Acceptance

Frank: And we are live, Ritesh, off you go, it’s all yours.

Ritesh Thank you, Frank. So, this topic, today we are going to speak about acceptance. And before going to start with this topic, how this topic came to my mind. So, during one of the seminars in our office, we were talking about the acceptance of our customers, and then the topic changed to personal. There is acceptance at a personal level, at a social level, and then in the workplace you have responsibility and everything. And then it comes to the customer level, that acceptance. But what we are going to discuss or talk about is acceptance as a whole. But we will more focus on our personal level and social level. So, I will start by asking questions to people, like everyone, and then we will generate some ideas and then we will start discussing more.

So, first of all, I will ask you, what do you understand by acceptance and how it helps, how you imagine acceptance as a word or topic?

Igor:”I understand as acceptance the feeling that you are welcomed in a certain group. For me, that’s what acceptance means. But I think the opposite is important as well. How I accept the other, mainly if someone is so different from me. It doesn’t matter, it is about nationality, skin colour, social class, or some different kind of profession. I think everything that is related to a human being, I think it’s interesting if we accept it. And then I suppose that we can have, we can have a better confidentiality.”

Ismar: Yes, so it’s more of this one thing. So, if you can have, see you can accept things or you can’t. So, how do you deal with if you are not accepting the situation or thing? “For example, here in my country, there is a polarization of leftist and rightist people related to politics. And I don’t like the left wing, but it’s not because someone supports the left wing that he is my enemy. I think I can respect them.”

Ritesh All right. So, how are you going to deal with a situation where you don’t agree with things, but you try to accept? “I can say that you accept things the way it is or you accept that the situation is like that? I can discuss, I suppose I can discuss any kind of subject with someone that thinks differently from me. But on the other side, I think it’s not everyone that can accept some different point of view. Then it becomes very complex because both sides have to accept each other. If not, it’s not possible to have a good environment.”

Okay, I should accept someone, and someone have to accept me because it’s not possible to talk about, to live together, to work together. Okay. Yeah. So, yeah. So, I was reading about the acceptance, and I was trying to get the things like how other people consider acceptance. And I was reading then I found out that acceptance is nothing but embracing ourselves and others also. So, if we are accepting ourselves, then there can be some good things and bad things in ourselves. Similarly, we can accept others also if they have some flaws or some ideas that we don’t agree with that. And we try to discuss ideas and we try to come to a conclusion based on mutual understanding. And if there is some most of the time, the conflict or the differences can be solved with this communication or discussion. And at that situation, we will get to know that are we ready to accept the situation or not? If we are ready to accept that situation and say that, yes, we are ready to, it may be a social problem, personal problem, or a different kind of problems, any problems that we can accept or reject. So, when we accept that, that’s okay, that both of us have come to a conclusion and we have accepted that situation. Then the situation comes when we are not able to match the gap. The ideas between the two persons or due to society or groups, they are not able to sort out their problems or gaps and that situation how we are going to go and move forward. That can be also a scenario where we can have differences.

So, what I want to bring something different aspect here. So, I was looking at my organization and we have a new colleague who joined. And what we see that people accept more that this person has to do more. But they are not ready to accept that this person is new, is not familiar with the situation and the scenarios we can say or the work level or the ideas. So, at that situation, I feel that they had to accept that this person is new and there can be a situation that he will not understand or she will not understand. But as a person who is distinct or who is not able to help anything or do anything to that person. So, in that situation, what I can do, I can accept that the things go that way or things are that way and I have to accept.

So, now I will move to Frank and ask that how to deal with the situation when the two parties are not able to sort out their differences. Maybe in the personal level or in the societal level or in groups.

Frank “The thing that I always try and get people to understand is to try and look at it from the other perspective and see it from their perspective. And when I talk about perspective, I mean not just their opinion but the life that they have led until now. It depends on the complexity of the topic, but everybody is different and we all come from different backgrounds. We’ve had different experiences, and these experiences form our opinions, form what we do, how we do things, and why we do things. And if you try and understand the bigger picture, understand, then you may understand why another person has a different opinion. And then you may not actually still accept it but at best you agree to disagree.

Just one short example, gun laws in the United States are very different to gun laws in Europe. And in Europe, it’s very common to say how can they have all of these liberal gun laws if there are school shootings every day, most of them are not reported, why can they not crack down, etc. And you will find pockets in American society that agree with European opinions but there will be pockets of American society who say the country is so large that it is almost impossible sometimes to get law and order, law enforcement in on a scene as quickly as you need it. So, we have to help take the law in our own hands, we have to be able to protect our property and ourselves. By understanding that you may not actually condone gun laws but at least you put it into context, and it makes logical sense. And I think when you apply logic then that works but logic is different from country to country. So, context, understanding, and other view may lead to disagreement but at least you agree to disagree.”

Ritesh Yes, so at the end we are coming to the situation that we have to agree at some place that we are ready to have different opinions on any subject or any situation. And I will go to Sebastian and ask, what do you think about the acceptance and how it helps at a personal level?

Sebastian: “I think your question is really, for me it is really difficult to answer your question because it is, you know, there are situations or topics where I, let’s talk about me, where I accept other opinions but there are also topics that you will have a really hard discussion with me. You know, I think it’s really hard to generalize or to answer in a generalized answer your question at the end because it depends on the topic and the situation. So, I think overall it is good to accept opinions and so on of other people but there are topics you can’t agree, and you have to, you know, you should have a really tough discussion. And you shouldn’t accept the, you shouldn’t accept the idea of somebody else, you know, because it is not acceptable. If we talk about racism, there is no acceptance for me. If somebody is talking about it and it’s just an example and will tell me you don’t like people, for example, then there is no space for acceptance for me, for example. And there are other topics like if you vote left or right or for a left or right party in some way you should be open-minded but then you can discuss it and should listen to somebody. It’s why he’s voting for this party or for that party and have a look on the argument. But that these are, you know, different topics, for example, just it’s I know it’s black and white but just to explain a little bit more.”

Ritesh Yeah, so I understand that you are saying that some of the situation where you have no acceptance at all. You will say this topic is a deal breaker and I can’t go beyond, I can’t agree with or accept the situation what you are saying. But there can be a situation where you can partially agree with the topic or the idea, but there can be some degree of what you call disagreement. And at that moment you try to talk with that person and solve the situation with the help of what you call argument, what you call idea sharing like what the person actually trying to say. Because sometimes what happened that we have, as Frank mentioned, that when we talk about the situation and the idea then we will get to understand the other person’s perspective. At that situation and that we can have change in our opinion also that this person is saying something regarding that situation as he mentioned that there is a gun law in USA and a lot of shootings happened. But still people say that it is required because of personal safety because everywhere there can’t be a police personnel or control of criminals. So, people have to take care of their own safety and as per their constitution it is mentioned that they are entitled to carry gun. So, that can be a constitutional validity also. So, the main idea here is to talk with a person and try to understand his point of view and why it is required and if it is not required how we are going to maintain that differences.

Then I want to say that see sometimes what happened that you tolerate the situation that how far you are going to live with that person or society or in the group. So, Igor I just want to come back to you and ask that suppose you are in a situation that you can’t break out with that group or society or that relationship in a personal relationship. So, how you are going to tolerate and what is the mechanism that you want to bring these differences where you are not ready to accept that situation but you have to somehow tolerate that situation?

Igor “Well, what I like to do in those situations, I like to, let’s say, I disagree with most of the things related to a population or a group. I like to find what we agree on and then we can build up something from there. Because it is really hard to build anything and including relationships. Let’s say, you must, or you need or you want to build a healthy relationship with someone you disagree with. It is very hard. I think it is quite impossible to be honest to build a relationship on the top of a disagreement. I think it is very hard. So, I like to find what we agree on. So, talking about guns for instance. That is a very interesting topic because I feel like I think everyone agrees that everyone should be able to protect themselves. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that. I can’t imagine someone saying I don’t agree that I shouldn’t be able to defend myself. That is crazy. No one will ever say that. The point is people ignore this step of the discussion and people jump to the next layer of discussion which is should everyone have guns? Because you can agree with someone that everyone should be able to protect themselves. And then we ask how and then we build a relationship and a healthy discussion. That is just an example, but I like to find what I agree with. So, in my job, I deal with a lot of software engineers for instance which are like a very unique type of human being. And we disagree all the time because I am a marketer. They are engineers and we don’t agree with 99% of the things. But we still have a healthy relationship because we find where we agree on. We agree that we have to grow. We agree that we have to communicate better some future. And then we can build a healthy relationship and achieve things. So, that’s my approach usually.”

Ritesh Yes, so as coming to the gun I was reading some or watching some discussion. So, the person who is a centrist who is not leftist or rightist. So, their argument was that yes, your protection is required. You can carry guns. But why you want to carry semi-automatic or automatic guns? So, that can be used in the name of the gun or in the name of the protection. You don’t have to use a rocket launcher, or you don’t have to use automatic guns which has a lot of bullets, and you can use. So, they were trying to suggest that you can have a gun but not those kinds of guns and that can be a barrier. But the people who were not able to understand that some people want to go away with it. They wanted to remove this idea of carrying guns. Some people want to carry any kind of. So, that can be a situation. And as you said that agreement sometimes, we can have an agreement and disagreement that you are dealing with the engineers and their opinions have different point of view and your opinion has a different point of view. But still, you maintain a relationship.

Just to complete my reason. I think it’s okay to have this agreement. But if you want to build a relationship, if you have to, which is our case where you live in society, so you have to build a relationship with people you don’t agree with. You should start from what you agree on then you can build solutions. Otherwise, you’re going to get lost in detail which is what happens in this gun discussion. It’s crazy because people completely ignore the fact that everyone agrees that we should be able to protect ourselves and then people get lost in very detailed discussions. Of course, everyone you disagree because it’s a very detailed discussion.

So now I want to bring Frank in this discussion and ask that suppose you have decided to accept, or you are agree with the situation, but sometimes you what happened that you try to you start getting disagreement and that situation. So, how at that moment or at that situation you can point out your disagreement, but initially you agree with that situation or the idea.

Frank “Okay, so basically sort of to combine what Igor said, finding common ground and then you move into a situation where despite the common ground there are areas of disagreement. And there I would say it really depends on the degree of disagreement. Is it a deal breaker or is it something that you can accept, negotiate, find a solution, do something with.

But there is also something that I want to just throw in. What gives me the right, so if I’m in a situation and to make it as concrete, so you and I, we have found common ground. But there are some things in the development of the situation, there are some things where I disagree with you, and I might actually disagree quite strongly with you.

Now I can do two things, I can fall back onto the common ground and just accept that what it is that you agree on, and I disagree is going to be different and somehow, we either ignore this or we manage it or we continue working towards it. But at the end of the day, both of us have a certain amount of freedom.

So, what gives me the right to challenge you just because I disagree with you and what gives you the right to challenge me because you disagree with me. And there has to be a point where you say, look Frank, you don’t have the right to do this.

And if we take Sebastian’s racism example, yes, I might disagree with somebody. In fact, I do disagree with a racist person. I’m not might, but I do disagree with a racist person. But what gives me the right to talk about this and force him to listen to what I have to say and what gives him the right or her the right to force me to listen to what he or she has to say. So, he or she has the right to say something racist, I equally have the right to walk away and ignore it and say it is not my problem. It is a very egotistical decision because it doesn’t actually solve the problem, but I have the right not to listen to what that person has to say.

And there we come down to the core of so many discussions on free speech and free thinking. And the person has the right to think and express himself freely. I have the right to ignore it. So, in how I deal with this conflict between you and I, maybe I will say, OK, it’s his right. I have to accept it. I may not like it, but he has the equal amount of freedom as I do. And at worst, where there’s a deadlock, at best, we ignore it or we solve the problem. It becomes a sitting duck almost.”

Sebastian: But Frank, I think there are topics where you can have an open discussion or where you should have an open discussion, talk about the point of view of the one person and the point of view of the other person.

“But I think there are so, as I said with the racism, I think it’s OK, you can listen to somebody who tell you that to make it concrete. I think it’s really difficult for me to just talk or to just keep it generalized. I don’t know, but it’s easier for me to build up an example. You know, if somebody tells you that he doesn’t like people, you can ask him. I think it’s wrong to say, OK, you are crazy.

We stop the conversation right now and see you. But you can ask him what’s your problem and why you didn’t want to talk to, let’s say, black people or meet them or blah, blah, blah. And then you can listen to him. But I think there will be a point with such an example for me, that’s my point of view, where I say, OK, I can’t follow your arguments. I’m out. And now we stop talking about it because I see it completely different.”

Frank You are right to the point where you say you disagree with him. That is your perfect right. But the minute you start telling him what’s your problem, you are wrong. Then that’s where the conflict starts. Because you are taking away his freedom to think and express himself as he wishes.

If the environment in which he lives allows this and he has the constitutional right to express himself. And this is what many Europeans don’t understand about the United States. You have the right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression. And I think it’s the Fifth Amendment. And if you violate this right, you are in deep trouble on either side.

Sebastian:”For me, there are topics where I can accept and where I’m more flexible to or where I try to see the perspective of somebody else. And where is not a lot of space, you know, for me. Where you get in trouble with me and where I will fight for my point of view and where is just, you know, just a small gap or a small acceptance from my side.”

Frank Okay. That is your situation. And I accept that you have set very clear boundaries on what you are prepared to do or not do. I accept that. I may not agree with you. But I accept that, that it is your opinion. It is your right to have this opinion. And there’s actually nothing I should be able to do about it.

Sebastian: Okay. Let’s go away from this, you know, extreme topic racism. Let’s talk about Corona. We had friends.

Frank “COVID.

Sebastian: Okay. Yeah. We have friends. So we have two friends or two, how is it called? Two acquaintances. Two couples. One stayed, let’s say, on our side. So we took the vaccination. So fine with the way everything went here and how strictly it went here in Germany. But the other couple didn’t take the vaccination. And we had, you know, we met at this time on the weekend and had a lot of discussion about it. And I accept that these, that this couple decided not to vaccinate themselves and that they have a problem with or how the environment handled COVID. So that’s something I can accept, you know, because it’s, everybody has to choose to, you know, take a vaccination or to say, is it wrong or right? How strict and how life-changing the government.”

I think it’s easier to talk about such a topic if we talk about examples.

“Let’s say I give you another example. Somebody is sitting in front of you and tells you that he likes raping kids. Are you telling him, okay, tell me why and why do you like that? What do you say at that moment, Frank? How is your behaviour at that moment? I know it’s really, you know, it’s just black and white. I know that. But I think there are limits, you know.”

Frank There is a clear distinction because that first, a paedophile will be breaking the law. And that’s the fine line. So if I know that there is a paedophile sitting opposite me, then I would actually also be breaking the law by not reporting him to the police. So that doesn’t have anything to do whether I accept or not accept the situation. I am actually violating a law which will incriminate me as well. We go back to Igor’s argument. I have the right to defend myself. So I have to do the legal and attach to that the moral justification, the moral step and report this person to the authorities and say this person claims he is a paedophile. So that’s illegal. That’s not a question of acceptance or not. But of course, by reporting him to the authorities, I am displaying my non-acceptance of this. But I am protected by the law and not by a difference in opinion.

Igor “Yeah. Well, of course I respect your view. But I don’t think the law is something we should rely on. Because we have countries which are allowed to kill women if they betray a man. So I think law is not a good thing to rely on. I think they change and at the end of the day they are just written things by humans with self-interest, right?”

Frank That depends of course where I am, in which country I am in. But if I go from here in France, then it is illegal to be a paedophile, so I have to act in accordance to the law. There may be in ancient Greek society 2000 years ago the situation would have been different but then the acceptance and the tolerance of that situation was different as well. We have progressed. So again, you have to put this whole thing into the context of the environment.

Igor “Yeah. So I don’t want to put you on the fire, Frank. But what if it wasn’t allowed? What if it was legal?”

Frank Then I would have to go back to my original position and say that if someone is stupid enough, I mean you’ve got to build this into the argument as well, if someone is stupid enough to tell me that he is a paedophile, then it is for some obscure reason legal to be a paedophile in the particular environment that this conversation takes place. And this is all extremely hypothetical. I don’t know of any region on this planet where paedophilia is accepted and legal.

But if this hypothetical situation takes place, I would have to fall back to my original position and say he is expressing his opinion, he hasn’t proven to me that he is a paedophile, so I could actually be jumping to conclusions. Only if it starts becoming obvious that he is trying to include me in his activities, then I have to say I have no legal ground to stand on. He is expressing his freedom of speech and strictly legally speaking, he is expressing his freedom of immorality.

Now I do not agree with this and the only thing that is open for me to do is to walk away from the situation and ignore it because there is no legal foundation for me to stand on. I cannot go to the authorities and report this person because they’ll say what’s your problem mate, it’s fine. But I also want to reiterate that this is a highly hypothetical situation.

The whole discussion, and we’re moving closely to this social media debate, do we report misinformation, do we report this and do we report that. There are two sides to that argument, and it is actually extremely difficult, and you have to take a position. The situation is that, and I noticed this in Europe, it is very easy to delegate the responsibility to a higher authority and say it’s not my problem, you take care of it.

Whereas the social media scene says, well it’s your responsibility, it’s your choice. And it’s for you to decide whether you want to read and talk about and accept a post in social media or not. And the core problem is that there are so many discussions now that people are actually confused and this whole social media debate has mushroomed to such a level that actually nobody knows what they are talking anymore about, except maybe the handful of lawyers and the five or six people that run this.

But people are afraid, and they need to actually sit down and say, look, these are my values, these are my opinions, this is where I’m coming from, this is the background that I have grown up in, this is my worldview, this has been my life for the last X years. So, I have to accept responsibility for my decisions and my opinions and accept that others may not accept them or that I may not accept them, but they have the right and the freedom to talk about it. We have to accept responsibility for our own actions.

And believe me, this little community of mine is only 28 people strong, 28 active people strong, but it’s something that goes through my mind day in and day out. What do we talk about? Where are the borders of this conversation that we have in the community? Because it’s really, really important and it’s a responsibility that you cannot take lightly because on the one side you want to encourage people to improve their English and talk about things, but on the other side you don’t want any racism, abuse, bad language or anything. I have requested people to take down posts because they used foul language. I said, I do not accept that. Luckily, we are all mature adults who can have a civilized conversation because we have something in common. And when I see someone stepping out of line, they will be out quicker than they can blink.

Ismail, you have a question. Sorry, Ritesh, it’s really your show.

Ritesh No, I wanted to come to Ismail and ask something about Brazil, what is going on. Before that, I want to bring one more thing. Freedom, as everyone has spoken about the freedom to do certain things in a society and as for the constitution also, it is given a right to have freedom of opinion or expression.

So what I compare with India and the USA. So, I heard one of the cases that a person can burn the US flag and it can be a kind of expression that whatever the government is doing, I’m against it or it is not doing good. He can express his anger by burning the flag. But in India, if you burn a flag, it is an offense, and you can have seven years of jail. OK, so here we can see that our acceptance in different society or these different places, both the person is doing the same act, but the punishment or the encouragement is different in both the places. OK, same thing comes in in the freedom of speech. Most of the people, what they do, actually, they make comments on the politicians or even in the country. They say that the government is dictatorship. They are dictators doing their behaving like dictators. They are removing the tutor accounts, YouTube channels, Instagram posts, because it is critical to the government. And when you criticize government, then they consider that this is a criticism of the country or the law. So, in that context, now it is a thick, very thin line, the actual acceptance or you are committing a crime. So, in that context, what happened that our Supreme Court gives a judgment. So as our structure is different than what is in the place in the USA. So, we have high courts. We say that in every state there is a Supreme Court. So, you can start from a local court and move till Supreme Court, and you can have your cases. So sometimes the cases are solved by Supreme Court and then people start commenting on those cases. And they say that this is not a good judgment or something like that. So sometimes what happens that we have concept of deformation. I don’t know if this is a correct word, but when you do some personal comments, that person can go to the court and say that this person has abused me, did something. And he is liable to punishment or something like that. So same thing happens in the court also. They say that the court has given the judgment, and you don’t have right to comment on that judgment. So, there are two views. People say that no, everyone has right to criticize any judgment or any ruling. But some people say that, yeah, what is the point of criticism? Where you can criticize up to which point? And this is the big debate. They say that we have to do away with this old British law where people were shut down because of that. They are making comments, they are writing books and something like that. Same law is used right now in India to remove the YouTube channels. And they say that the YouTube or tutor to that that this is against some rules, and we are requesting you to remove this channel and you don’t have to report that person that what he had made wrong. So, I want to ask Ismar that right now what I heard or read somewhere that in Brazil also, they have started ordering tutor to remove some post, especially the opponent or something like that. So, what the discussion about this situation is going on? And then we’ll come to the acceptance. How are you guys going to accept this situation? “I… Yeah, we can’t hear you, Ismar.”

I think he’s below.

Ismar “I can’t answer Ritesh’s proposal. And as our time is over, I think I would decline from my assertive to you reflect on. Maybe one day I will say it. I hope that it’s not from your party.”

Ritesh I was not keeping the time in mind, but there’s a lot of things to talk about in this acceptance. But it was really a good discussion and a lot of insight from Frank. And I want to mention that he prepared a situation analysis for me. And it was really nice to look at that and frame some questions around that situation. And and I tried to follow that situation and start getting some questions. So, thank you, Frank. And I think I want to get some word from you. And if Sebastian wants to say something about acceptance, it’s over.

Frank “OK, so Ritesh, well done. A hellish topic, extremely controversial, but well, well handled. And thank you, Sebastian and Igor, for putting me on the hot seat. Yeah, I still am a kind person. Sebastian, you have the last word.

Sebastian: “I don’t want to have the last word.”

Frank “You don’t want to have the last word.

Sebastian: “My thumbs were really black and white. But as I said, for me, it’s really tough to talk about such a topic as we realized we did it at the beginning. So for me, it’s much easier if we talk about examples in general. Yes, you should accept the opinion of somebody, somebody else around you. And I think it’s in a democracy like we have here in Germany. And that’s also something you should work on. You should discuss things, accept things, accept other opinions, because that’s what it is at the end. You know, what a democracy builds or what a democracy builds. So you should talk and accept more other thoughts about different topics. So that’s really important, I think, at the end.”

Frank “Yeah, communication, education, tolerance, listening, you know, basic things that we all do. To get to your situation, Ritesh, there is, of course, the huge question of power and the abuse of power. And that, for me, underlines just about any discussion there is. And as the stakes get higher and the concentration of wealth gets narrower, power is much more dangerous and much more easily abused.”

“Okay, gentlemen, next week we have a very quiet session, a very peaceful session talking about lawn. But there is a conflict built into this. Igor, you want to know how we should evaluate other people’s grass. So whether we can accept the criticism that we dish out or not, wars have started on less contentious terms. I’m not visiting other people that have enrollment, so I don’t accept this.”

“That’s our limit, Sebastian. That’s our boundary.”

“Gentlemen, thank you very much. See you next Tuesday.”

“Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Ritesh.”

“Bye-bye. Thank you, Ritesh. Bye-bye.”