What didn't seem entirely clear to me was whether Mr. Spears upheld his own integrity in practice and in what ways. For example, if one cannot allow the lie to occur through oneself, and if the public affairs original and explicit ethic is to involve honesty and truth and admitting what is known or not, as opposed to approved lies or pro…
What didn't seem entirely clear to me was whether Mr. Spears upheld his own integrity in practice and in what ways. For example, if one cannot allow the lie to occur through oneself, and if the public affairs original and explicit ethic is to involve honesty and truth and admitting what is known or not, as opposed to approved lies or propaganda, then there must have been very specific crisis points in which he was expected to perform in very specific ways. Did he? What did he do?
We know he didn't want the shot, and then he let himself get pressured into taking it. We heard that his family was criticized, presumably for not taking it.
I would be very interested in hearing more anecdotes of where the ethical and moral conflict moments appeared and how he navigated them. I want to clarify that my intention is not to be his judge (though others will try to assume that position) ; I want to understand his experience. I also want to inform the more general (and also very personal) experience of perceiving when the conflict is at hand and how a person navigates that. I think many of us would like to boldly insist upon the right way, but we are all armchair opiners when it comes to Mr. Spears' experience. Nevertheless, if any of us ask ourselves where we might have likewise come to a crossroads (and many don't even perceive this much) and had an opportunity to make a choice with some awareness of its relevance to our own integrity, I would expect anyone with a conscience to be able to discover many such experiences within the domain of our own lives.
I want to comment that I was particularly struck by Spears' realization that there was no showing of civilian support. No lighting up of the phone lines to demand accountability for how the military treated those who did not take the shot, or who dared to express themselves as guaranteed by our constitution.
On the one hand, I recognized immediately this experience of being in a sense abandoned. I've had a similar feeling. When you make these choices to do what your conscience (or God, or internal morality, or a held ideal) demands of you, you might imagine that someone, many ones even, will naturally show up in support of you. Of course they would. We know there are those who also perceive the wrong and care to see it righted. And yet, somehow they are busy, or your struggle is a passing but of news belonging to some storied person afar, or surely there are others picking up the slack and attending to the need to succor those who offer themselves to stand in the gap. Do we not have a natural fidelity that requires us to respond and move, like some inner magnetism? And yet, alone is often the state in which we offer ourselves, to be respected or disrespected, alone and even unrecognized, leaving us to struggle with the fear that our sacrifice was for naught.
I recognize this experience. And it pains me and draws me immediately to wish to have beef one to offer a hand, even if it only serve as a passing warmth.
My next reaction to that passage in the interview was frustration, as much with myself as with Spears. Is it not immature to call out, "where were you, anyone at all, when you were needed!"? Jesus went to the cross, didn't he, even knowing his own long-cultivated and loyal friends would abandon him, even knowing his own father would let him be crucified without comfort, recognition, nor relief, except maybe the companionship of criminals likewise pinned. What are we to expect from ourselves, not to mention others, when we stand where standing is wanted?
When I personally went through my experiences like these, where you must choose between your own corruption or to remain faithful at even ultimate cost, I passed through these stages of crying for want of even a gesture of support, railing against those who deny it, railing against my own little human wanting for it, and then hungry for the maturity to simply stand where I must stand.
I recently finished reading Eugenia Ginzburg's "Journey Into The Whirlwind", another book like Solzhenitsyn's the Siberian life of the political prisoner. She relates near the end how a group of Orthodox women would not work on Easter, Pasca. They were sent to cut wood despite their request. They laid down their tools and sang. They were made to stand barefoot in icy water, and still they sang. Eugenia wrote that she and the other women prisoners begged the guards to not punish them so cruelly. Eugenia, not herself Christian but still loyal to the communist ideal, was of two responses. Either these women were an example of the way to live (and die) faithful and true, or, were they an example of a wasted gesture, resulting in nothing more than their own meaningless torture and highlighting the insignificance of them all?
What didn't seem entirely clear to me was whether Mr. Spears upheld his own integrity in practice and in what ways. For example, if one cannot allow the lie to occur through oneself, and if the public affairs original and explicit ethic is to involve honesty and truth and admitting what is known or not, as opposed to approved lies or propaganda, then there must have been very specific crisis points in which he was expected to perform in very specific ways. Did he? What did he do?
We know he didn't want the shot, and then he let himself get pressured into taking it. We heard that his family was criticized, presumably for not taking it.
I would be very interested in hearing more anecdotes of where the ethical and moral conflict moments appeared and how he navigated them. I want to clarify that my intention is not to be his judge (though others will try to assume that position) ; I want to understand his experience. I also want to inform the more general (and also very personal) experience of perceiving when the conflict is at hand and how a person navigates that. I think many of us would like to boldly insist upon the right way, but we are all armchair opiners when it comes to Mr. Spears' experience. Nevertheless, if any of us ask ourselves where we might have likewise come to a crossroads (and many don't even perceive this much) and had an opportunity to make a choice with some awareness of its relevance to our own integrity, I would expect anyone with a conscience to be able to discover many such experiences within the domain of our own lives.
I want to comment that I was particularly struck by Spears' realization that there was no showing of civilian support. No lighting up of the phone lines to demand accountability for how the military treated those who did not take the shot, or who dared to express themselves as guaranteed by our constitution.
On the one hand, I recognized immediately this experience of being in a sense abandoned. I've had a similar feeling. When you make these choices to do what your conscience (or God, or internal morality, or a held ideal) demands of you, you might imagine that someone, many ones even, will naturally show up in support of you. Of course they would. We know there are those who also perceive the wrong and care to see it righted. And yet, somehow they are busy, or your struggle is a passing but of news belonging to some storied person afar, or surely there are others picking up the slack and attending to the need to succor those who offer themselves to stand in the gap. Do we not have a natural fidelity that requires us to respond and move, like some inner magnetism? And yet, alone is often the state in which we offer ourselves, to be respected or disrespected, alone and even unrecognized, leaving us to struggle with the fear that our sacrifice was for naught.
I recognize this experience. And it pains me and draws me immediately to wish to have beef one to offer a hand, even if it only serve as a passing warmth.
My next reaction to that passage in the interview was frustration, as much with myself as with Spears. Is it not immature to call out, "where were you, anyone at all, when you were needed!"? Jesus went to the cross, didn't he, even knowing his own long-cultivated and loyal friends would abandon him, even knowing his own father would let him be crucified without comfort, recognition, nor relief, except maybe the companionship of criminals likewise pinned. What are we to expect from ourselves, not to mention others, when we stand where standing is wanted?
When I personally went through my experiences like these, where you must choose between your own corruption or to remain faithful at even ultimate cost, I passed through these stages of crying for want of even a gesture of support, railing against those who deny it, railing against my own little human wanting for it, and then hungry for the maturity to simply stand where I must stand.
I recently finished reading Eugenia Ginzburg's "Journey Into The Whirlwind", another book like Solzhenitsyn's the Siberian life of the political prisoner. She relates near the end how a group of Orthodox women would not work on Easter, Pasca. They were sent to cut wood despite their request. They laid down their tools and sang. They were made to stand barefoot in icy water, and still they sang. Eugenia wrote that she and the other women prisoners begged the guards to not punish them so cruelly. Eugenia, not herself Christian but still loyal to the communist ideal, was of two responses. Either these women were an example of the way to live (and die) faithful and true, or, were they an example of a wasted gesture, resulting in nothing more than their own meaningless torture and highlighting the insignificance of them all?