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In Reply to: Re: Moral Disengagement posted by Skep on February 09, 2006 at 22:41:34:
SKEP -- I like the simple way you describe your "Moral Yardstick" -- Simply, doing unto others... But I appreciate reading the concept, "Moral disengagement". I never really had it so simply and clearly defined in my mind before, altho well aware of it. After leaving the fam. from Amsterdam, a while later I found myself in Tehran, Iran, and met a guy, Naseem, who agreed to let me share rent w/him for a few months, geetin' him up to speed w/his conversational English, and also hooked me up w/a little English teaching job to make a few $. He told me this story, he said, to explain to me what the Moslem people are like:
A Moslem, a Jew, and a Christian are traveling thru the desert and run out of all supplies and yet are a good day's journey from the next town. Right after sunset, most miraculously, a bird flies over and drops a dried piece of meat. Because it was so late, and the morsel so small, they decide to wrap it in a cloth until morning and whoever has the most awesome dream in the night will eat it, go to the next town, and return for the other two (Yeah! Right!) Sun-up, they rise, all smiles. First the Jew, "I was at the sixth level of Heaven. Eating foods I didn't even know...", The Christian butts in, "I was at the seventh level of Heaven. I was just feeding people and didn't even know what hunger was...". They look at the smiling Moslem, "Well???..." He says, "In the night, Mohammed came to me and said 'Wake up fool, and eat the meat!!'" Naseem made me understand that this was not a "Joke", but a story for me to understand what the Moslem people were like. The clincher is, that for most of '73-'74, wandering thru Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, to India and back, all overland and very slowly, to all obviously as a mere wandering "Seaker", I was ALWAYS treated with respect and dignity by all the moslems. NEVER in a threatening nor demeaning manner. Something I can't say about the "Westerners", while wandering thru Europe and the U.S. And I'm a born "Jew", and never hid it from any of 'em. And yet it was often very humbling how good the Moslems treated me.
Maybe this concept, "Moral disengagement" is the concept I was looking for. By truthfully "Doing unto others, the way we would have others do unto us" we are somehow "Engaging" with that "Other" and more able to be compassionate, understanding, and tolerant. I watched Naseem rip-off and hustle a lot of "Tourists" (And I did the same, and worse), and yet,even knowing I was a Jew, we became tight friends. May God help us to "Engage".
