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Originally Posted by apj  The essence of my problem is that Steve seems to be saying: unconditional love = unconditional forgiveness & acceptance. Unconditional acceptance is a very difficult concept to swallow. It implies a complete lack of desire to instigate change in the world around us and in our relationships with the people in it.
I can think of plenty of examples where unconditional acceptance would have been wrong course of action. |
That is a *very* interesting, difficult, and thought provoking question.
Now, see, I'm one of those weirdos who believe that perfect peace is attainable, and it is attainable through unconditional love. I also believe that it is possible for all societies to have this perfect peace at the same time.
One of the ways to achieve peace is to have unconditional acceptance... The problem that you point out, though, is that if everybody except for one practiced unconditional acceptance, that one will be able to commit atrocities. You're probably right too.
I don't see Steve preaching unconditional acceptance, though. Rather, what I'm seeing him say is that if there is something about yourself that bothers you, then change it to be something that you can forgive, love, and accept. Using Steve's example, being disorganized bothered him, so he changed his habits so that he could accept himself; not as a disorganized person, but as an organized person.
During WWII, the Allies were very bothered by the advance of the Axis powers, so they changed their environment. Nelson Mandella was bothered by the racial discrimination in South Africa, so he changed his environment.
If you don't like something, change it to something that you can feel acceptance towards. Since a lot of times, (all of the time, in my experience) our relationships echo our own emotional states, we can use our relationships to find out what we can change in order to bring acceptance for ourselves and others.
Does that help to clear things up?