Dear Friends,
It seems to me, you don’t elevate someone by lowering him, you elevate someone by lifting them up. Moreover, in no way is lowering someone… elevating them. I know, I know, such a shocking revelation will take a few seconds to process. Now some of you might be saying to yourself, “Now sit down and relax there Sparky. That’s crazy talk. How does someone know they have bad breath, if you don’t rip them about their death breath?” Because a dig can be taken many ways, most of which do not engender a positive response, but a gentile suggestion based in love, can only be taken in one way. Which is more likely to make the person with bad breath deal with it? That is why I say, no one ever elevates someone by lowering her, a person can only be elevated, by lifting them up.
Unlike a house that must be ripped down to be renovated, a human being is a sentient organism, with consciousness, awareness, a soul and agency, we are far more intricately built than anything man made. Every human being is extraordinary, we are all different and alike in a myriad of ways, each of which makes us special. The melded aggregate making up humanity and the human condition. As a result, improving such complexity is not a mount Fuji problem, it is a dancing landscape. This is a fractal in that it applies at all levels of investigation. From the individual person’s anxiety about spiders to the macro economy, no matter what scale we are looking at, the picture remains the same, You cannot build up someone, nation, race, person, religion, culture, etc… by lowering them, they must be elevated.
On the individual level, Tearing a human being down all day every day will never make him a great husband. On the other hand it will make him more likely to run around, do drugs, hang around bars, go to work late, get fired, and otherwise be the person you tell him he is. Complaining in earshot that your wife is fat, lazy, a terrible cook, was a slut, is frigid, and cold hearted… will get that husband the exact woman he tells her he wants. The child told she is stupid may strive and get good grades but will always be held back on some fundamental level, and the tot coddled so he does not have to walk will also be permanently handicapped. It is simply impossible to raise someone who you are destroying. You must either raise them or lower them and realize that you are doing it.
On the national level, economies, crime rates, drug addiction rates, etc… are not solved by ever more draconian police states, they are solved by the culture deciding not to do those things. A culture that lowers us by holding hedonism as the highest good, is one that lowers, it doesn’t lift up. Watch television today and think about the messages on both the commercials and the shows. Certain politically disfavored groups are portrayed as stupid, ignorant, lazy, racist, etc… which is hardly a means to elevate them now is it? That is the cultural elite telling impressionable people to be stupid, lazy, ignorant, racist, etc… Which can only lead those who are most susceptible to cultural pressure, to adopt a nihilistic attitude and get into drugs, crime, avoid work and responsibility, etc…
On the cultural level, apologizing for individual crime based on someone’s culture is lowering them, it is no different than comparing a human being to a monkey, dog, cat, scorpion or bacteria. Whenever someone allows behavior from a group, that is not tolerated by others, that group is being told they are really subhuman, not civilized enough to be held to that standard. Kissing their derriers with empty rhetoric only lowers them further. People act as they are expected to, if they are expected to be barbarians they will be barbarians. Lowering people will never elevate them. The way to help civilize uncivilized people is to hold them to the exact same standard you hold everyone else to. Elevate them, and you elevate their own expectations of themselves. Elevate people and humanity will be lifted up.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
