of damage to our own national security. 

In the last decade or so terrorism has become the new thing...and I see some of the same mentalities.  Black vs. White.  Oversimplification of the issues.  When you see situations through that lens, you are just as likely to misread the situation and propose strategies that backfire.

This bothers me.  I think I hate terrorists as much as anyone, and I don't want them to succeed.  Yet I find, time and again, that the people who ought to be allies seem blindly determined to think in terms of attack/block...to the point where they actually make it harder to fight terrorism.