History's Heroes: STO or STS?

[Monica]

Good question.

In my heart of hearts I want to say no -- that generally, those who employ means of violence and coercion ultimately with the goal of serving others are not STS.

Or at least don't start as STS. Maybe these entities start off leaning more towards STO intentions -- desiring to help others -- but being immersed in dark situations, gradually become polarized on dichotomies like "human nature," "the strong and the weak" and slowly become more STS-leaning.

What I'm trying to say is, war is a great catalyst, right? Thrown into desperate times really helps you along in deciding whether to view an experience as a positive or negative. I see entities resorting to violence to help others as being unharvestable in either polarity, generally speaking.

On the other hand, I'm sure there are STS entities who would gladly take any viable opportunity to explore their powers of control over others. It "feels" like these entities would be easier to sniff out, though ... doesn't it?

Let's take Che Guevarra and Fidel Castro for example. I'd put Che -- a doctor, strong desire to help others, ultimately resorts to violence in an attempt to eradicate oppression, travels the continent to teach means of resistance and armed warfare to others -- in the unharvestable, STO-leaning category. If I had to guess, Fidel was STS from the start or quickly became more and more polarized towards STS once he helped overthrow Batista in '59; within a short period of time he was as absolute a dictator as Batista ever was, etc.

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On "human nature," "the strong and the weak":

I feel like our answer to these dichotomies typify "the choice" we make in polarizing. When we find ourselves in situations where we feel we have an answer ... e.g. "human nature is evil," "human nature is good" ... we're in the midst of some quality catalyst!

When I lived in NYC, I was a social worker for the homeless. Obviously I started down that path with strong STO intentions. Maybe even aggressive STO intentions, like the aforementioned group of liberators and revolutionaries -- I was angry that so few were content living with so much, while so many suffered with so little. Obsessed with justice, to the point where the sword becomes a reasonable answer.

But over the years, as I went deeper into the belly of the beast of my employer, I found myself more and more in a position where I was being asked/initiated to view human nature differently; that there were those who produced and those who consumed. Those that could help themselves, and those that couldn't. The more responsibility I gained, I began to work with more influential people in the agency, and realized that they had some seriously dark ideas about the people they were there to "serve." It was like one had to have these ideas to succeed in the agency; thinking otherwise, you would quickly be torn apart by both colleagues and clients.

I could feel the darkness enveloping around me. As I gained more "power" in the agency I became more an object of hatred, a symbol of oppression, for the clients. I entertained the ideas I was being asked to adopt to make my job easier. But in the end, I felt repulsed by everything that was going on, and got the hell out of there -- both the job and the city, LOL.

So, I hope you can see the parallel I'm trying to draw...!

Thank you for sharing! I agree completely with everything you said, particularly the part about violence. Many activists start out with good intentions but when they resort to violence to achieve their goals, they don't realize that they have become the very thing they originally sought to fight.  A good example is pro-'life' activists who blow up abortion clinics.

But I was actually referring to activists who peacefully try to champion the oppressed, such as the people who sheltered Jews during the holocaust, or those who helped black 'slaves' escape. They did so peacefully.

The question is: Are they actually doing something STS, because they are infringing on the 'free will' of the oppressor? In other words, which is the higher priority: Answering the call of the oppressed (peacefully work to free the 'slaves') or respecting the free will of the oppressor (let him keep the slaves/kill the Jews) ?