This is an attempt to explain myself as I have recently run into a number of challenges on my posts regarding my view on Fairness, especially from @DeepSea. So this topic is initially for their consumption should they choose.
To put it bluntly, without quoting, it is assumed ~ or I am challenged ~ that I do not care for the Fairphone customers/consumers at all or to the same degree I profess to care for the miners and manufactures of the phone.
Generally this is true but the issue is one of interpretation of the precept of caring.
I care > care is the precept, whom or what I care about is another subject of discourse, although why or whether I care or not, or what it means to care is clearly relevant.
So I am not herein trying to measure the care I have for those firstmentioned but to the notion of caring…
I start by noting that the Fairphone company/individuals express their need to care by investing in more Fairly sourced minerals before engaging in their use, the FP being an experiment to how to bring this concept to a wider audience, this is not my intent.
My presence on the forum is to support and acknowledge the efforts Fairphone by helping customers of theirs, who though may be buying the phone for other reasons like repairability and assumed general environmental impact mitigations.
Fairness and Caring
The issue appears to be one of understanding and how that comes about. is understanding a wilful activity or an acquisition of the space inhabited.
The comments that led to this are
So as not to further diverge from originating topic’s content I have written this, with the overarching concept that caring may require understanding but does not require effort or the will to understand. Desire to understand does not equate to the need to activate the mind, but may well require the mind to be still and open. Meditation can be seen to be used to achieve this but then mediation is a wilful act in many cases and is not an activity I would recommend.
There are two aspects to this I am using and will try an analogy.
Understanding is a receptive occupation not an employment of the brain and hence no action, effort or will is needed to achieve it. It is more a letting go of preconceptions and being open to understand.
The analogy is that an empty cup can be filled anew but even the slightness remains of the previous content can contaminate the new and ruin it’s taste.
If the mind taints the brain with effort to understand then that person, me or any other will have a tainted version of what is being offered and hence will have difficulty understanding the offered precept.
So how does “You do not have to understand precepts,” work
- Sure you, I, nor anyone has to understand a precept, their is no obligation.
- What is a precept and does it have an understanding.
The precept in this case is the statement “I care”
If there is a desire to know why, what or where I care from then it may require some effort for a mind that is tainted with pre-concepts from previous encounters.
This is where the notion of understanding is valuable. I understand getting wet from the rain by standing under falling water born by clouds not by the will. It can happen because I occupy a space. I could be a rock and still get wet.
Likewise I need no will power to absorb the radiation from the sun, but this does not mean i do not understand that I may get unbearably hot.
So caring from the place I occupy is not an activity, rather inherent in my position. In this case my position on what it means to be fair in regards to those I use.
For me it does not require will power just the understanding of how lacking in care I have been in my changing my positions. It is more a property I have of habits born and subsequent culture. It requires no effort to understand that buying the Fairphone is about caring.
It is another matter of caring about the effects on the consumer that is due to EMF radiation which I may well expand upon elsewhere.
Apologies to those of you that have read this and found it to be a load of hot air and drizzle, but that’s the climate I am communicating from and special condolences to @DeepSea for choosing to argue with me so much.