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WordPress PlanetA Protective Instinct–I always wanted to be protected
In my previous post, On Becoming a Liberal, I wrote about the idea of a “bleeding heart liberal.” I ended by saying that I am and was motivated by a passionate desire t protect and to be protected. I can remember this desire developing in childhood. I was very shy throughout child-hood, and into early adulthood. I was very small always and as a younger child, that really brought out that sense of vulnerability and fear of being hurt. It wasn’t just that, though… There were numerous areas of my life where I felt the desire to be protected. My maternal grandparents were very protective and strangely enough, I often found myself embarrassed by that. Not always, though, did I feel embarrassed. Sometimes having them speak up for me was such a wonderful feeling. It made me feel loved and valuable, worthy of protection.
As time went on, over the years, I became increasingly sensitive to the needs of others and their vulnerability to harm, or other forms of vulnerability. Especially, later in life, when I wasn’t the one who was vulnerable any longer, I acted at times, as I would want someone to act on my behalf, or as I would have wanted someone to act if they thought I was being hurt. The idea of one person intimidating another person was not something I could stand or accept. I had to act. I would start confronting a parent for striking, or spanking, their much more vulnerable child. It was what I truly desired that someone would have done for me. Isn’t that how we are supposed to act? Do onto others as you’d have them do onto you. And the corollary to that for me was do for others what you would have wanted someone to do for me, if I was in that situation.
The desire for power was never something I had ever wanted. I never felt the desire to have power over another person (other than in a very rare instance where a person means to harm me, which can be avoided by avoiding bad parts of town late at night).
This blog is published by Bruce Whealton, more information about Bruce Whealton is here… Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs, a North Carolina Company providing Web Design and Web Development. Visit:
NC Web Design:Future Wave Designs
From Bruce Whealton: Career, Interests and Values, post A Protective Instinct–I always wanted to be protected
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Becoming what they call a Liberal
I remember the epiphany that hit me as an undergrad student at Georgia Institute of Technology, during my early years. I started out that year and previously, as a conservative, having voted for Reagan and identifying myself as a Republican. Indeed, Engineers ( I was majoring in Electrical Engineering) are somewhat conservative in general. Yet, it was a self-proclaimed “bleeding heart” liberal that helped me to define and discover who I really was, who I really am, what I believe, and what kind of values and morals I have.
It just hit me, that the best way of describing myself was as a “bleeding heart” liberal. What really resonated within me, to the core of my being, and what I realized was “right” in my world view, was just that, a great sense of compassion, my heart going out to the vulnerable… a profound desire to care for, protect, and defend others that were vulnerable or those who were hurting or in need. It seemed like the most profound truth to me. I am well aware of the arguments against liberalism, or a politics or governance, or set of laws, described by these terms “liberal,” or “left,” or even more derogatory terms like “leftist” and it’s use to connect people with evil forms of communism. However, these arguments against liberalism, just never seemed logical or right to me. The assumptions made or the conclusions drawn by the right, or the conservative approach, just did not ring true with me as being right, or just or even logical in terms of the arguments made.
However, the “bleeding heart” part of me, came from a deeply ingrained and passionate desire to protect or see that people are protected. I’ll continue with this in the next post.
This blog is published by Bruce Whealton, more information about Bruce Whealton is here… Bruce Whealton is the owner of Future Wave Designs, a North Carolina Company providing Web Design and Web Development. Visit:
NC Web Design:Future Wave Designs
From Bruce Whealton: Career, Interests and Values, post A Protective Instinct–I always wanted to be protected
Post Footer automatically generated by wp-posturl plugin for wordpress.
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