Stanek weekend Q: Pro-lifers, do you care if you’re liked?
In a March 13 LifeSiteNews.com article, Canadian pro-life activist Jonathon van Maren quoted Center for Bio-Ethical Reform leader Gregg Cunningham’s observation, that “liked reformers are rarely effective and effective reformers are rarely liked.
I often think of this, for obvious reasons, sometimes referring back in my mind to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which lists the desire to be liked on a lower “self-actualization” plane than the desire to be respected. In my own life I translate this to mean the desire for respect is a greater human value than the desire to be liked.
The issue for pro-lifers is complicated, because we are also dealing with an opponent who engages in ridicule as a tactic, taken from the Alinsky playbook’s Rule #5, “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
So, the inherent aversion of the abortion issue by torn people who innately know it’s wrong but don’t want to stop it for whatever reason (Pontius Pilate) is exacerbated by those trying to stir up negative feelings (the mob) against those bearing the pro-life message.
Yet, the issue of public relations is something to be considered.
Is it possible or desirous – as far as it is within our power to do so – to seek personal affirmation when spreading the pro-life message?
UPDATE 3/16, 6:45p: Jonathan van Maren has written an excellent follow-up piece.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
It is not so much the natural desire to be liked or the ability to “not care” if I am liked that is the real issue in maintaining active effectiveness in ministry. I think it is the “attachment” to being liked that causes problems for people.
Learning to “detach” from the world is one of the hallmarks of Christian spirituality. Religious (like nuns) often take a vow of “poverty” among others. The poverty vow is not necessarily the lack of things or their use…it is the absence of “ownership”…which is really another way of saying “attached to it”. One can be (formerly or informally) attached to things, or a position, or a place, or a style, or a relationship. That attachment will be the Achilles heel of a future Pontius Pilate.
Drat, of course I meant to write “formally” and not “formerly”.
After reading this post, an Elbert Hubbard quote came to my mind:
“If you have no enemies you are apt to be in the same predicament in regard to friends.”
The “need for sex” is placed in the bottom level? Equivalent to our need for air, water, food, and shelter? Like we need sex to survive another day?
I’ve never seen a Maslow chart with sex at the base level. It is a simple fact that one does not need sex in order to survive, and indeed a great many people have lived out entire lives of virginity.
It is even weirder to find “sex” on the first level, when “sexual intimacy” is on the third level where it belongs.
While it’s NICE to be liked, I wouldn’t say it’s a “necessity”.
When you’re hitting people with TRUTH…sometimes they don’t WANT to hear it, and react negatively.
But I’d rather be TRUTHFUL, and tell people what they NEED to hear, than be liked….and tell them what they WANT to hear.
That doesn’t save any lives.
I would be lying if I said that as an imperfect human being I didn’t have a desire to be liked. I do. But I would be hard core pro-life even if I wasn’t liked, which I am not always, especially for this view. I have lost friends over it even. The only issue I see with the movement being liked is that it could go to our heads, but so long as it didn’t, I don’t see an issue with being liked and think it could certainly be useful, it not only just to boost morale and self-esteem.
Goodness me Del, I thought you’d get it. The ‘sex’ at the bottom is for perpetuating the species. ‘Sexual intimacy’ is where it is because it is about relationships (like friendship and family at the same stage) more than base procreation.
I liked to be liked, as anyone would, I suppose. When I hear from people who don’t “like” pro-lifers, or someone else who happens to hold an opposing viewpoint on whatever issue, it rarely has to do with the issue. It generally means that they perceive that they have been treated in a disrespectful or unkind manner by a specific person. I don’t really care that much if people “like” me, because I have friends already and I’m very happy with that. I want people to perceive, though, that I care about women as far more than just baby incubators. Now, I just had a “conversation” yesterday, in a combox, where a person was crazy angry and couldn’t hear a word I had to say. That particular exchange might have been worthless, and they certainly didn’t come away liking me, but my hope is that the lurkers who didn’t engage, would “like” me because I wrote as a compassionate person rather than a Bible thumper. Sorry if I’m processing this all “out loud.” I had acquaintances once, in college, who were all about the persecution complex, and people hated them for the gospel, but really they had done something stupid and disrespectful that totally obscured the gospel. We called it, “Jerks for Jesus.”
I’m not going to water down a message of truth to make sure I’m liked, but I’m going to be extremely careful that I’m not using the truth as an excuse to be unkind.
You act like us pro-choice people are inferior. “Know” it’s wrong? I know that abortion is OK. It should be a woman’s right to decide what to do with their body. How is it murdering if the thing in question is not sentient? This horrid law would most likely lead to both neglected or orphaned children as well as illegal abortions. And children who are already born CAN feel pain and emotion.
You act like us pro-choice people are inferior.
Really? That’s so weird! I’ve never, ever seen a pro-choice person act like pro-life people are inferior.
“Know” it’s wrong? I know that abortion is OK. It should be a woman’s right to decide what to do with their body. How is it murdering if the thing in question is not sentient?
Wouldn’t that also exclude people in temporary comas? They’re not sentient either, but they are human. If it’s seriously wrong to kill them, what sets the unborn apart that makes it acceptable to kill them? It can’t be sentience.
This horrid law would most likely lead to both neglected or orphaned children as well as illegal abortions.
So we shouldn’t support laws against abortion unless they’d stop all of the abortions from happening? Should we take the same approach to murder or rape?
As for the former point, you’d need evidence to back that up. Even if we assume it’s true for the sake of the argument, since when do we kill children because they might end up neglected or orphaned? Nobody would suggest killing born children to end their misery.
And children who are already born CAN feel pain and emotion.
Some can’t. Are they less deserving of basic human rights?