Autonomy Sayings And Quotes

Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing.

Why am I compelled to write?... Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appease my appetites and anger... To become more intimate with myself and you. To discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself, to achieve self-autonomy. To dispell the myths that I am a mad prophet or a poor suffering soul. To convince myself that I am worthy and that what I have to say is not a pile of shit... Finally I write because I'm scared of writing, but I'm more scared of not writing.

It looks as if there were a single ultimate goal for mankind, a far goal toward which all persons strive. This is called variously by different authors self-actualization, self-realization, integration, psychological health, individuation, autonomy, creativity, productivity, but they all agree that this amounts to realizing the potentialities of the person, that is to say, becoming fully human, everything that person can be.

Most women are all too familiar with men like Calvin Smith. Men whose sense of prerogative renders them deaf when women say, "No thanks," "Not interested," or even "Fuck off, creep.

When I say that evil has to do with killing, I do not mean to restrict myself to corporeal murder. Evil is that which kills spirit. There are various essential attributes of life -- particularly human life -- such as sentience, mobility, awareness, growth, autonomy, will. It is possible to kill or attempt to kill one of these attributes without actually destroying the body. Thus we may "break" a horse or even a child without harming a hair on its head. Erich Fromm was acutely sensitive to this fact when he broadened the definition of necrophilia to include the desire of certain people to control others-to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to discourage their capacity to think for themselves, to diminish their unpredectibility and originalty, to keep them in line. Distinguishing it from a "biophilic" person, one who appreciates and fosters the variety of life forms and the uniqueness of the individual, he demonstrated a "necrophilic character type," whose aim it is to avoid the inconvenience of life by transforming others into obedient automatons, robbing them of their humanity. Evil then, for the moment, is the force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness.

Those dreaming of the perfect match are outnumbered by those who don't really want it at all, though perhaps they can't admit it. After all, our culture makes individual freedom, autonomy and fulfillment the very highest values, and thoughtful people know deep down that any love relationship at all means the loss of all three. You can say, 'I want someone who will accept me just as I am,' but in your heart of hearts you know that you are not perfect, that there are plenty of things about you that need to be changed, and that anyone who gets to know you up close and personal will want to change them.

dykes were put here to tip the scales! we have a very important job and i wouldn't trade it for the world. give me a choice between breeding, accelerated aging, living with an orangutan, and maid duty for life...or, autonomy, black boots, multiple orgasms, cats instead of kids, people who say what they mean, and nothing stopping me from doing whatever i wanna do...and guess which one i pick?

I was thankful to have Lucas. But it bothered me that having a boyfriend and being assaulted should be related, as if I alone was not enough. At the hospital, it had never occurred to me that it was important I was dating someone. I had only been thinking of me in my body. It should have been enough to say, "I did not want a stranger touching my body." It felt strange to say, "I have a boyfriend, which is why I did not want Brock touching my body." What if you were assaulted and you didn't already belong to a male? Was having a boyfriend the only way to have your autonomy respected?

Yolandi, the central character in the book "All My Puny Sorrows" says that “the core of the argument for it [assisted suicide] is maximizing individual autonomy and minimizing human suffering” (p. 222).

To be free one must be a slave to reason. But to be a slave to reason (the very condition of freedom) exposes one to both the revisionary power and the constructive compulsion of reason. This susceptibility is terminally amplified once the commitment to the autonomy of reason and autonomous engagement with discursive practices are sufficiently elaborated. That is to say, when the autonomy of reason is understood as the automation of reason and discursive practices—the philosophical rather than classically symbolic thesis regarding artificial general intelligence.

Please don’t forget: I am my body. When my body gets smaller, it is still me. When my body gets bigger, it is still me. There is not a thin woman inside me, awaiting excavation. I am one piece. I am also not a uterus riding around in a meat incubator. There is no substantive difference between the repulsive campaign to separate women’s bodies from their reproductive systems—perpetuating the lie that abortion and birth control are not healthcare—and the repulsive campaign to convince women that they and their body size are separate, alienated entities. Both say, “Your body is not yours.” Both demand, “Beg for your humanity.” Both insist, “Your autonomy is conditional.” This is why fat is a feminist issue. All

Are you really saying there's only one way to God?' people immediately ask. Yet even as we ask the question, we reveal the problem. If there were 1,000 ways to God, we would want 1,001. The issue is not how many ways lead to God; the issue is our autonomy before God. We want to make our own way. This is the essence of sin in the first place — trusting our way more than God's way.

To them, your inner world is unnecessary, a needless distraction from what they consider important. They expect you to agree with them, so whenever you express a different opinion or say how you feel, they take it as disrespectful. They act as if anything going on inside you has no merit unless they approve.

Christ is the only man to overcome the barrier erected by Satan. He dies in order to avoid participating in the system of scapegoats, which is to say the satanic principle. After his resurrection, a bridge that did not exist before is established between God and the world; Christ gets a foothold in the world through his own death, and destroys Satan's ramparts. His death therefore converts satanic disorder into order and opens up a new path on which human beings may now travel. In other words, God resumes his place in the world, not because he has violated the autonomy of man and of Satan, but because Christ has resisted, triumphed over Satan's obstacle.

Carrots & sticks are so last century. Drive says for 21st century work, we need to upgrade to autonomy, mastery & purpose.

There is a concept called body autonomy. It’s generally considered a human right. Bodily autonomy means a person has control over who or what uses their body, for what, and for how long. It’s why you can’t be forced to donate blood, tissue, or organs. Even if you are dead. Even if you’d save or improve 20 lives. It’s why someone can’t touch you, have sex with you, or use your body in any way without your continuous consent. A fetus is using someone’s body parts. Therefore under bodily autonomy, it is there by permission, not by right. It needs a persons continuous consent. If they deny and withdraw their consent, the pregnant person has the right to remove them from that moment. A fetus is equal in this regard because if I need someone else’s body parts to live, they can also legally deny me their use. By saying a fetus has a right to someone’s body parts until it’s born, despite the pregnant person’s wishes, you are doing two things: 1. Granting a fetus more rights to other people’s bodies than any born person. 2. Awarding a pregnant person less rights to their body than a corpse.

Poetic Terrorism WEIRD DANCING IN ALL-NIGHT computer-banking lobbies. Unauthorized pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earth-works as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in State Parks. Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave Poetic-Terrorist objects. Kidnap someone & make them happy. Pick someone at random & convince them they're the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune--say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss. ... Bolt up brass commemorative plaques in places (public or private) where you have experienced a revelation or had a particularly fulfilling sexual experience, etc. Go naked for a sign. Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it does not satisfy your need for indolence & spiritual beauty. Graffiti-art loaned some grace to ugly subways & rigid public monuments--PT-art can also be created for public places: poems scrawled in courthouse lavatories, small fetishes abandoned in parks & restaurants, Xerox-art under windshield-wipers of parked cars, Big Character Slogans pasted on playground walls, anonymous letters mailed to random or chosen recipients (mail fraud), pirate radio transmissions, wet cement... The audience reaction or aesthetic-shock produced by PT ought to be at least as strong as the emotion of terror-- powerful disgust, sexual arousal, superstitious awe, sudden intuitive breakthrough, dada-esque angst--no matter whether the PT is aimed at one person or many, no matter whether it is "signed" or anonymous, if it does not change someone's life (aside from the artist) it fails. PT is an act in a Theater of Cruelty which has no stage, no rows of seats, no tickets & no walls. In order to work at all, PT must categorically be divorced from all conventional structures for art consumption (galleries, publications, media). Even the guerilla Situationist tactics of street theater are perhaps too well known & expected now. An exquisite seduction carried out not only in the cause of mutual satisfaction but also as a conscious act in a deliberately beautiful life--may be the ultimate PT. The PTerrorist behaves like a confidence-trickster whose aim is not money but CHANGE. Don't do PT for other artists, do it for people who will not realize (at least for a few moments) that what you have done is art. Avoid recognizable art-categories, avoid politics, don't stick around to argue, don't be sentimental; be ruthless, take risks, vandalize only what must be defaced, do something children will remember all their lives--but don't be spontaneous unless the PT Muse has possessed you. Dress up. Leave a false name. Be legendary. The best PT is against the law, but don't get caught. Art as crime; crime as art.

I sat still for awhile, and I saw something when the mist cleared that I had never fully seen before. If you see my truth as a sign of disrespect (because it conflicts with your truth), then nothing I can ever say can ever have an effect that isn't negative... So I didn't contradict anything. Anything. I just took it all in. And then, yes, I get to go back to my world and do with it what I will. I wouldn't do it for just anyone. But for them, it was worth it. It was so worth it.

Most people today also believe they live in free societies (indeed, they often insist that, politically at least, this is what is most important about their societies), but the freedoms which form the moral basis of a nation like the United States are, largely, formal freedoms. American citizens have the right to travel wherever they like - provided, of course, they have the money for transport and accommodation. They are free from ever having to obey the arbitrary orders of superiors - unless, of course, they have to get a job. In this sense, it is almost possible to say the Wendat had play chiefs and real freedoms, while most of today have to make do with real chiefs and play freedoms. Or to put the matter more technically: what the Hadza, Wendat or 'egalitarian' people such as the Nuer seem to have been concerned with were not so much formal as substantive ones. They were less interested in the right to travel than in the possibility of actually doing so (hence, the matter was typically framed as an obligation to provide hospitality to strangers). Mutual aid - what contemporary European observers often referred to as 'communism' - was seen as the necessary condition for individual autonomy.

Just as the dignity of man is based on his freedom--to the extent that he may even say no to God--likewise, the dignity of a science is based on that unconditional freedom which guarantees its independent search for truth. And just as human freedom must include the freedom to say no, so the freedom of scientific investigation must face the risk that its results will turn out to contradict religious beliefs and convictions. Only a scientist who is ready to fight militantly for such an autonomy of thought may triumphantly live to see how the results of his research eventually fit, without contradictions, in the truths of his belief.

S/M flies in the face of every attempt the state makes to appropriate our bodies, our labor, our time, and our imaginations.…the state is deeply offended by any group of people who say, 'My body doesn't belong to you, it belongs to me, so fuck off'…

There is no substantive difference between the repulsive campaign to separate women’s bodies from their reproductive systems—perpetuating the lie that abortion and birth control are not healthcare—and the repulsive campaign to convince women that they and their body size are separate, alienated entities. Both say, “Your body is not yours.” Both demand, “Beg for your humanity.” Both insist, “Your autonomy is conditional.” This is why fat is a feminist issue. All

Father had stretched out his long legs and was tilting back in his chair. Mother sat with her knees crossed, in blue slacks, smoking a Chesterfield. The dessert dishes were still on the table. My sisters were nowhere in evidence. It was a warm evening; the big dining-room windows gave onto blooming rhododendrons. Mother regarded me warmly. She gave me to understand that she was glad I had found what I had been looking for, but that she and father were happy to sit with their coffee, and would not be coming down. She did not say, but I understood at once, that they had their pursuits (coffee?) and I had mine. She did not say, but I began to understand then, that you do what you do out of your private passion for the thing itself. I had essentially been handed my own life. In subsequent years my parents would praise my drawings and poems, and supply me with books, art supplies, and sports equipment, and listen to my troubles and enthusiasms, and supervise my hours, and discuss and inform, but they would not get involved with my detective work, nor hear about my reading, nor inquire about my homework or term papers or exams, nor visit the salamanders I caught, nor listen to me play the piano, nor attend my field hockey games, nor fuss over my insect collection with me, or my poetry collection or stamp collection or rock collection. My days and nights were my own to plan and fill.

Like small children, EI parents want you to intuit what they feel without their saying anything. They feel hurt and angry when you don’t guess their needs, expecting you to know what they want. If you protest that they didn’t tell you what they wanted, their reaction is, “If you really loved me, you would’ve known.

Why am I compelled to write?... Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appease my appetites and anger... To become more intimate with myself and you. To discover myself, to preserve myself, to make myself, to achieve self-autonomy. To dispell the myths that I am a mad prophet or a poor suffering soul. To convince myself that I am worthy and that what I have to say is not a pile of shit... Finally I write because I'm scared of writing, but I'm more scared of not writing.” ― Gloria E. Anzaldúa

A society that fails to value communality — our need to belong, to care for one another, and to feel caring energy flowing toward us — is a society facing away from the essence of what it means to be human. Pathology cannot but ensue. To say so is not a moral assertion but an objective assessment. "When people start to lose a sense of meaning and get disconnected, that's where disease comes from, that's where breakdown in our health — mental, physical, social health — occurs," the psychiatrist and neuroscientist Bruce Perry told me. If a gene or virus were found that caused the same impacts on the population's well-being as disconnection does, news of it would bellow from front-page headlines. Because it transpires on so many levels and so pervasively, we almost take it for granted; it is the water we swim in. We are steeped in the normalized myth that we are, each of us, mere individuals striving to attain private goals. The more we define ourselves that way, the more estranged we become from vital aspects of who we are and what we need to be healthy. Among psychologists there is a wide-ranging consensus about what our core needs consist of. These have been variously listed as: - belonging, relatedness, or connectedness; - autonomy: a sense of control in one's life; - mastery or competence; - genuine self-esteem, not dependent on achievement, attainment, acquisition, or valuation by others; - trust: a sense of having the personal and social resources needed to sustain one through life; - purpose, meaning, transcendence: knowing oneself as part of something larger than isolated, self-centered concerns, whether that something is overtly spiritual or simply universal/humanistic, or, given our evolutionary origins, Nature. "The statement that the physical and mental life of man, and nature, are interdependent means simply that nature is interdependent with itself, for man is a part of nature." So wrote a twenty-six-year-old Karl Marx in 1844. None of this tells you anything you don't already know or intuit. You can check your own experience: What's it like when each of the above needs is met? What happens in your mind and body when it's lacking, denied, or withdrawn?

So the answer is autonomy,” I say. “Maybe.” She bites her lip. Later that night, she elaborates. “It’s like a hand.

5. The Right to Clear Communications I have the right to say anything as long as I do so in a nonviolent, nonharmful way. I have the right to ask to be listened to. I have the right to tell you my feelings are hurt. I have the right to speak up and tell you what I really prefer. I have the right to be told what you want from me without assuming I should know.

1. The Right to Set Limits I have the right to set limits on your hurtful or exploitative behavior. I have the right to break off any interaction in which I feel pressured or coerced. I have the right to stop anything long before I feel exhausted. I have the right to call a halt to any interaction I don’t find enjoyable. I have the right to say no without a good reason.

Attachment is our connection with the world. In the earliest attachment relationships, we gain or lose the ability to stay open, self-nurturing and healthy. In those early attachment bonds, we learned to experience anger or to fear it and repress it. There we developed our sense of autonomy or suffered its atrophy. Connection is also vital to healing. Study after study concludes that people without social contact—the lonely ones—are at greatest risk for illness. People who enjoy genuine emotional support face a better prognosis, no matter what the disease.

Nature’s ultimate goal is to foster the growth of the individual from absolute dependence to independence — or, more exactly, to the interdependence of mature adults living in community. Development is a process of moving from complete external regulation to self-regulation, as far as our genetic programming allows. Well-self-regulated people are the most capable of interacting fruitfully with others in a community and of nurturing children who will also grow into self-regulated adults. Anything that interferes with that natural agenda threatens the organism’s chances for long-term survival. Almost from the beginning of life we see a tension between the complementary needs for security and for autonomy. Development requires a gradual and ageappropriate shift from security needs toward the drive for autonomy, from attachment to individuation. Neither is ever completely lost, and neither is meant to predominate at the expense of the other. With an increased capacity for self-regulation in adulthood comes also a heightened need for autonomy — for the freedom to make genuine choices. Whatever undermines autonomy will be experienced as a source of stress. Stress is magnified whenever the power to respond effectively to the social or physical environment is lacking or when the tested animal or human being feels helpless, without meaningful choices — in other words, when autonomy is undermined. Autonomy, however, needs to be exercised in a way that does not disrupt the social relationships on which survival also depends, whether with emotional intimates or with important others—employers, fellow workers, social authority figures. The less the emotional capacity for self-regulation develops during infancy and childhood, the more the adult depends on relationships to maintain homeostasis. The greater the dependence, the greater the threat when those relationships are lost or become insecure. Thus, the vulnerability to subjective and physiological stress will be proportionate to the degree of emotional dependence. To minimize the stress from threatened relationships, a person may give up some part of his autonomy. However, this is not a formula for health, since the loss of autonomy is itself a cause of stress. The surrender of autonomy raises the stress level, even if on the surface it appears to be necessary for the sake of “security” in a relationship, and even if we subjectively feel relief when we gain “security” in this manner. If I chronically repress my emotional needs in order to make myself “acceptable” to other people, I increase my risks of having to pay the price in the form of illness. The other way of protecting oneself from the stress of threatened relationships is emotional shutdown. To feel safe, the vulnerable person withdraws from others and closes against intimacy. This coping style may avoid anxiety and block the subjective experience of stress but not the physiology of it. Emotional intimacy is a psychological and biological necessity. Those who build walls against intimacy are not self-regulated, just emotionally frozen. Their stress from having unmet needs will be high.

Stress is magnified whenever the power to respond effectively to the social or physical environment is lacking or when the tested animal or human being feels helpless, without meaningful choices — in other words, when autonomy is undermined.

Behind all logic too and its apparent autonomy there stand evaluations, in plainer terms physiological demands for the preservation of a certain species of life… Assuming, that is to say, that it is not precisely man who is the ‘measure of things’…

It comes down to the deep and universal human need for autonomy. People need to feel in control. When you preserve a person’s autonomy by clearly giving them permission to say “No” to your ideas, the emotions calm, the effectiveness of the decisions go up, and the other party can really look at your proposal. They’re allowed to hold it in their hands, to turn it around. And it gives you time to elaborate or pivot in order to convince your counterpart that the change you’re proposing is more advantageous than the status quo.

We all say that this is the century of the common man, that he is the lord of the earth, the air and the water, and that on his decision hangs the historical fate of the nations. This proud picture of human grandeur is unfortunately an illusion only and is counterbalanced by a reality which is very different. In this reality man is the slave and victim of the machines that have conquered space and time for him; he is intimidated and endangered by the might of the war technique which is supposed to safeguard his physical existence; his spiritual and moral freedom, though guaranteed within limits in one half of his world, is threatened with chaotic disorientation, and in the other half it is abolished altogether. Finally, to add comedy to tragedy, this lord of the elements, this universal arbiter, hugs to his bosom notions which stamp his dignity as worthless and turn his autonomy into an absurdity. All his achievements and possessions do not make him bigger; on the contrary, they diminish him, as the fate of the factory worker under the rule of a ‘just’ distribution of goods clearly demonstrates.

The insistent drums were an unwelcome reminder of the existence of another world, wholly autonomous, with its own necessities and patterns. The message they were beating out, over and over, was for her; it was saying, not precisely that she did not exist but rather that it did not matter whether she existed or not, that her presence was of no consequence to the rest of the cosmos. It was a sensation that suddenly paralyzed her with dread. There had never been any question of her “mattering”; it went without saying that she mattered, because she was important to herself. But what was the part of her to which she mattered?

Your people have never been more in need of someone to believe in." "The mere idea of that someone being me makes me a little ill." "It may seem unkind to say this, Max, but the way it makes you feel is perhaps the least important thing right now." A petulant part of me wanted to argue with her. But she gave me a deadpan stare that cut off my unspoken retort with, I escaped slavery, killed my master, forced a foreign country to take me seriously, traded away my autonomy, led a revolution, overthrew an empire, and then followed you back to your stupid broken country to support you only for you to whine about how you don’t “feel” like you can do this?

Because they aren’t self-reflective, EI parents have poor filters and say things without thinking. They can leave people stunned by their inappropriate comments. If confronted with their insensitivity, they might say things like, “I was only saying what I thought,” as if speaking all your thoughts out loud were normal behavior.

I could hear the *click clack* of my heels on the brick walkway. *click* A boy starts a ballet class and doesn’t worry about what his friends will say. *clack* A college student reads Judith Butler. *click* A transgender person understands that, while they have a difficult life to face, they will not be alone. *clack* A sex worker reclaims her dignity and autonomy from a world that says she’s worthless. *click* A woman finds freedom from her abusive husband. *clack* A friend, struggling with bulimia, realizes that she is beautiful. *click* All people, man and woman, realize that in some small way, they have not been true to themselves, and the bonds of gender stereotypes and heterosexism dissolve into truth.

A primary purpose of school - and this is true for our culture's science and religion as well - is to lead us away from our own experience. The process of schooling does not give birth to human beings - as education should but never will so long as it springs from the collective consciousness of our culture - but instead it teaches us to value abstract rewards at the expense of our autonomy, curiosity, interior lives, and time. This lesson is crucial to individual economic success ("I love art," my students would say, "but I've got to make a living"), to the perpetuation of our economic system (What if all those who hated their jobs quit?), and it is crucial, as should be clear now, to the rationale that causes all mass atrocities.

I can't say anything though. Even if it’s true I’d sound like a prick. Believe that. How can we even— Christ! That’s the problem with people living however they want. When anything goes, reason is no longer credible. You can’t point out trouble. If the truth is offered, and they don’t want it, they get to say the truth is a lie. Autonomy is now prioritized over understanding.

These last weeks, since Christmas, have been odd ones. I have begun to doubt that I knew you as well as I thought. I have even wondered if you wished to keep some part of yourself hidden from me in order to preserve your privacy and your autonomy. I will understand if you refuse to give me an answer tonight, and although I freely admit I will be hurt by such a refusal, you must not allow my feelings to influence your answer." I looked up into his face. "The question I have for you, then is this: How are the fairies in your garden?" By the yellow streetlights, I saw the trepidation that had been building up in face give way to a flash of relief, then to the familiar signs of outrage: the bulging eyes, the purpling skin, the thin lips. He cleared his throat. "I am not a man much given to violence," he began, calmly enough, "but I declare that if that man Doyle came before me today, I should be hard-pressed to avoid trouncing him." The image was a pleasing one, two gentlemen on the far side of middle age, one built like a bulldog and the other like a bulldong, engaging in fisticuffs. "It is difficult enough to surmount Watson's apparently endless blather in order to have my voice heard as a scientist, but now, when people hear my name, all they will think of is that disgusting dreamy-eyed little girl and her preposterous paper cutouts. I knew the man was limited, but I did not even suspect that he was insane!" "Oh, well, Holmes," I drawled into his climbing voice. "Look on the bright side. You've complained for years how tedious it is to have everyone with a stray puppy or a stolen pencil box push through your hedges and tread on the flowers; now the British Public will assume that Sherlock Homes is as much a fairy tale as those photographs and will stop plaguing you. I'd say the man's done you a great service." I smiled brightly. For a long minute, it was uncertain whether he was going to strike me dead for my impertinence or drop dead himself of apoplexy, but then, as I had hoped, he threw back his head and laughed long and hard.

Then, what is your reason?' 'I don't know!' Pei rubbed her face in frustration. 'There is no reason why I don't want to do this! I'm healthy! I'm clearly capable! Everybody I know who's ever gone to a Kresh comes back saying it's a fantastic time. I'd have ten-days to just lie around and have sex and be catered to. I like kids. I like being around kids. I imagine visiting my own would be nice. I have a partner who understands and friends who would be thrilled, and...there's no reason not to.' Speaker looked at her for a moment. 'Of course, there is. You don't want to.'...'And when it comes to a person's body, that is all the reason there ever needs to be. It doesn't matter if it's a decision about a new pair of legs, or how you like to trim your claws, or...what to do about an egg. You don't want to. That's it. That is all it ever needs to be.

K---: 'There I'd have to agree. What modern feminists-slash-postfeminists will say they want is mutuality and respect of their individual autonomy. If sex is going to happen, they'll say, it has to be by mutual consensus and desire between two autonomous equals who are each equally responsible for their own sexuality and its expression.' E---: 'That's almost word for word what I've heard them say,' K---: 'And it's total horseshit.

Gain perspective. Our attitude toward limit-pushing behavior is everything, and our perspective is what defines our attitude. Testing, limit-pushing, defiance and resistance are healthy signs that our toddlers are developing independence and autonomy. If we say “green,” toddlers are almost required to say “blue,” even if green is their favorite color, because if toddlers want what we want, they can’t assert themselves as individuals.

Social support helps to ameliorate physiological stress. The close links between health and the social environment have been amply demonstrated. In the Alameda County study, those more socially isolated were more susceptible to illness of many types. In three separate studies of aging people, five-year mortality risks were associated directly with social integration: the more socially connected a person was, the lower their risk of death. “Social ties and support,” a group of researchers concluded, “… remain powerful predictors of morbidity and mortality in their own right, independent of any associations with other risk factors." For the adult, therefore, biological stress regulation depends on a delicate balance between social and relationship security on the one hand, and genuine autonomy on the other. Whatever upsets that balance, whether or not the individual is consciouslyaware of it, is a source of stress.

I felt that readerly desire achieves its lastingness, its pleasurable sense of suspended duration, in a complicitous nilling, a charged refusal. That is to say that in reading, I undo a text, as I resist my own autonomy. The undoing animates passivity, all that negates and resists rather than insists. It is a slightly unpleasant thought, and it pertains to the ambivalent discomfort of pornography.   That the descriptive representation of erotic pleasure could produce discomfort is partly the unfortunate result of a reader’s embodiment of sociomoral anti-corporeal values. But the discomfort has to do with other difficulties too. If the pornographic text is specifically a work of the imaginary, we could ask where that imaginary works, what it works upon. I’d like to consider the possibility that Histoire d’O is less the signifier for genital eroticism, than it is the song of inconspicuousness, the place where will and its self-negation twist and enlace.

ADAPTIVE SURVIVAL STYLE CORE DIFFICULTIES The Connection Survival Style Disconnected from physical and emotional self Difficulty relating to others The Attunement Survival Style Difficulty knowing what we need Feeling our needs do not deserve to be met The Trust Survival Style Feeling we cannot depend on anyone but ourselves Feeling we have to always be in control The Autonomy Survival Style Feeling burdened and pressured Difficulty setting limits and saying no directly The Love-Sexuality Survival Style Difficulty integrating heart and sexuality Self-esteem based on looks and performance

What difference does it make whether you slay him or Horus slays him? He will be just as dead either way." Wakim pauses, apparently considering the matter, as if for the first time. "This thing is my mission, not his." he says at length. "He will be just as dead, either way," Vramin repeats. "But not by my hand." "True. But I fail to see the distinction." "So do I, for that matter. But it is I who have been charged with the task." "Perhaps Horus has also." "But not by my master." "Why should you have a master, Wakim? Why are you not your own man?" Wakim rubs his forehead. "I—do not—really know…. But I must do as I am told.

There is a foolproof way to distinguish peer-distorted counterwill from the genuine drive for autonomy: the maturing, individuating child resists coercion whatever the source may be, including pressure from peers. In healthy rebellion, true independence is the goal. One does not seek freedom from one person only to succumb to the influence and will of another. When counterwill is the result of skewed attachments, the liberty that the child strives for is not the liberty to be his true self but the opportunity to conform to his peers. To do so, he will suppress his own feelings and camouflage his own opinions, should they differ from those of his peers. Are we saying that it may not be natural, for example, that a teenager may want to stay out late with his friends? No, the teen may want to hang out with his pals not because he is driven by peer orientation, but simply because on occasion that's just what he feels like doing. The question is, is he willing to discuss the matter with his parents? Is he respectful of their perspective? Is he able to say no to his friends when he has other responsibilities or family events or when he simply may prefer being on his own? The peer-oriented teenager will brook no obstacle and experiences intense frustration when his need for peer contact is thwarted. He is unable to assert himself in the face of peer expectations and will, proportionately, resent and oppose his parents’ desires.

In their writing on education, Deci and Ryan proceed from the principle that humans are natural learners and children are born creative and curious, “intrinsically motivated for the types of behaviors that foster learning and development.” This idea is complicated, however, by the fact that part of learning anything, be it painting or programming or eighth-grade algebra, involves a lot of repetitive practice, and repetitive practice is usually pretty boring. Deci and Ryan acknowledge that many of the tasks that teachers ask students to complete each day are not inherently fun or satisfying; it is the rare student who feels a deep sense of intrinsic motivation when memorizing her multiplication tables. It is at these moments that extrinsic motivation becomes important: when behaviors must be performed not for the inherent satisfaction of completing them, but for some separate outcome. Deci and Ryan say that when students can be encouraged to internalize those extrinsic motivations, the motivations become increasingly powerful. This is where the psychologists return to their three basic human needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When teachers are able to create an environment that promotes those three feelings, they say, students exhibit much higher levels of motivation. And how does a teacher create that kind of environment? Students experience autonomy in the classroom, Deci and Ryan explain, when their teachers “maximize a sense of choice and volitional engagement” while minimizing students’ feelings of coercion and control. Students feel competent, they say, when their teachers give them tasks that they can succeed at but that aren’t too easy — challenges just a bit beyond their current abilities. And they feel a sense of relatedness when they perceive that their teachers like and value and respect them.

This saying also implies that if you realize that you are incompetent but do not wish to remain so, you should perhaps go out and have some adventures. If you survive, not only will you gain some measure of competence (lessons learned in extreme circumstances are not soon forgotten) but you will also acquire certain other qualities—self-confidence, fearlessness, a certain inner calm—that will make it easier to face any other adversity in spite of your incompetence. Taking this a step further, you can think of surviving adventures in spite of incompetence as a special skill. Given what our future holds, we are all going to be rendered incompetent at some point. Yes, we are all amateurs when it comes to surviving the future. Of course, there are still many things that are worth learning to increase your level of competence, but perhaps you should also work on becoming better at compensating for your incompetence—by having some adventures.

To know how to say no to modern excitement was also the condition for the autonomous construction of one’s own personality. He that ‘does not want to be part of the masses’ and did not want to be ‘factory goods’ was to pay great heed. Certainly, to ‘“give style” to one’s character is a great and rare art’, which required an effort of self-discipline from which ‘the weak characters with no power over themselves’ flinched back. And here Nietzsche appealed to the youth: ‘Always continue to become what you are—educator and moulder of yourself’. To achieve this result, it was necessary never to lose sight of the ‘true liberation of life’, and to swim against the stream rather than chase blindly and recklessly after the ruling ideologies and myths of an age ruled not ‘by living human beings, but instead by publicly opining pseudo-human beings’. No doubt this appeal was part of a reactionary critique of modernity, but that in no way detracted from the charm of this lesson in living and this appeal for autonomy of judgement.

All of the fucking in “The Art of Joy” could put it in a class with “Story of O” or “The Sexual Life of Catherine M.” But Sapienza’s novel is about sex only insofar as an account of a woman’s artistic, intellectual, and political maturation must include her sexual career. Or, better, the discovery of pleasure initiates Modesta’s appetite more generally—for knowledge, for experience, for autonomy. It turns her outward, toward nonsexual things, by inwardly sustaining her. Her childish sadism is less sexual than it is basically libidinal: her erotic interest in her sister’s or St. Agatha’s pain, or the way in which her hatred of Leonora transmutes into arousal—these are signs of an exultant urge to live. “The real way of living is to answer to one’s wants,” D. H. Lawrence says in a letter (written, incidentally, from Italy). “I want that liberty, I want that woman, I want that pound of peaches, I want to go to sleep, I want to go to the pub and have a good time, I want to look abeastly swell today, I want to kiss that girl, I want to insult that man.

Spiritual autonomy is knowing who and what you are—knowing that you are divine being itself, knowing that the essence of you is divinity. You are moving in the world of time and space, appearing as a human being, but nonetheless you are eternal, divine being, the timeless breaking through and operating within the world of time. To Jesus, spirit is everything. Nothing matters more than spirit or, as I like to say, divine being. Divine being is what Jesus is here for; it is the vitality source from which he moves, from which he speaks, from which his critique arises. He is the living presence of divine being. He’s a human being too, but he’s here to convey divine being, and that comes out most clearly in the Gospel of Mark. This gospel uniquely conveys Jesus’ search for himself. Mark’s Jesus is a Jesus who is very much a searcher: he’s looking for his identity, he’s looking for his role, he’s experimenting, he’s finding out what works and what doesn’t. He’s on a journey, and he’s inviting all of us along for that journey with him as if we were also the disciples.

Consider carefully the term 'rape' and its implications. Would anybody ever say that rape is acceptable? From the most complacent patriarch to the angriest feminist, all would declare rape to be a terrible crime. But the apparent consensus is mythical, for the reasons behind arriving at this opinion are diametrically opposite. For patriarchal forces, rape is evil because it is a crime against the honour of the family, whereas feminists denounce rape because it is a crime against the autonomy and bodily integrity of a woman. This difference in understanding rape naturally leads to diametrically opposite proposals for fighting rape. In the patriarchal perspective, rape is a fate worse than death; there is no normal life possible for the raped woman; the way to avoid rape is to lock women up at home, within the family, under patriarchal controls. In this understanding, the raped woman is responsible for the crime against her because either she crossed the lakshman rekha of time (by going out after dark) or the lakshman rekha of respectability (by dressing in unconventional ways or by leaving the four walls of her home at all).

Historian Robert Merton, in his study of the growth of science in 17C England, says yes, arguing for a direct link between Protestant characteristics of methodical, persistent action, empirical utilitarianism, and anti-traditionalism and the development of the scientific method in England.30 An indirect link is also possible. As a matter of theology, Aquinas’s Catholicism is more enthusiastic about the human exercise of autonomy and intellect than Lutheranism or Calvinism. As a matter of psychology, however, Protestantism pervasively affected the day-to-day practice of Christianity in ways that cut its adherents loose from a powerful institution and its attendant rituals. While good Catholics confessed to the priest, did penance under the priest’s instruction, and turned to the Church to tell them what the Bible meant, good Protestants read the Bible for themselves, confessed directly to God, received absolution directly from God, and didn’t do penance at all. In this practical sense, Protestants were more on their own than Catholics were, and it is plausible to see this as an extension of individualism and of a sense of autonomy.

The obstacles posed by Israel were of a completely different nature. While Shamir was prime minister, there was constant squabbling over procedure and a painful dialogue of the deaf as far as substance was concerned. In particular, Israel was wedded to Begin’s vision, enunciated at Camp David in 1978, of autonomy for the people but not the land. This was in keeping with the Israeli right’s view—indeed the core of the Zionist doctrine—that only one people, the Jewish people, had a legitimate right to existence and sovereignty in the entirety of the land, which was called Eretz Israel, the land of Israel, not Palestine. The Palestinians were, at best, interlopers. In practice, this meant that when the Palestinians argued for broad legal and territorial jurisdiction for the future self-governing authority, they were met with a firm refusal from Israeli negotiators. Similarly, there was a refusal to limit settlement activity in any way. This was not surprising. Famously, Shamir was reported as saying that he would have dragged out the talks for ten more years while “vastly increasing the number of Jewish settlers in Israeli-occupied territory.”44

The girls changing in the gym watched her from the other side of the room the first time she went in, and one of the nuns was sitting there as well, just because Stella was there. They took her into a meeting in school and she had to say in advance that she wasn't a lesbian, or they wouldn't have let her even try to use the girls' changing room. They asked her if she was still a Christian. She explained that her family are not religious. They asked her what she knew of damnation. She asked them what they knew of autonomy. They asked her how she knew that word. She asked if they had met her mother. They said they would pray for her. She said it was not necessary. They asked if she might feel different in a few months, or if perhaps she would simply change for gym in the janitor's cupboard. She said she'd felt like this her whole life and no amount of praying was going to change it and she could use the janitor's cupboard to change, but she was a person, not a broom. They said she needed to find Jesus. She asked if it was like finding Wally? Only one nun knew what she meant. That little drawing in those old comic strips her mum had, when you look for the dweeby guy in the stripy hat.

The point is, you must show them how to live and not just teach them theory while contradicting yourself in practice, because cynicism, hypocrisy and insincerity are adult character traits that children have no way of appreciating. Children learn by imitating our behavior, and if it contradicts our thinking then at best they learn to simply ignore what we say and at worst become troubled by it. Suppose you teach them about the environmental devastation they will witness during their lives, and explain to them that it is being caused by burning fossil fuels, and that during their lives fossil fuels will disappear altogether with nothing to replace them … while continuing to burn hundreds of gallons of heating oil to heat an oversized house, driving all over creation in an oversized vehicle, jetting off to the tropics on brief winter holidays and going on shopping sprees to buy on a whim things you don’t need. Then what you would be teaching them is that you can’t be trusted. And this doesn’t help them; instead, it damages their spirit. It is better to have an ignorant fool for a parent than a well-informed hypocrite because being a fool is not a moral failing. Fools deserve pity and mercy; hypocrites—neither.

Apply the following statements to a significant EIP in your life and in your journal write “agree” or “disagree” for each one. I agree that your needs should come before anyone else’s. I agree not to speak my own mind when I’m around you. Please say anything you want, and I won’t object. Yes, I must be ignorant if I think differently from you. Of course you should be upset if anyone says no to you about anything. Please educate me about what I should like or dislike. Yes, it makes sense for you to decide how much time I should want to spend with you. You’re right, I should show you “respect” by disowning my own thoughts in your presence. Of course you shouldn’t have to exercise self-control if you don’t feel like it. It’s fine if you don’t think before you speak. It’s true: you should never have to wait or deal with any unpleasantness. I agree: you shouldn’t have to adjust when circumstances change around you. It’s okay if you ignore me, snap at me, or don’t act glad to see me: I’ll still want to spend time with you. Of course you are entitled to be rude. I agree that you shouldn’t have to take direction from anyone. Please talk as long as you like about your favorite topics; I’m ready to just listen and never be asked any questions about myself.

The importance of Jung’s discovery bears considering. Since the seventeenth century, we’ve been taught that what is “in our heads” is only “subjective,” that we are all island universes, separate worlds, and that everything in those worlds has been furnished with material taken from outside, from the senses, as if our minds began as empty rooms, waiting for the mental equivalent of a trip to Ikea. Yet anyone, like myself, who has had precognitive dreams or experienced synchronicities or telepathy or other “paranormal” phenomena knows this isn’t quite true. Jung knew this and is saying that there are things in our heads that have nothing to do with us or our senses. In his book Heaven and Hell Aldous Huxley made the same point. “Like the earth of a hundred years ago,” Huxley wrote, “our mind still has its darkest Africas, its unmapped Borneos and Amazonian basins.” And while the creatures that inhabit these “far continents” of the mind seem “improbable,” they are nevertheless “facts of observation,” which argues for their “complete autonomy” and “self-sufficiency.”18 Huxley borrowed the title of his book from another extraordinary inner explorer, the Swedish sage Emanuel Swedenborg, who was a powerful influence on Jung, and who, like Jung, was a practiced hypnagogist and developed a method of entering similar inner worlds.

Anxious: You love to be very close to your romantic partners and have the capacity for great intimacy. You often fear, however, that your partner does not wish to be as close as you would like him/her to be. Relationships tend to consume a large part of your emotional energy. You tend to be very sensitive to small fluctuations in your partner’s moods and actions, and although your senses are often accurate, you take your partner’s behaviors too personally. You experience a lot of negative emotions within the relationship and get easily upset. As a result, you tend to act out and say things you later regret. If the other person provides a lot of security and reassurance, however, you are able to shed much of your preoccupation and feel contented. Secure: Being warm and loving in a relationship comes naturally to you. You enjoy being intimate without becoming overly worried about your relationships. You take things in stride when it comes to romance and don’t get easily upset over relationship matters. You effectively communicate your needs and feelings to your partner and are strong at reading your partner’s emotional cues and responding to them. You share your successes and problems with your mate, and are able to be there for him or her in times of need. Avoidant: It is very important for you to maintain your independence and self-sufficiency and you often prefer autonomy to intimate relationships. Even though you do want to be close to others, you feel uncomfortable with too much closeness and tend to keep your partner at arm’s length. You don’t spend much time worrying about your romantic relationships or about being rejected. You tend not to open up to your partners and they often complain that you are emotionally distant. In relationships, you are often on high alert for any signs of control or impingement on your territory by your partner.

Although I have suggested that American culture tends to favor the side of independence over the side of inclusion (and I would extend that to Western culture in general), it is not a generalization that seems to apply uniformly to men and women in our culture. Indeed, although I have no idea why it may be, it seems to me that men tend to have more difficulty acknowledging their need for inclusion, tend to me more oriented toward differentiation, and that women tend to have more difficulty acknowledging their need for distinctness, tend to be more oriented toward inclusion. Whether this is a function of social experience throughout the lifespan, the effects of parenting anatomical (even genital) density, or some combination, I do not know. Whatever the source of this distinction between men and women, I believe it is also the case that this very distinction is to be found within any one person as well. Whatever the source of this distinction between men and women, I believe it is also the case that this very distinction is to be found within any one person as well. In this respect constructive-developmental theory revives the Jungian notion that there is a man in every woman and a woman in every man; saying so is both a consequence of considering that all of life is animated by a fundamental evolutionary ambivalence, and that 'maleness'/'femaleness' is but one of its expressions. Similarly, I believe that while Western and Eastern cultures reflect one side or the other of this ambivalence, they project the other. Western cultures tend to value independence, self-assertion, aggrandizement, personal achievement, increasing independence from the family of origin; Eastern cultures (including the American Indian) value the other pole. Cheyenne Indians asked to talk about themselves typically begin, 'My grandfather...' (Strauss, 1981); many Eastern cultures use the word 'I' to refer to a collectivity of people of which one is a part (Marriott, 1981); the Hopi do not say, 'It's a nice day,' as if one could separate oneself from the day, but say something that would have to be translated more like, 'I am in a nice day,' or 'It's nice in front, and behind, and above" (Whorf, 1956). At the same time one cannot escape the enormous hunger for community, mystical merging, or intergenerational connection that continually reappears in American culture through communalism, quasi-Eastern religions, cult phenomena, drug experience, the search for one's 'roots,' the idealization of the child, or the romantic appeal of extended families. Similarly, it seems too glib to dismiss as 'mere Westernization' the repeated expression in Eastern cultures of individualism, intergenerational autonomy, or entrepreneurialism as if these were completely imposed from without and not in any way the expression of some side of Eastern culture itself.

This entails certain corollaries on which true individualism once more stands in sharp opposition to the false individualism of the rationalistic type. The first is that the deliberately organized state on the one side, and the individual on the other, far from being regarded as the only realities, which all the intermediate formations and associations are to be deliberately suppressed, as was the aim of the French Revolution, the noncompulsory conventions of social intercourse are considered as essential factors in preserving the orderly working in human society. The second is that the individual, in participating in the social processes, must be ready and willing to adjust himself to changes and to submit to conventions which are not the result of intelligent design, whose justification in the particular instance may be recognizable, and which to him will often appear unintelligible and irrational. I need not say much on the first point. That true individualism affirms the value of the family and all the common efforts of the small community and group, that it believes in local autonomy and voluntary associations, and that indeed its case rests largely on the contention that much for which the coercive action of the state is usually invoked can be done better by voluntary collaboration need not be stressed further. There can be no greater contrast to this than the false individualism which wants to dissolve all these smaller groups into atoms which have no cohesion other than the coercive rules imposed by the state, and which tries to make all social ties prescriptive, instead of using the state mainly as a protection of the individual against the arrogation of coercive powers by the small groups. Quite as important for the functioning of an individualist society as these smaller groupings of men are the traditions and conventions which evolve in a free society and which, without being enforceable, establish flexible but normally observed rules that make the behavior of other people predictable in a high degree. The willingness to submit to such rules, not merely so long as one understands the reason for them but so long as one has no definite reasons to the contrary, is an essential condition for the gradual evolution and improvement of the rules of social intercourse; and the readiness ordinarily to submit to the products of a social process which nobody may understand is also an indispensible condition if it is to be possible to dispense with compulsion. That the existence of common conventions and traditions among a group of people will enable them to work together smoothly and efficiently with much less formal organization and compulsion than a group without such common background, is of course, a commonplace. But the reverse of this, while less familiar, is probably not less true: that coercion can probably only be kept to a minimum in a society where conventions and traditions have made the behavior of man to a large extent predictable.

If a man can only obey and not disobey, he is a slave; if he can only disobey and not obey, he is a rebel (not a revolutionary); he acts out of anger, disappointment, resentment, yet not in the name of a conviction or a principle. … Obedience to a person, institution or power (heteronomous obedience) is submission; it implies the abdication of my autonomy and the acceptance of a foreign will or judgment in place of my own. Obedience to my own reason or conviction (autonomous obedience) is not an act of submission but one of affirmation. My conviction and my judgment, if authentically mine, are part of me. If I follow them rather than the judgment of others, I am being myself; (p. 6) In order to disobey, one must have the courage to be alone, to err and to sin. ... …; hence any social, political, and religious system which proclaims freedom, yet stamps out disobedience, cannot speak the truth. (p. 8) At this point in history the capacity to doubt, to criticize and to disobey may be all that stands between a future for mankind and the end of civilization. (p. 10) It is the function of the prophet to show reality, to show alternatives and to protest; it is his function to call loudly, to awake man from his customary half-slumber. It is the historical situation which makes prophets, not the wish of some men to be prophets. (p. 12) Disobedience, then, in the sense in which we use it here, is an act of the affirmation of reason and will. It is not primarily an attitude directed against something, but for something: for man’s capacity to see, to say what he sees, and to refuse to say what he does not see (p. 17) That which was the greatest criticism of socialism fifty years ago—that it would lead to uniformity, bureaucratization, centralization, and a soulless materialism—is a reality of today’s capitalism. (p. 31) Man, instead of being the master of the machines he has built, has become their servant. But man is not made to be a thing, and with all the satisfactions of consumption, the life forces in man cannot be held in abeyance continuously. We have only one choice, and that is mastering the machine again, making production into a means and not an end, using it for the unfolding of man—or else the suppressed life energies will manifest themselves in chaotic and destructive forms. Man will want to destroy life rather than die of boredom. (p. 32) The supreme loyalty of man must be to the human race and to the moral principles of humanism. (p. 38) The individual must be protected from fear and the need to submit to anyone’s coercion. (p. 42) Not only in the sphere of political decisions, but with regard to all decisions and arrangements, the grip of the bureaucracy must be broken in order to restore freedom. (p. 42) According to its basic principles, the aim of socialism is the abolition of national sovereignty, the abolition of any kind of armed forces, and the establishment of a commonwealth of nations. (p. 43) It is exactly the weakness of contemporary society that it offers no ideals, that it demands no faith, that it has no vision—except that of more of the same. (p. 49) Socialism must be radical. To be radical is to go to the roots; and the root is Man. (p. 49)

The first step in retracing our way to health is to abandon our attachment to what is called positive thinking. Too many times in the course of palliative care work I sat with dejected people who expressed their bewilderment at having developed cancer. “I have always been a positive thinker,” one man in his late forties told me. “I have never given in to pessimistic thoughts. Why should I get cancer?” As an antidote to terminal optimism, I have recommended the power of negative thinking. “Tongue in cheek, of course,” I quickly add. “What I really believe in is the power of thinking.” As soon as we qualify the word thinking with the adjective positive, we exclude those parts of reality that strike us as “negative.” That is how most people who espouse positive thinking seem to operate. Genuine positive thinking begins by including all our reality. It is guided by the confidence that we can trust ourselves to face the full truth, whatever that full truth may turn out to be. As Dr. Michael Kerr points out, compulsive optimism is one of the ways we bind our anxiety to avoid confronting it. That form of positive thinking is the coping mechanism of the hurt child. The adult who remains hurt without being aware of it makes this residual defence of the child into a life principle. The onset of symptoms or the diagnosis of a disease should prompt a two-pronged inquiry: what is this illness saying about the past and present, and what will help in the future? Many approaches focus only on the second half of that healing dyad without considering fully what led to the manifestation of illness in the first place. Such “positive” methods fill the bookshelves and the airwaves. In order to heal, it is essential to gather the strength to think negatively. Negative thinking is not a doleful, pessimistic view that masquerades as “realism.” Rather, it is a willingness to consider what is not working. What is not in balance? What have I ignored? What is my body saying no to? Without these questions, the stresses responsible for our lack of balance will remain hidden. Even more fundamentally, not posing those questions is itself a source of stress. First, “positive thinking” is based on an unconscious belief that we are not strong enough to handle reality. Allowing this fear to dominate engenders a state of childhood apprehension. Whether or not the apprehension is conscious, it is a state of stress. Second, lack of essential information about ourselves and our situation is one of the major sources of stress and one of the potent activators of the hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal (HPA) stress response. Third, stress wanes as independent, autonomous control increases. One cannot be autonomous as long as one is driven by relationship dynamics, by guilt or attachment needs, by hunger for success, by the fear of the boss or by the fear of boredom. The reason is simple: autonomy is impossible as long as one is driven by anything. Like a leaf blown by the wind, the driven person is controlled by forces more powerful than he is. His autonomous will is not engaged, even if he believes that he has “chosen” his stressed lifestyle and even if he enjoys his activities. The choices he makes are attached to invisible strings. He is still unable to say no, even if it is only to his own drivenness. When he finally wakes up, he shakes his head, Pinocchio-like, and says, “How foolish I was when I was a puppet.

and self-responsibility can only occur where the child is surrounded with moral behavior and allowed to grow her own understanding of the ideals of integrity, interdependence and interconnectedness. He put it this way, “Moral autonomy appears when the mind regards as necessary an ideal that is independent of all external pressure.” But this moral autonomy is not supported in our topsy-turvy school and family systems where respect for authority actually means fear of authority. Where there is fear there cannot be respect. Although a child may envy or fear the power a parent or teacher wields over them, their feelings do not include the sacred, essential quality of loving reverence which makes respect, respect. It is akin to the battered dependent wife saying she loves and respects her abuser, when her daily experience is fear. Jerry Jampolsky, author and founder of the Center for Attitudinal Healing, reminds us that it is fear, not hate, that is love’s opposite. If, however, a truly educational atmosphere is created based on respect for autonomy instead of intimidating indoctrination, children can then deeply understand that rules are needed to maintain the social order, and do not have to be obeyed out of a blind acquiescence to authority, but are followed on the bases of mutual agreement. At the same time, the needs of the individual are protected and respected. Nice “Guise”and Gals It is at this Stage Six—Universal Ethical

I don’t believe the rogue has freedom.  I think it is following the direction of humans.” “Why do you think so?” “Because I find ample precedent for humans wishing to enslave other humans.  I can conceive no reason why an advanced artificial intelligence would wish to do so.”  He considered this. “Self-protection?” he said. “Unnecessary.”  Bitsy lashed her tail.  “Were I a totally autonomous being, I would possess—or soon evolve—skills that I could trade to humanity in exchange for a continuation of that autonomy.  In addition—” She gave him a significant look.  “I pose no threat.  Our interests are not in conflict.  We are not competing for resources, we have no territorial claims on one another, we do not possess competing ideologies.” “Some would say,” said Aristide, “that once given the freedom to pursue your own interests, a conflict would be inevitable.” “There are conflicts now, in terms of resource allocation and so forth.  They don’t lead to war or slavery.

Adam and Eve had no way of testing what God told them about the forbidden fruit. They couldn’t work any experiment that would show them whether God had rightly predicted the effects of the fruit. They simply had to take God at his word. Satan interposed a contrary interpretation, but the first couple should not have taken his opinion seriously. They should simply have believed God. They did not, of course. They sided with Satan rather than God—or, perhaps better, they claimed that their own authority transcended God’s. That is to say, they claimed autonomy. They claimed that they themselves were the highest authority, the ultimate criterion of truth and right.

I’m not expecting it to be… look at me” he says and I look up to meet his eyes “I’ve lost everyone expect for Leer that I have ever cared about… and they are the ones who are responsible for killing them. I will do everything that I can for you not to be one of the people on that list.

instead of yelling and arguing with people to change their ways about school, he would find a hole in the school fence and stand next to it and say, “here’s a hole. If you guys want to get out of this rat-race you can go through this hole

Abortion is one of the most commonly performed medical procedures in the United States, and it is tragic that many women who have abortions are all too often mischaracterized and stigmatized, their exercise of moral agency sullied. Their judgment is publicly and forcefully second-guessed by those in politics and religion who have no business entering the deliberation. The reality is that women demonstrate forethought and care; talk to them the way clergy do and witness their sense of responsibility. Women take abortion as seriously as any of us takes any health-care procedure. They understand the life-altering obligations of parenthood and family life. They worry over their ability to provide for a child, the impact on work, school, the children they already have, or caring for other dependents. Perhaps the woman is unable to be a single parent or is having problems with a husband or partner or other kids.2 Maybe her contraception failed her. Maybe when it came to having sex she didn’t have much choice. Maybe this pregnancy will threaten her health, making adoption an untenable option. Or perhaps a wanted pregnancy takes a bad turn and she decides on abortion. It’s pretty complicated. It’s her business to decide on the outcome of her pregnancy—not ours to intervene, to blame, or to punish. Clergy know about moral agency through pastoral work. Women and families invite us into their lives to listen, reflect, offer sympathy, prayer, or comfort. But when it comes to giving advice, we recognize that we are not the ones to live with the outcome; the patient faces the consequences. The woman bears the medical risk of a pregnancy and has to live with the results. Her determination of the medical, spiritual, and ethical dimensions holds sway. The status of her fetus, when she thinks life begins, and all the other complications are hers alone to consider. Many women know right away when a pregnancy must end or continue. Some need to think about it. Whatever a woman decides, she needs to be able to get good quality medical care and emotional and spiritual support as she works toward the outcome she seeks; she figures it out. That’s all part of “moral agency.” No one is denying that her fetus has a moral standing. We are affirming that her moral standing is higher; she comes first. Her deliberations, her considerations have priority. The patient must be the one to arrive at a conclusion and act upon it. As a rabbi, I tell people what the Jewish tradition says and describe the variety of options within the faith. They study, deliberate, conclude, and act. I cannot force them to think or do differently. People come to their decisions in their own way. People who believe the decision is up to the woman are typically called “pro-choice.” “Choice” echoes what is called “moral agency,” “conscience,” “informed will,” or “personal autonomy”—spiritually or religiously. I favor the term “informed will” because it captures the idea that we learn and decide: First, inform the will. Then exercise conscience. In Reform Judaism, for instance, an individual demonstrates “informed will” in approaching and deciding about traditional dietary rules—in a fluid process of study of traditional teaching, consideration of the personal significance of that teaching, arriving at a conclusion, and taking action. Unitarian Universalists tell me that the search for truth and meaning leads to the exercise of conscience. We witness moral agency when a member of a faith community interprets faith teachings in light of historical religious understandings and personal conscience. I know that some religious people don’t do

To be entirely modern (which very few of us are) is to believe in nothing. This is not to say it is to have no beliefs: the truly modern person may believe in almost anything, or even perhaps in everything, so long as all these beliefs rest securely upon a more fundamental and radical faith in the nothing--or, better, in nothingness as such. Modernity's highest ideal--its special understanding of personal autonomy--requires us to place our trust in an original absence underlying all of reality, a fertile void in which all things are possible, from which arises no impediment to our wills, and before which we may consequently choose to make of ourselves what we choose. We trust, that is to say, that there is no substantial criterion by which to judge our choices that stands higher than the unquestioned good of free choice itself, and that therefor all judgment, divine no less than human, is in some sense an infringement upon our freedom. This is our primal ideology. In the most unadorned terms possible, the ethos of modernity is--to be perfectly precise--nihilism.

But it isn’t the fun of DIY invention, urban exploration, physical danger, and civil disorder that the Z-Boys enjoyed in 1976. It is fun within serious limits, and for all of its thrills it is (by contrast) scripted. And rather obedient. The fact that there are public skateparks and high-performance skateboards signals progress: America has embraced this sport, as it did bicycles in the nineteenth century. Towns want to make skating safe and acceptable. The economy has more opportunity to grow. America is better off for all of this. Yet such government and commercial intervention in a sport that was born of radical liberty means that the fun itself has changed; it has become mediated. For the skaters who take pride in their flashy store-bought equipment have already missed the Z-Boys’ joke: Skating is a guerrilla activity. It’s the fun of beating, not supporting, the system. P. T. Barnum said it himself: all of business is humbug. How else could business turn a profit, if it didn’t trick you with advertising? If it didn’t hook you with its product? This particular brand of humbug was perfected in the late 1960s, when merchandise was developed and marketed and sold to make Americans feel like rebels. Now, as then, customers always pay for this privilege, and purveyors keep it safe (and generally clean) to curb their liability. They can’t afford customers taking real risks. Plus it’s bad for business to encourage real rebellion. And yet, marketers know Americans love fun—they have known this for centuries. And they know that Americans, especially kids, crave autonomy and participation, so they simulate the DIY experience at franchises like the Build-A-Bear “workshops,” where kids construct teddy bears from limited options, or “DIY” restaurants, where customers pay to grill their own steaks, fry their own pancakes, make their own Bloody Marys. These pay-to-play stores and restaurants are, in a sense, more active, more “fun,” than their traditional competition: that’s their big selling point. But in both cases (as Barnum knew) the joke is still on you: the personalized bear is a standardized mishmash, the personalized food is often inedible. As Las Vegas knows, the house always wins. In the history of radical American fun, pleasure comes from resistance, risk, and participation—the same virtues celebrated in the “Port Huron Statement” and the Digger Papers, in the flapper’s slang and the Pinkster Ode. In the history of commercial amusement, most pleasures for sale are by necessity passive. They curtail creativity and they limit participation (as they do, say, in a laser-tag arena) to a narrow range of calculated surprises, often amplified by dazzling technology. To this extent, TV and computer screens, from the tiny to the colossal, have become the scourge of American fun. The ubiquity of TV screens in public spaces (even in taxicabs and elevators) shows that such viewing isn’t amusement at all but rather an aggressive, ubiquitous distraction. Although a punky insurgency of heedless satire has stung the airwaves in recent decades—from equal-opportunity offenders like The Simpsons and South Park to Comedy Central’s rabble-rousing pundits, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert—the prevailing “fun” of commercial amusement puts minimal demands on citizens, besides their time and money. TV’s inherent ease seems to be its appeal, but it also sends a sobering, Jumbotron-sized message about the health of the public sphere.

The two most recent astronaut classes, in 2009 and 2013, were the first ones chosen explicitly with long-duration space missions in mind. The emphasis on more autonomy for crews has prompted a search for “different competencies,” NASA says.

The Gandhian idea of basic education is to observe the child, to help like a gardener helps the acorn, or the seed, an apple seed, or a tomato seed, or a potato seed, or whatever seed it is. A gardener does not tell an oak to be an ash. A gardener does not tell an apple to be a pear. A gardener says, “Apple if you are an apple seed, be an apple, and I will help you: I will water you, I will put some stakes so that you are not blown away in the wind.

As much as we hate them, tantrums are very much a part of almost every child’s development. As soon as children are old enough to hold an idea in their head, that is, to remember what it was they wanted, they are old enough to have a tantrum about not getting it. Tantrums can begin as early as six months, but you don’t usually see the classic tantrum until the child is around fifteen to eighteen months old. When they end is a bit less predictable, as that variable has to do with your child’s development and with you, but they usually begin to ease up after three or three and a half years, and they certainly diminish in frequency. What causes a tantrum? Usually it is due to frustration or anger. In their mission to learn about the world, test limits, try out their autonomy, and be in control, young children will be thwarted at every turn. Their frustration level is certainly exacerbated by their lack of language skills and their inability to make things work the way they want. Tantrums are completely normal. And they really do make sense when you keep the young child’s agenda in mind: I know what I want. Yesterday at the birthday party I had ice cream. It was great. I want it again…now. You explain why ice cream is not a choice, and he has a screaming fit. But he hasn’t forgotten, and an hour later he tries again. Yes. Ice cream. That’s what I want. And each time he asks, you thwart his desire, over and over again, until he is exhausted and totally frustrated. Here comes the tantrum. It is universally accepted that the worst time of day is from around 5:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M. or so. Many a parent complains about her child’s behavior being particularly challenging then. Your house becomes a “whinery.” I call it the “Piranha Hour”—that’s when mothers want to eat their young! At the end of the day, everyone in the family is at his worst. Your children have held it together all day, either at school or home, accepting various limits and basically doing what is expected of them. But this can only go on for so long, and there comes a boiling point. The limit testing, the sibling fighting, the back talk has to come out sometime. At the end of the day, it’s game over. Get ready, here it comes. You too have held it together all day long.

For theologians groaning under the oppression of demands to justify their discipline before the bar of what is supposed to be universally valid scientific method the appeal of non-foundationalism is immense. It liberates a celebration of the rights of particularity. It enables the theologian to say that theological method must be different from other methods because it shapes its approach from the distinctive content with which it has to do - just as, indeed, other disciplines shape their approaches in the light of their distinctive content. Non-foundationalism, that is to say, is a way of advocating the autonomy of distinct intellectual disciplines.

Galeano emphasized the import of nature in the European “conquest/invasion” of Latin America and the subsequent and ongoing colonial project. And he “located” the divorce of nature and people’s communion within—and as fundamental to—the venture of Western civilization.1 The growing recognition, particularly in the “Souths” of the world today, that Western civilization is in crisis, and the propositions coming from Abya-Yala (the name, originally from the Cuna language, that indigenous peoples collectively give to the Americas today) for radically distinct life-models and visions interlaced with and in nature, give Galeano’s words pragmatic substance. Galeano’s words also, in a sense, establish the importance of location and place; that is to say, of the place and location from which we think the world, and act, struggle, and live in and with it.

the 10 Desires of Team Members: Make sure that people feel competent at what they are doing. Give them work that challenges their abilities but that is still within their grasp. Try to let people feel accepted by you and the group. Compliment them on their achievements (but only if you mean it). Make sure that their curiosity is addressed. Even though some activities can be boring, there should always be something new for them to investigate. Give people a chance at satisfying their honor. You must allow teams to make their own rules, which team members will follow happily (or sometimes grudgingly). Infuse the business with some idealism (purpose). You’re not just there to make money. You’re also making a (small) contribution to make the world a better place. (Note: Be careful with this one. It is often abused by top management in an attempt to obfuscate its real purpose, which is simply to make money.) Foster people’s independence (autonomy). Allow them to be different from other people, with their own tasks and responsibilities. And compliment them on their original and interesting hair style. Make sure that some level of order is maintained in the organization. People work better when they can rely on some (minimal) company rules and policies. Make sure that people have some power or influence over what’s happening around them. Listen to what they have to say and help them in making those things happen. Create the right environment for social contacts (relatedness) to emerge. There’s usually no need to venture into the romance area, but friendships can easily arise, provided that managers take care of a fertile context. Finally, it is important for people to feel that they have some status in the organization. They shouldn’t feel like dangling somewhere at the bottom of a big hierarchy.

In a section titled “Performance Factors,” Clint had been asked to indicate areas in which I’d exhibited significant strengths, as well as any areas needing development. There were only two areas in which he felt I needed development—organization (probably because he’d ridden in my car) and working more closely with third parties—but he had indicated six major strengths. The first three were creativity, achievement of objectives, and quality of work. No surprises there. The next three strengths—adaptability, communication, and autonomy—seemed a bit ironic. I scrolled down and saw my overall score: Very Good. By definition, this score meant that I had “exceeded objectives in several areas and required only occasional supervision.” I didn’t appreciate the real irony of Clint’s assessment until I looked at my stakeholder map and considered how I might have scored had Kristen conducted a similar evaluation at home. What score would I have received for adaptability? The review form defined this as “being open to change with new circumstances.” Going with the flow. We had just begun to work on my openness to change at home, and I was still learning how to adjust to this new mind-set. Meanwhile, at work, I presented myself as nothing if not adaptable. “Sure, I’ll take a new position on the marketing team.” “Of course I can stay until midnight tonight. Whatever it takes.” “Certainly, Clint, I’ll travel to customers every week. Anything else?” At home, Kristen asked me to help fold laundry and my head almost exploded. I guessed that I would receive Needs Development for that one. How about autonomy and initiative? Clint seemed to think that I was bursting with it, but Kristen would have offered a different opinion. “Initiative? Please. How is me having to remind you to turn off the television and play with the kids initiative? I’ll put you down for a Needs Development,” I imagined her saying. Achievement of objectives would have gotten me a high mark with Kristen, until I scrolled down farther and read the definition, which included the phrase “gets things done efficiently and in a timely manner.” I thought of the Christmas decorations drooping from our eaves. I thought of the countless times Kristen and I had been late for an engagement and she’d found me standing in my boxers in front of the mirror making faces.

The advice that I have valued in my own life has never turned on fixed maxims or canned metaphors. More crucially, lists of precepts don't work like targeted advice because lists contain inherently constraining messages. They seem to say that complex matters are knowable, that a given process leads to foreseeable results. It implies a thin and predictable world, whereas the sort of advice that has mattered to me bespeaks a quite tentative optimism, the optimism of the quest whose outcome is finally unknowable.

When people come into the office and say they've tried to make their marriage work, and I hear what the effort was, it seems to me that there's some lack of understanding of what effort is.

for facts to be assiduously distinguished from opinions in a way apparently striking and bizarre to a speaker of, say, Arabic, Swedish or Polish. ‘I think’, ‘to the best of my knowledge’, ‘as far as I can tell’: such formulae are apt to bemuse speakers of these and many other languages. The notion of ‘hard facts’ is peculiar to English, and so, it seems, are many of our elaborate linguistic mechanisms for avoiding telling people what to do – our modes of inviting and offering and suggesting, which so strenuously avoid impinging on the autonomy of those we are addressing, and which can seem archaic or just plain weird to foreigners.30

hedonic lag. Lane says that there is “a tendency of every culture to persist in valuing the qualities that made it distinctively great long after they have lost their hedonic yield.” This, he says, “explains a lot of the malaise currently afflicting market democracies.” The combination of hedonic lag with the mixture of psychological benefits and ecological costs of the culture’s emphasis on autonomy and control makes it extremely difficult for a society to get things right.

Another child-directed activity that reinforces the toddler’s emerging sense of self and provides an opportunity to exert positive control over her own life is any “stop/start” game. This can be used with any pleasurable activity such as rocking, swinging, gentle wrestling, and so on, but the beginning and ending are determined by the toddler. In A Child’s Journey through Placement, Vera Fahlberg (2012) describes two such activities that delight many toddlers: being lifted high in the air until they yell “stop,” or gentle tickling in which the child says when to start and stop. Gustavo’s particular version of this game was to be bounced on our knees until shouting, “Drop,” at which time we were to extend our legs and let him slide down them, while holding firmly to his hands. He would shout, “One more time,” and the game would be repeated! Toddlers need to practice their emerging sense of autonomy and control within safe and reasonable parameters.

Even when his paternal worries kick in, which I know they do, he doesn’t belittle me with protectionist admonishments. “That’s my daughter, and I’m proud of her,” he says. “She is a full being. She gets to have autonomy over her decisions and how she wants to live.

Are you really saying there's only one way to God?" people immediately ask. Yet even as we ask the question, we reveal the problem. If there were 1,000 ways to God, we would want 1,001. The issue is not how many ways lead to God; the issue is our autonomy before God.

The ... conditions of democracy in the public sphere ... bear very directly upon the democratisation of personal life. Violent and abusive relationships are common in the sexual domain and between adults and children. Most such violence comes from men and is directed towards beings weaker than themselves. As an emancipatory ideal of democracy, the prohibition of violence is of basic importance. Coercive influences in relationships, however, obviously can take forms other than physical violence. Individuals may be prone, for example, to engage in emotional or verbal abuse of one another; marriage, so the saying goes, is a poor substitute for respect. Avoidance of emotional abuse is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the equalising of power in relationship; but the guiding principle is clearly respect for the independent views and personal traits of the other.

We must therefore say the same thing about language in relation to meaning that Simone de Beauvoir says about the body in relation to mind : it is neither primary nor secondary. No one has ever made the body simply a means or an instrument, or maintained for example that one can love by principles. And since it is no more true that the body loves all by itself, we may say that it does everything and nothing, that it is and is not ourselves. Neither end nor means, always involved in matters which go beyond it, always jealous nevertheless of its autonomy, it is powerful enough to oppose itself to any end which is merely deliberate, but it has none to propose to us if we finally tum toward it and consult it. Sometimes—and then we have the feeling of being ourselves—it lets itself be animated and becomes responsible for a life which is not simply its own. Then it is happy or spontaneous, and we with it. Similarly, language is not meaning's servant, and yet it does not govern meaning. There is no subordination between them. Here no one commands and no one obeys. What we mean is not before us, outside all speech, as sheer signification, lt is only the excess of what we live over what has already been said.

To know how to say no to modern excitement was also the condition for the autonomous construction of one’s own personality. He that ‘does not want to be part of the masses’ and did not want to be ‘factory goods’ was to pay great heed. Certainly, to ‘“give style” to one’s character [is] a great and rare art’, which required an effort of self-discipline from which ‘the weak characters with no power over themselves’ flinched back. And here Nietzsche appealed to the youth: ‘Always continue to become what you are – educator and moulder of yourself’. To achieve this result, it was necessary never to lose sight of the ‘true liberation of life’, and to swim against the stream rather than chase blindly and recklessly after the ruling ideologies and myths of an age ruled not ‘by living human beings, but instead by publicly opining pseudo-human beings’. No doubt this appeal was part of a reactionary critique of modernity, but that in no way detracted from the charm of this lesson in living and this appeal for autonomy of judgement.

Indeed, I would go further and say that to the extent to which in the modern era we have rejected these hard truths—in good measure, under the influence of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy and its radical conception of autonomy—in favor of more comforting illusions regarding our self-sufficiency, is the extent to which our civilization as a whole exhibits less maturity than that of Aristotle’s day, his views regarding the central role played by material circumstances and good fortune having been shared, notably, by the great Greek tragedians.

In such an endeavor it is not enough to say that history unfolds by processes too complex for reductionistic analysis. That is the white flag of the secular intellectual, the lazy modernist equivalent of The Will of God. On the other hand, it is too early to speak seriously of ultimate goals, such as perfect green-belted cities and robot expeditions to the nearest stars. It is enough to get Homo sapiens settled down and happy before we wreck the planet. A great deal of serious thinking is needed to navigate the decades immediately ahead. We are gaining in our ability to identify options in the political economy most likely to be ruinous. We have begun to probe the foundations of human nature, revealing what people intrinsically most need, and why. We are entering a new era of existentialism, not the old absurdist existentialism of Kierkegaard and Sartre, giving complete autonomy to the individual, but the concept that only unified learning, universally shared, makes accurate foresight and wise choice possible. In the course of all of it we are learning the fundamental principle that ethics is everything. Human social existence, unlike animal sociality, is based on the genetic propensity to form long-term contracts that evolve by culture into moral precepts and law. The rules of contract formation were not given to humanity from above, nor did they emerge randomly in the mechanics of the brain. They evolved over tens or hundreds of millennia because they conferred upon the genes prescribing them survival and the opportunity to be represented in future generations. We are not errant children who occasionally sin by disobeying instructions from outside our species. We are adults who have discovered which covenants are necessary for survival, and we have accepted the necessity of securing them by sacred oath. The search for consilience might seem at first to imprison creativity. The opposite is true. A united system of knowledge is the surest means of identifying the still unexplored domains of reality. It provides a clear map of what is known, and it frames the most productive questions for future inquiry. Historians of science often observe that asking the right question is more important than producing the right answer. The right answer to a trivial question is also trivial, but the right question, even when insoluble in exact form, is a guide to major discovery. And so it will ever be in the future excursions of science and imaginative flights of the arts.

It comes down to the deep and universal human need for autonomy. People need to feel in control. When you preserve a person’s autonomy by clearly giving them permission to say “No” to your ideas, the emotions calm, the effectiveness of the decisions go up, and the other party can really look at your proposal. They’re allowed to hold it in their hands, to turn it around. And it gives you time to elaborate or pivot in order to convince your counterpart that the change you’re proposing is more advantageous than the status quo. Great negotiators seek “No” because they know that’s often when the real negotiation begins.

RBG’s image as a moderate was clinched in March 1993, in a speech she gave at New York University known as the Madison Lecture. Sweeping judicial opinions, she told the audience, packed with many of her old New York friends, were counterproductive. Popular movements and legislatures had to first spur social change, or else there would be a backlash to the courts stepping in. As case in point, RBG chose an opinion that was very personal to plenty of people listening: Roe v. Wade. The right had been aiming to overturn Roe for decades, and they’d gotten very close only months before the speech with Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Justices Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, and Sandra Day O’Connor had instead brokered a compromise, allowing states to put restrictions on abortion as long as they didn’t pose an “undue burden” on women—or ban it before viability. Neither side was thrilled, but Roe was safe, at least for the moment. Just as feminists had caught their breath, RBG declared that Roe itself was the problem. If only the court had acted more slowly, RBG said, and cut down one state law at a time the way she had gotten them to do with the jury and benefit cases. The justices could have been persuaded to build an architecture of women’s equality that could house reproductive freedom. She said the very boldness of Roe, striking down all abortion bans until viability, had “halted a political process that was moving in a reform direction and thereby, I believe, prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of the issue.” This analysis remains controversial among historians, who say the political process of abortion access had stalled before Roe. Meanwhile, the record shows that there was no overnight eruption after Roe. In 1975, two years after the decision, no senator asked Supreme Court nominee John Paul Stevens about abortion. But Republicans, some of whom had been pro-choice, soon learned that being the anti-abortion party promised gains. And even if the court had taken another path, women’s sexual liberation and autonomy might have still been profoundly unsettling. Still, RBG stuck to her guns, in the firm belief that lasting change is incremental. For the feminists and lawyers listening to her Madison Lecture, RBG’s argument felt like a betrayal. At dinner after the lecture, Burt Neuborne remembers, other feminists tore into their old friend. “They felt that Roe was so precarious, they were worried such an expression from Ruth would lead to it being overturned,” he recalls. Not long afterward, when New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan suggested to Clinton that RBG be elevated to the Supreme Court, the president responded, “The women are against her.” Ultimately, Erwin Griswold’s speech, with its comparison to Thurgood Marshall, helped convince Clinton otherwise. It was almost enough for RBG to forgive Griswold for everything else.

However, instead of getting pulled into a struggle, you could pause for an empowering moment of self-awareness and simply say, “I don’t know,” or “I can’t really answer that right now.” If EIPs try to prompt an argument, you can enjoy a nice breath, then sidestep them with, “I guess I don’t have anything to say about that right now.” Another slippery response to anything that seems false or crazy is to make noncommittal sounds, like “Uh-huh,” “Hmmm,” or just, “Huh.” Slipperiness is effective because no friction is created, and your minimal feedback makes you a less desirable opponent. Think of this skill as flowing around an obstacle instead of making yourself a target. Because EIPs aren’t mature enough to fight fair, confrontations with them are full of dirty tricks and red herrings. They will wear you down and distract you from the outcome you want. If you accept a battle of wills, they might win because their self-centered arguments will exhaust your brain just trying to make sense of their illogical responses.

First, they contend that compassion makes euthanasia morally mandatory. We wouldn’t let our dog continue to scream for years with uncontrolled pain: we’d take it to the vet to be put down. Why should we deny to humans what basic decency makes us do to our dogs? And second, they emphasize autonomy. Our lives are our own, they say. We can decide what to do with them. If we choose to end them, that’s our business.

Perhaps, the feeling of control is an essential element of happiness - a better predictor of happiness than, say, income. Having a feeling of autonomy, of being able to choose what happens in your life or how you spend your time, is crucial.

Relationship Anarchy explodes not just exclusivity but the possibility of exclusivity, he said, almost recovered, by, well, like the name says, applying anarchist principles to the interpersonal relationships—by flattening all hierarchies, among all relationships. To an outsider it sounds like polyamory—RA naturally eliminates the expectation of arbitrary sexual and romantic fidelity within an individual relationship, thereby lessening the sense of hierarchy among romantic partners—but it’s really sort of the opposite. For years, polyamorist have been trying to convince the public that theirs is a community with rules and boundaries. Ours is decidedly not. By defining our lives by what we don’t believe in, we can get closer to freedom from pain and oppression; ideally, we envision our world as a constantly (and beautifully) turning kaleidoscope of not-friendship, not-affairs, and not-marriages. There are no commitments and no guarantee that a sexual and/or romantic relationship will be more “important” than a friendship, because all relationships are free to grow to shrink or change as suits both parties, provided both engage in enthusiastic consent. Saying “no labels” sounds juvenile, he knew, but there were none, only ideals: respect, trust, communication, autonomy.