I woke up today to find this in my in-box (I made the one segment bold):
:: Radical Honesty ::
Hiding the truth (from yourself and/or others) is a
constant energy drain. To free yourself from the
burden of secrets and lies, you must cultivate the
skill of radical honesty: willingness to reveal any
truth, no matter how “unacceptable” it is.Withholding truth is such an integral part of our
culture that you probably don’t notice when you’re
doing it. So, for today, pay close attention to your
thoughts and expressions, and continually ask
yourself, “Am I being as honest as I could be
about that? Is there a deeper truth?”Examples of “acceptable” dishonesty include saying
you’re “fine” when you’re not, and *not* saying how
you feel about the way your friend treats her child.When you spot a white lie or withheld truth, notice
how it feels in your body — the energy and effort
required to distort or ignore your true feelings.Then imagine being radically honest — telling it
exactly like it is. If you could be that honest *and*
keep your heart open, would you?http://dailygroove.net/radical-honesty
Feel free to forward this message to your friends!
(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)
Copyright (c) 2009 by Scott Noelle
WOW what a powerful message for me this morning after I spent about an hour discussing some recent oppression and unfairness in my life with William last night. If you will recall, I posted this back in May. It was part defense and part personal reflection on how I communicate or am perceived to communicate with others about me, my life, radical unschooling and peaceful parenting.
Up until a few days ago, I was a member of The Pittsburgh Hip Mama Meetup Group and because the majority of the group members probably would not describe themselves as people aligned with HipMama.com or Hip Mama Magazine (yet that’s where the name for the group was taken from) I was not well liked or tolerated by a majority of the group…because my personal pendulum swings far more Left (or Right, depending on how you draw up the Political Compass) and I tend to employ “radical honesty” and not agree with the majority’s need to play the “nice game” with them instead of saying how I really feel. After saying many things that apparently made people cry (yet having others send me emails saying, “finally, someone with a voice of reason”), I was pretty much left with three options, 1) abstain from speaking at all, 2) playing the nice-I-tolerate-understand-everyone-game or 3) be myself, piss people off and be removed from the “club” (like we’re in high school or something).
Because the “current administration” didn’t want to appear so subjective, censoring nor intolerant of divergent thought, they very cleverly pounced on an idea to remove me (that sounded so conspiratorial, but wasn’t meant to), which seemed very objective and played on the idea of member privacy. The following is the email I woke up to a few days ago:
You have been removed from The Pittsburgh Hip Mama Meetup Group. The person who removed you, Marissa, said: ---------------------------------------------------------------- I regret to inform you that you have been removed from Pittsburgh Hip Mama. The organizers are unsettled by your re- posting other people's statements from the Hip Mama message board onto a public website, as we feel that you have violated our members' privacy. ----------------------------------------------------------------
To which I sent a hasty email back (probably shouldn’t have responded at all or not until I thought it all out and had completed this blog post). For some reason, Meetup.com didn’t send me a copy of that email when I have received a copy of EVERY other email I have sent through Meetup.com (so, you can’t view my initial rebuttal). I basically applauded their efforts to evict me in a seemingly objective way and pointed out in basic language how I was in NO way violating member privacy, but that since now I wasn’t a member I could name names left and right if I so chose to. I wasn’t mean and didn’t use profanity — how the fuck was that an email from me — I was playing nice.
The “re-posting other people’s statements from the Hip Mama message board onto a public website” was in reference to the post I linked to above…I am only assuming this, because I can not think of another incident where I quoted a Hip Mama member. First, no where on the HipMama site does it implicitly, explicitly or otherwise state that I can NOT re-post or quote discussions from the message board onto another message board, public website or any other media source. That is unless they have recently added that to the numerous rules in the Hip Mama Road Map since my removal. I can’t be sure, because I have no access to that now. As you will notice when reading the post in question, I went over and beyond all means necessary to protect the privacy of the person I quoted. In fact, I did everything possible to NOT identify the person whom the words belonged to, because I wanted to protect their privacy. I didn’t reveal their name (not even initials), didn’t reveal their group/organization name nor did I reveal their gender. By Google searching for a phrase from the quoted text, you won’t find any identifying marks and all roads point back to my original post. Furthermore, only those members who had already read those words on the discussion board or who might have stumbled upon them while searching the archives of the message board would have known that they were from a member of Hip Mama Meetup. However, now you know that the quoted words belong to a Hip Mama member and were more than likely said by a woman.
Legally, unless otherwise prohibited by oral or written contract (like that of patient/client/parishioner confidentiality), I have the right to quote anything from anyone that is said to *me* or in a public forum. Furthermore, the words I quoted were about me and “spoken” to me, but in a manner and in a forum in which other people could read and even comment as they saw fit…it wasn’t like I quoted a private email or something…and even that would have been “okay”. The only thing I might be violating is copyright law, if the person I quoted does not want to remain anonymous and would like to publicly OWN THEIR WORDS. I didn’t take credit for the words, change the words or give credit to another person for the words.
Meetup.com privacy is limited at best. In it’s terms of service agreement (under “Your Information”), it’s stated,
“”Publicly accessible” areas of our website are those areas that are available either to some or all of our members (i.e., not restricted to your viewing only) or to the general public.
You should understand that your Public Information may be accessible by and made public through syndication programs (including data feed tools) and by search engines, metasearch tools, crawlers, metacrawlers and other similar programs.”
I would have to assume that “Your Information” refers to the information that you give Meetup.com, organizers AND members of Meetup.com. Information would include things you have typed out on a message board. There is no general privacy policy regarding message boards that I could find and such privacy measures are usually left up to an organizer or moderator to develop and employ. At the time of my supposed infraction there was NO such policy developed, employed or otherwise expressed by the organizers of Hip Mama. Just because the group you belong to is a “private” group and members have to be “cleared” to join, does not mean that your information is private. Besides, words you speak or type in a forum (yes, even a private forum) are NOT protected from the public unless there is some kind of contractual agreement between members stating that message board posts can not be re-posted or quoted to other media. Maybe the current organizers of Hip Mama Pittsburgh should adopt such a policy now to make their claims seem more legitimate.
Besides, haven’t we all learned by now that NOTHING you post on the Internet is private, unless it is encrypted and only YOU can see it — even then it’s still iffy as to whether or not it is truly private. You should assume that you can and will be quoted at any time and by anyone (with or without your express permission). I don’t send out into the world that which I don’t want the world to know or that which I don’t want coming back to me.
I am deeply bothered by a group that would allow its organizers to remove a person with no warning or chance to refute accusations brought against them. I am also deeply bothered that a group would act in such a way that indicates it owns the words spoken in its online message board by its members. Hip Mama Meetup does NOT own the words or information on its message board nor does Meetup.com own the words or information on message boards that it hosts. Each individual member owns his or her own words or at least they had better, otherwise they shouldn’t be speaking them.
Back to “Radical Honesty”. I would much rather have received an email that simply stated: “You have been removed from Hip Mama Pittsburgh, because the organizers do not like you, your philosophies, your level of decorum and tact on message boards nor do we agree with the messages that you are sharing with ‘our’ members. We find you contrary to ‘our’ purpose for existence as a Meetup group.”
To which I would have had no reason for writing an email reply or for that matter a long blog post. I could have simply muttered under my breath, “well, fuck you too” and then gone on about my Life as though nothing had happened. It’s not the fact that I was removed, which irritates me, but in the manner and the reason for which I was removed that irritates me. Why can’t people just be honest and NOT invent (though clever as it might have been) reasons to banish someone?
I asked William if I was being petty by deciding to blog about this or to even consider doing anything more than deleting the you-have-been-removed-message since I was thinking about leaving the group anyways. He reassured me that I am indeed NOT being petty and by publicly stating my concerns, grievances and thoughts as soon as possible, I can make others aware of what “really went down”, the typical “group-think” practices of Hip Mama Pittsburgh organizers and publicly defend myself against accusations that are not true. Apparently, he thinks that’s my job as a blogger…
“This is yet another example indicative of the decline of human logic” ~ William Parham (though, I might have misquoted him, in which case, he’ll correct me in the comments)
I think what I said last night was that this situation was ‘endemic to the death of cognitive reasoning in western society”. I also said that this is “indicative of the decline of human logic”, but what I meant as my main thesis was that if you were de-listed from hip mama because they didn’t like you and were afraid that this reason would make them seem unfair and subjective as opposed to finding a “legitimate” reason to de-list you so they didn’t have to seem petty and high-school-ish, then they were idiots. Because de-listing someone without warning seems to be a very subjective thing. Whereas informing or warning someone that their actions are not in line with the expectations of the group is a very courteous thing to do. By not allowing you a chance to give your side of things the hip mama group (or at least those representing it) has said that you are not cool enough to sit at their table during lunch hour. It is unfortunate that supposedly adult human beings are forced for whatever reason to act like spoiled children. If they wanted to seem nice by using this as an excuse to de-list you than they have failed. A group who could honestly say that they felt that you did not add to the group, and/or caused too much discord by your thoughts and posts, and/or decided that you were too much of a nuisance, and de-listed you on those grounds could be seen as at least looking out for the group. At least as honest. At least as not capable of getting rid of people on a whim. If they got rid of you in the manner that they did as an attempt to save face, they failed. To find a bull-shit reason to get rid of you makes them seem petty, shallow, and scared of honesty and fearlessness. G-d forbid others could exist in an honest world.
I have no words (it is either lack of coffee or the fact that William is so analytical and articulate above
– in fact, the lunch table analogy comes up in my life daily) – but can applaud your “taking the higher ground”. I have had several people close to me ask me to remove or alter blog entries to avoid potentially “bothering” people ….. also – I did not use names, initials, etc. – I complied to avoid a confrontation but have been second-guessing myself ever since …. blog entries have become really vanilla and boring as a result…..
Although, I may not understand the purpose of a group like Hip Mamma, but I suppose it would be to congregate with other Mothers to better oneself generally, particularly as a Mother.
After reading the reaction of the representative of Hip Mamma I can see that their purpose is not one of personal growth as much as it is about spending time with ONLY like minded people. It seems as if people can’t get enough validation for their way of thinking, so much that they need support groups to support their ideas.
Sheep will always have wool,but it is their choice to wear it over their eyes or not.
Polite lying is just a way for the liar to avoid confrontation or real emotions. It’s the coward’s way of dealing with the world.
I’m pleased to be back in touch with the lady who truly brings pleasant honesty to the table.
Rachel~ thank you Rachel, my Love. However, I’m not sure just how much “pleasant honesty” I bring to the table. I miss you dearly. No, I wouldn’t call this group a support group, it was more of an avenue for mums to set up “playdates” and net-work (I say net-work, because that’s what it was…it definately wasn’t a community) with one another. Thankfully, the people whom are or were members that I find to be worthwhile people I am still in touch with in my Real Life.
Sherri~ Idzie said it best about being tired of people and their political correctness…it makes people look more shallow than they might actually be and it waters down the power and truth that most people sit down to write about in the first place. I only alter or omit names to spare the innocent or on occasions to be nice…
William~ another example of those people who are afraid of Freedom, Responsibility and want, nay, need someone to tell them what to do…I feel pity, because I can see how terrible it must be to grow up being told what to do, to be punished when you don’t and to never know what real Autonomy feels like. To constantly be told in one way or another that you can not be trusted, that your instincts can not be trusted, must be a terrible and scary state of existence. I like Freedom, because it challenges me to be Responsible and to OWN my Life and Choices. I like Honesty, because it often hurts, but even when it doesn’t, you can always FEEL it and with a world full of so many people who are incapable of FEELING, it is no surprise to me that Honesty is not a Principle people live by — most are just happy being a cog. Honesty comes with a price, Reality and being Self Aware…it’s much easier to blend in and watch “reality’ TV.
That is poop
I thought you had just left like you talked about doing.
Politics like that always piss the hell outta me. I find it sad when people feel so threatened by certain views that they simply get rid of whoever is expressing them! It seems to me that when people react defensively, usually it’s because they see the truth in what someone is saying, yet don’t want to re-evaluate the way they’re doing things, or, the horror, actually change the way they interact with the people, and the world, around them!
Idzie~ “It seems to me that when people react defensively, usually it’s because they see the truth in what someone is saying, yet don’t want to re-evaluate the way they’re doing things, or, the horror, actually change the way they interact with the people, and the world, around them!”
Yep, that’s one of the things I learned years ago from being on unschooling discussion boards; if something offends you, makes you mad or contradicts “what you’ve always thought to be true”, not only is it *your* issue, but *you* need to take a long hard look at *why* it caused such a reaction from you AND then, how would you feel without that thought — usually the thought that made you react in such a negative way isn’t true or isn’t based entirely in reality; just because your mum did/said so, doesn’t mean you have to or just because so-&-so-expert says that crying-it-out is safe doesn’t mean that it makes sense to ignore your gut when it churns as your child gets hoarse from screaming. Who would & where would you be without your “story” (thank you Byron Katie)?
In fact, I’ve mentioned several times with people in this group that getting your tail feathers all ruffled about what someone says or how they feel about what you are doing, is a good sign that maybe you need to re-evaluate your decisions. If your resolve is strong (NOT rigid), then you can’t be swayed into feeling judged or belittled when someone says that they think something (that you might be doing/saying) is wrong, hurtful or asinine.
Michele – I have missed hearing you talk on the pghmamas yahoo group! Its been pretty non-confrontational lately. What you bring to the table always makes me re-evaluate my positions and come to a stronger understanding of what I believe. Thanks for that! Also, if I may ask, why do you keep joining groups when you don’t seem to be a group person? I keep thinking I need to join something (toy library, unitarians, going back to school, whatever) and then whenever I do, I remember why I hate groups. I know we’re hard wired for this group affiliation, but I’ve decided my group of choice is my immediate family. That has worked pretty well so far, and when it stops working, I’ll find something else that works. I’m honestly curious about what you have to say. And actually, I’m hoping there’s a group somewhere that doesn’t do that yucky group stuff – but then it kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?
@Stacey like you said, “I know we’re hard wired for this group affiliation…”. I crave The Tribe. I have some of my tribe assembled, but it still lacks a few. You are right, I am NOT much of a group person, especially groups full of mainstream parents…I can’t stand to be around punitive parenting or hear about it’s methods being talked about in a positive light on message boards — I literally ache for the children involved and it doesn’t help me on my path other than to remind me of exactly who & how I DON’T want to be.
Joining groups is an easy way for me to make a few good connections, a few new tribe members. As for the pghmamas group, well…honestly, I just haven’t had the time and my focus has been elsewhere. I’m still there and I still read most of the digests & I’m sure you’ll see me again soon enough.
hello. i realize this post is kinda old, however, i stumbled upon it in my search for parenting goups of people who maybe share similar ideas about parenting, the world, etc. as myself and my partner. i live near pittsburgh and found the hip mama group. i’m not sure that these women would be a good fit for me. i was wondering if their were any other options for radically minded mommas in our area? thanks!
hi, cristin. if you are on facebook, i can add you to a list that is newish, but fantastic. feel free to look me up and ‘friend’ me – my facebook url is facebook.com/michele.jamesparham
if you aren’t on facebook or don’t want to join a group via facebook, leave me another comment here and i’ll point you in another direction. good luck & take care.
hi! thanks for replying! i actually do not have a facebook page, so another direction would be great!
hiya again, cristin! you might try this group. i’m not exactly sure what kind of group you are looking for or what your interests are, but you are sure to find some people you might click with via the group. good luck and please visit my blog often!
awesome! thanks!
sure thing!