The Order of Her Noodly Appendage
@TOoHNA

The upstander actively confronts the choice of whether to defy immorality or keep quiet and accept things the way they are. As Hannah Arendt has powerfully said about humanity: “It is always possible to say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’” and upstanders are exactly those who want to make decisions about when to say “no” to evil.

The civil courage that characterizes the upstander is, in the words of the founder and first president of Oxford University’s Templeton College, Uwe Kitzinger, “the courage of the non-conformist.” It is the courage that risks social disapproval, the capacity to resist by thinking critically with one’s own mind, and the will to be an active participant in life, not a passive bystander.

Regardless of their differences in age, gender, literacy, religious affiliation, ethnic identity, or wartime roles, upstanders share the bravery to risk their lives rather than commit or be complicit in a crime. When so many other people choose to comprise their morals in order to survive, the upstander’s actions suggest that we must not allow ourselves to be debased by circumstance: To retain our dignity, we must sometimes refuse to live life at any cost.

TOoHNA seeks to develop a complete and stand alone culture, from basics of language( like the “Four Books and Five Classics” of China) to a social institutions that encourage the development and admiration of upstanders.