Maybe it’s my imagination, but I see too much pushiness in the world today. Such gentle coercion, if we may call it that for now, is really about verbal muscularity somewhat like the kind you see in a military boot camp but more subtle.
Everyday, it seems we are verbally pushed by sales people, the doctor, or our family members and friends, not to mention management in the work place. Again, such pushiness is emotionally driven and, for the most part, irrational. For the one receiving the butt of it, it feels muscular—it makes us tense.
When I think about such pushiness it always has a connection with the muscles. The pushy person has restrained themselves from using physical force, yet their body is rigid and aggressive. The muscles in their face are tensed up, etc. Women notice this more than men. They are keenly aware of the muscularity that can be behind the word. Worth adding, in the 18th and 19th century sweat shops of England, where mothers and children worked, violence was behind every word. A child could be beaten by the foreman in front of their mother for failing to obey or not doing their job right. Modern pushiness in the work place is just an extension of this only not as severe.
Today, there is a certain amount of muscularity in religion with regard to proselytizing. As Buddhists, we often feel like we are being muscled by Christians making sure that we show their religion a great deal of respect which is not often reciprocated. To be sure, Buddhism is not given the same pride of place as is Christianity or Judaism.
I think it can be argued that many of the popular religions have aggressively muscled their way into our lives that really don’t deserve to be there. In fact, I would contend that if religion has to become verbally muscular it has ceased being an authentic religion. It a word, such a religion has become a cult—a cult being predominately about verbally muscling someone into following a particular dogma, a dogma being belief without reason. If anyone saw the recent movie, Jesus Camp, this is an excellent example of not only a cult but of the meaning of verbal muscling in religion: pushiness to the maximum. In the movie, children were verbally muscled by adults into conforming to a particular view of Christianity; who were cognitively immature and should have been playing outdoors making mud pies, instead.
In fact, I would go so far as to say the predominately fundamentalist types of religions employ verbal muscling on children leading up to severe corporeal punishment—all in the name of God or Allah. It even goes on in Buddhism as described by Tashi Tsering in his autobiography, The Struggle for Modern Tibet.
"I was going to be lashed across my bare buttocks with long thin switches made from tree branches. This centuries old Tibetan punishment was the most painful kind of beating. It was based, I suppose, on the idea that fear and pain make people work harder and obey better. I was terrified in anticipation of the pain I knew was coming."
Such abuse in religion is nothing new under the sun. And yes, it even goes on in Buddhism, the religion of compassion. Worth adding, when the chief of the Nez Perce Indians came to the white man’s camp to talk of peace, he happened to pass by a soldier beating a child. Filled with righteous contempt for what he saw, he said:
"There is no point in talking peace with barbarians. What could you say to a man who would strike a child?"
The great chief then turned his horse around and led his party away from the barbarians.
The reason why verbal muscling is often used is because there is a lack of good communication skills, inner calm, and convincing reasons. As regards reason, a “why” is altogether lacking. On this note, one doesn’t have to be verbally coercive to get people to quickly exit a burning building—but they have to be verbally coercive if they are trying to keep people inside of it! When people are given true freedom they, invariably, go to where there is peace, kindness, reason, and wisdom. What should strike us in our modern age is that it is too coercive in which a spectrum of verbal muscling is allowed all the way up to corporeal punishment. Apart from this, there is neither much reason, wisdom, nor compassion.
Nice post, thank you. I particularly like the point that given freedom people naturally gravitate to a place of peace.
Posted by: Seamus Anthony | October 18, 2008 at 08:18 PM