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Anything that is kept together by fear or force is a farce. It won't thrive or endure.
Thread.
Thread.
As you ponder on our society, you might notice that our authority systems and structures have a crisis of legitimacy. Whether you are looking at families, religious groups or political systems, authority relies too much on fear and force for it sustenance.
The manifest impact of this is that violence or the threat of it is the primary method of negotiation in the culture. A few illustrations...
Relying on anecdotal evidence, I think that in far too many family settings, spanking (or the strident threat of it) is an early, rather than later resort, when trying to negotiate corporation/compliance from children and sadly even spouses.
The home being the petri dish of the great social experiment we call society, this resort to fear and force quickly seeps into every structure outside it. Schools, religious institutions, governmental institutions.
For instance, I suspect that one reason that our education system hasn't produced an industrialised society is because the threat and resulting stigma of failure (rather than joy of learning and discovery) is the primary way the system negotiates with learners to learn.
Young people having been raised in such homes and passed through such education systems often then come into religious consciousness having thoroughly imbibed a culture of fear and force.
This accounts in part for the frequent reliance on threats to get people to do something like give a tithe of their income. To be clear, a great deal of spiritual injunctions are a matter of cause and effect, life and death, yet God says to us...
Isaiah 1:18
“Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be like wool.
“Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be like wool.
Somehow, this deeply cultural bug that makes us think primarily of the stick, and where that fails, the carrot, somehow inhibits the option of Reason.
@DoubleEph did a thread a while ago about the debilitating inability of the Nigerian politician to deploy persuasion.
It is not just the politician, it is the entire society. Due to a lack of use, we continue to see the atrophying of society's faculties of persuasion.
It is not just the politician, it is the entire society. Due to a lack of use, we continue to see the atrophying of society's faculties of persuasion.
The society where spanking doesn't become a later rather than early resort, where fear is a dominant motivation for learning, where threats are the chief way to instil piety, is a society where leaders at their wits end will hire thugs to secure 'corporation' of citizens
The legitimacy of our authority structures rely too much on the use of sticks (and occasionally carrots). Those who can't be threatened into submission are bribed.
Even how we negotiate nationhood is structured this way, regions and factions are either threatening (the stick) each other, or power holders are bribing (carrot) willing collaborators to douse the need to have real conversations and persuade people to embrace a shared vision.
Will you commit to make more of an effort in using persuasion today? Start with your children and those in your immediate circle.
If the almighty God says to mere mortals, "come let us reason together", think how arrogant we must seem to him when we don't learn same.
God bless.
If the almighty God says to mere mortals, "come let us reason together", think how arrogant we must seem to him when we don't learn same.
God bless.
*cooperation
