Did he accomplish what he wanted?

The post:

What Martin Goldsmith was trying to do was to find a way to teach this person a lesson. He wanted to teach her that what she was doing was wrong and hurtful and to get her to stop, and to see the error of her ways.

I acknowledge that Martin was definitely being hurt here. He does not deserve what was happening to him. That needed be stopped, definitely. That should have been his only goal, and that could have been accomplished very simply in a non-hurtful way. Ignoring her completely would have worked fine (she would not have commented beyond her first post, if he hadn't have responded to her, I would bet), or, if not, then a very simple statement saying that he found her comments to be uncomfortable, and he would like to ask her to please stop. Respectful and causes no harm.

But Martin Goldsmith did not limit himself to the easily-accomplished goal of getting her to stop. He took the opportunity to set himself up as a teacher, to try to get her to change, to become better. This was a movement of his ego, and this caused the problem.

Martin's goal was to get her to break free from her spiritual bypassing. Martin tried to get her to see what she was doing was wrong, to get her to grow, to improve, to become better, to become more sensitive and compassionate to others, to become more empathetic to others. Obviously, he didn't. He failed to break her of her spiritual bypassing, he failed to get her to see what she was doing was wrong, he failed to get her to grow, to improve, to become better, to become more sensitive and compassionate to others, to become more empathetic to others. He did not accomplish any of this. He did not come anywhere close. He botched it completely.

Martin Goldsmith's goal should have been to get her to stop saying hurtful comments, and this goal could have very easily been accomplished (ignoring her is the first and best method, very simply asking her to stop is an excellent second place method). Instead, Martin took on a much grander project of being a teacher to her, to demonstrate to her her bad behavior, and try to get her to become better. It is this move of Martin's ego that tripped him up, and why this interaction is the sad, depressing encounter it is.

Sad Irony

The post again:

“A long while ago I was on facebook saying something about missing my father after he died. Someone came on the thread and said that there is really no such thing as death, it just appears to be so, and that I shouldn't be sad about my father's absence since he wasn't truly absent. After a wee tit for tat on this, in order to make a point, I deleted one of her messages in which she 'proved' that there was no such thing as death. She got extremely upset that I deleted her message but I explained to her that her message was not truly deleted, it just appeared to be so. She continued being upset and defriended me at which point I suggested that she might want to look at why she is so upset with the death of her facebook comment while saying that I had no reason to be upset about the death of my father.”

When this was posted, there was a swell of supportive, laudatory comments and likes, and comments on its brilliance. I was greatly saddened by that. This action by the guy (named Martin Goldsmith) was mean-spirited and hurtful. He had the intention of hurting the person who was hurting him. It is sad that this is considered an appropriate action, even considered just and commendable. It is especially sad that this mean-spirited, ugly attitude comes from a community that considers itself as operating from a more developed orientation.

Martin Goldsmith's action was a deliberate move designed to cause distress, discomfort and pain to his commenter, and the people who liked this and thought it was brilliant considered this to be just and laudable, because the commenter was behaving inappropriately. An eye for an eye. Such primitive morality. Not what I would have expected from a community that considers higher perspectives.