Autonomy and Life

Of course, we—that’s you and I—are a complex mixture of needs and desires, and we don’t like them foiled! We have hopes and a sense of how life should be. Even if they’re not fully articulated, we are disappointed, irritated or infuriated when someone, or the situation as we had imagined it playing out, doesn’t measure up.

In fact, if we are seen angry, irked or outraged, odds are someone has not measured up. Maybe she’s been willful, or he stubborn, or she selfish and irresponsible, or he egoistic and incompetent, or she a big-mouthed know-nothing or he a pretentious know-it-all, or she manipulative, immature and cheeky or he domineering, obstinate and just plain wrong.

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The topic of my most recent post was the commonplace phenomenon I refer to as “behaving badly, a sign of desperation.” My concern was the divisive reach of its destructive force. In this post, I will discuss affinity and the reconciling reach of its attractive force.

I don’t think we can pin down what percentage of the affinitive instincts is brute nature and what is enhanced by religion, art, literature, music, dance and valentines. But these affinitive instincts—they are not unnatural. Think empathy, sympathy, love and camaraderie. Think kindness, nurture, gentility and understanding.

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Out there, right now, virtually every medium romances behaving badly—the loudmouth, the braggart, the in your face, name-calling, bully way of being. Or conversely, the put-upon, blame someone else, bitter, indignant, self-righteous, defeated way of being.

Shock jocks, confrontational pundits, pandering moderators and louts with blog access, report on or elicit bogus moral outrage, grossly indiscreet tell-alls, false accusations and outright lies and send us chasing after red herrings.

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