Coffee With Pierre

Orestes at Delphi. Paestan red-figured bell-krater, ca. 330 BC.

a) Is not this sense of being justified in what one says and does an intense state of mind?

b) Consider your own past, recall those who appeared self-righteous, those who felt justified in their actions, and those who appeared to suffer as martyrs. Are not these the high and intense moments when you learned what mattered most to these people?

c) Clearly, this was a moment that lifted those concerned into a role that raised them above their everyday lifestyles or mode of being. Were not these moments among the most intense that you have ever seen these people in? Please explain what you think about this in some detail.

d) While the problem was unfolding through each of its scenes, were you not witnessing the disclosure of something that mattered most to the actors in this drama?

e) Were you seeing what they considered most significant to them-something they did not share with everyone? Something you could regard as either a secret or something they preferred to keep to themselves?

f) Before you shared in this secret there must have been many things that were unclear to you, and now, since it was shared with you and you are part of it, wasn't much of what was previously confusing made clear?

g) How did you become a party to it? Could it be that since you didn't oppose it, your silence assured them that you accepted it? Or, at least, that you wouldn't oppose it?

h) And, does it seem to you that it is binding upon you until you express your disapproval to them by putting that disapproval into words? Please explain.

i) But what do you think, would your expressed opposition to them and what went on during that problem-event risk your exile from the group?

j) Are you coming to the idea that family problems produce clan membership? If so, does that mean that problems are what keep us primitive and members of clan beliefs?

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