This is an important distinction. A friend of mine told me a while ago that when she gives anti-oppression workshops she is sure that most people are able to make the leap about their personal racism but often fail to take the lessons learned from a workshop and apply them to larger social forces. Certainly many a friend of mine has been anti-sexism / racism / homophobia etc. all the while having major issues around these subjects.
There exists within humans a constant struggle. There naturally exists numerous struggles outside of humans in our social environments. For the regions in the world with high levels of urbanization, there has been a sheltering from environmental conflict which, if you believe environmentalists will come back to bite us in the near to foreseeable future. For those without attachment to nature�to the need for basic survival there exist primarily 2 types of struggle: one against injustice (or lack of compassion) in society and the other against spiritual poverty.
�We have no great war; no great depression. Our war is a spiritual war; the great depression is our lives.�
In response to these conflicts (our any conflict as I figure it) humans react in three ways. They run for it, away from the man with the knife, away to some sub-culture of raving or internet community, away from the thoughts plaguing them to right in front of the TV, away from their bosses supervision to the bathroom when possible.
They accept their fate. They accept the authority of their politicians or police. They accept that they are sexist, racist, drug users, reckless, non-confrontational, rage�oholics, flaky, assholes etc. They accept that they�re not going to stop hitting you until they decide it�s done and that you better just cover your head.
They fight. They walk out of the woods with the broken leg. Claws the eyes of the man trying to assault them, they start their own police force when the government controlled one is ineffectual, break through the wall at the FTAA, call people on their bullshit, teach, learn. They fight themselves. They do not accept their biology, they do not accept their programming, they do not accept efficiency they do not accept anything about themselves. They are willing to change for the better.
The problem (at least the one I can pinpoint, others, I�m sure, have other things to say about this) with this is that the right thing to do is often a difficult choice to make. What exactly is the right thing to do in a given situation. Our heads constantly tell us to go in one direction. We rationalize, compare, analyze, contemplate, review, and implement based on what our minds can deduce. Our hearts (hormones?) tell us other things. They tell us to fall in love, fuck, eat, take a hit from the bong, run on a punched knee, go out without a jacket, drink all night, use violence, be afraid etc and implement based on the gratification we get from it. Of course both are biologically related. Primates of the ape variety have tremendous brain capacity and communicate, create social networks, even as was recently uncovered 7 years ago�go to war. Our hearts tell us things, which in some cases it may be better to succumb to. We are biological beings and constantly repressing our hormonal desires may have detrimental effects.
But there exists some different holes in this rational. What happens when we for example decide logically to stop eating. Where is the conflict happening here? Is it between the desires of succumbing to fear and the desire to eat? The rationality behind eating and the desire of fear? The rationalization of avoiding the pressures society puts on those who are overweight versus the desire to eat or the rationalizations between eating and not eating?
It�s a quagmire but desire or mind, it doesn�t really matter. What matters is in any given situation we decide what is the best thing for us to do�and we flake out on ourselves whether we are fighting for our lives, society or control of our minds.
I once told my first love that in my life I have desires and thoughts and my goal in life is to get those things to meet in the center and become the same thing. My heart and mind both behind something great. An idea, a revolution, a lover, a delicious meal. I am a fighter. I fight for what I believe in.
What I believe in is a constant struggle between my head and heart but as a fighter I work through it. I change. My mind and heart get behind me and we rally and occasionally win. What I believe in form my principles of how to die with self-respect and happiness, how to act and how the world should organize itself.
I only then have one set of politics which permiate through every thought and action I do. For the times I have thought too much about who I am and how I should act: when she didn�t call back, when the rich white bastards were making millions off me and my friends, when they were punching me in the back of the head at class�
These thoughts and their outcomes have the object of such intense contemplation that the two opposing sides made up the basis for my spiritual war. In the dying days of April, 2001 I finally realized that the rewards from these fights and bargaining meetings between my heart and head gave me the sense of right and wrong. They aligned me and my charkas. They focused me and gave me greater purpose than anything before. They took me to places and levels I had never imagined.
The spoils of war, of the resolutions of conflict were so great indeed I finally fell in love with my two sides.