Who Is Responsible?
by: Craig Wiesner on May 17th, 2010 | 9 Comments »
I’ve been watching the nightmare of thousands of barrels of oil and gas pouring into the ocean and the spectacle of pundits and lawmakers trying to decide whom to blame for the mess. In the midst of that, I happened to pick up a book of poetry by Abraham Joshua Heschel, written before he was 26 years old in 1933. This particular poem, Forgiveness, struck me as one of the ways that I am different from many other people. I resonated with it strongly and I would guess that others, who think quite differently from me, would think it utterly absurd. Read on and let’s discuss it!
Forgiveness by Abraham Joshua Heschel – from The Ineffable Name of God: Man
When I wash myself with water I shudder, thinking:
“This is the sweat of millions of laborers.”
Street-walkers are my bastard sisters,
and sinister criminals – souls perhaps transmigrated from me.
Concerning those murdered, I think
that I encouraged the assassin.
Perhaps I insulted
the disgraced people in my town.
Something in me confesses
“I’m guilty a thousand times for your distress.”
I want to throw my head at your doorsteps –
prisons, hospitals — and beg forgiveness.
****************************************************
Am I to blame for the oil spill? Is my overuse of gas one of the reasons there is drilling going on off our coasts? Are my desires for all types of goods, my enjoyment of relatively inexpensive energy, my living in a bigger house than I need that takes more energy to heat… did these in even a tiny way lead to this disaster?
When I see tragedy I do often ask myself what role, if any, my life might have played in it. I do try to look at how I live, the decisions I make, the policies I support – protest – ignore, believing that I do play a part in co-creating the world we live in and how it operates. I believe I consider and act on these thoughts in a healthy way, while some people I’ve known suffer too much because they take on too many of the world’s problems as their own. And, a few, are so obsessed by blaming themselves and everyone around them that they are annoying to be near! And, as any rape or molestation survivor should know, blaming the victim is a horrible crime so let’s never go there.
But then there are the many who would look at a poem like this and dismiss it as complete nonsense. Their use of gas had nothing to do with the oil spill. Stupid people caused the spill, or a natural disaster no one could have prevented must be to blame. Or liberals, who make it too hard for oil companies to make a profit because of all their needless regulations, they’re to blame.
If someone is murdered only the killer is to blame, not the absence of reasonable gun laws, the lack of decent mental health care, enough tax money to pay for better community policing, or crushing poverty.
Civil wars in Africa, Asia, or Central America have nothing to do with me… Do they?
So, how does this poem make you feel Tikkun Daily reader? The few minutes you just spent reading this blog post could have been spent saving a whale!
This boils down to the issue for me of the need for thinking clearly, and that requires distinctions. I realize it puts me at odds with Emmanuel Levinas whom I admire and who tells us that our greatest gift is “substitution,” which I understand expressed wonderfully in Heschel’s poem. Levinas is an absolutist, and I am not.
Many distinctions come to mind when I ponder the oil spill, but the primary one is the difference between guilt and shame. Yes, I feel shame because I am a citizen, and my people are destroying the planet slowly through oil spills and accepting the threat of quick destruction through thermonuclear weapons. I am not guilty, however, because I have delegated responsibility for justice to my political representatives, and they have failed.
Justice is a communal responsibility. I observe it by obeying the law and voting to change the law as necessary.
I am not the messiah who can deliver absolute justice and who would be the only one I have to answer to for my failures. I take responsibility for what I do, because anything other renders me an inadequate human being. I am not perfect but only aware of perfectibility as a worthy and necessary personal goal.
We have gone off the precipice in terms of avoiding personal responsibility and blaming systems. This cripples the people who struggle the most as a result of injustice , but it also cripples the people who tend to think that passing a law is tantamount to achieving an amelioration to a social ill that requires much more of us…at the same time as it rewards those who engage in the struggle to strengthen the good, in indviduals and systems. Best done by being role models engaged ethically and honorably,with others, in every interaction.Too many times we abuse others and think it is of no consequence.Every single time we reinforce a vibe in the Universe it is for strengthening good or ill.
But your anti-gun stance interests me. To put it in perspective, let us think about violence from a very basic but illuminating stance–let us first acknowledge that violent individuals are the product of failed social systems…not failure to CONTROL, but failure to nurture. Failure to engage, failure to enculturate alternatives to violence. Failure to GENTLE people.Failure to Thrive. Failure of opportunity, action, and mastery. Substituting abuse of power for real strength. Instead of building good character, making excuse for failure and babysitting instead of educating knowledge hungry kids.teaching that what we wear and own and our credit rating or appearance or “profiling” successfully is of more value than our human decency and Love. that violence is a form of success, because it feeds us materially and also our insatiable appetites for turf and ego stroking.While it allows those who have been thouroughluy objectifeid and rendered victims in our society to victimize others and hence model our shoddy notion of success.So we make folks violent, and turn out nut jobs a mile a minute.
then consider the undeniable fact that violent people will use any tool to hand to achieve their objective. Acid, knives, molotov cocktails, stones, you cannot possibly ban them all nor why should you?
The violence of men in our society against women and children is especially imbalanced as most men are bigger and stronger physically than women and children.Why would you ban the great equalizer of self-protection, the gun? a weapon and a tool for sports mastery. A means to protect our government from itself, should we go the route of totalitarianism or fascism, as Germany did.
WE HAVE excellent gun laws. We do not need any more. We need to stop the government from dumping hundreds of thousands of guns into places like Mexico, where as soon as the many among the policia have been armed by USA, they swittch sides to affiliate with the huge economic engine that are the violent and bloody drug cartels.We have lost so many huge automatic weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan, that they are now being sold to Mexico through Honduras and coming into USA by the ship and submarine load. along with drugs, to kill kids in inner cities who are living in war zones and have been because of our neglect and apathy, for almost a half century.
We now have outshoots across the USA of cartels in so many tiny towns and small cities it is immeasurable the amount of corruption and the violence that ensues.and it will escalate, and continue to erode our communities.
If we want to change the system, to try to restrict guns from lawabiding citizens only makes us victims. It allows the criminals and thugs to maraud at will ,victimizing and snuffing out forever those who haven’t their own protection: and a gun is the great equalizer against superior force.
The big deterrant to the KKK in the South was not MLK, Jr, though he was surely a constant “affliction to the comfortable as well as comfort to the afflicted” and is responsible for being the great human catalyst for affirming human rights and moderating violence pacifistically. But my heroes include also Malcolm X, and this stand up guy , Robert Hicks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/25hicks.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Interestingly, Robert Hicks and the Deacons were able, by arming teams of community people for self defense and avoiding preemptive strikes, to stop the hideous Ku Klux Klan, those cowardly thugs in white burkas who tortured murdered and killed innocent men women and children to terrorize first the Irish and then Blacks into learned helplessness. Many people do not remember that Blacks after the Civil War were extraordinarily successful in developing a burgeoning Black upper class of professionals and middle class of financially sound familes…that is actually WHY the JIM CROW laws were introduced,to keep Blacks down. And as part of Jim crow, Blacks were banned from owning guns.
Hicks stood up and ended the regime of KKK terror in the South, justly limiting violence by force.
Martin, of course, was transforming through love. Both approaches were necessary complements.One for prevention and existential change theorugh consciousness raising, and one through limiting mob violence.
Here is a link on a contemporary Second Amendment Rights supporter, who realizes that people have a right to defend themselves from brutes.
http://www.blackmanwithagun.com/
Here is an analogy that graphically illustrates the futility and cruelty of banning guns.it is like taking out the teeth of all the dogs in the country, who can then no longer eat or protect themselves, EXCEPT those owned by the dog fight afficianados of our nation, to stop vicious dogs from biting.
Or perhaps to take out all the teeth of ALL the dogs in our nation, while the dogs of every other nation, especially bellicose nations, have ALL their teeth.
My point is, we need to stop raising up dogs to be vicious, we need to enculturate the dogs who have become vicious into gentleness, when we can, we do NOT need to remove their teeth.
And, while there are systems that are more amenable than others to facilitating positive social outcomes, there is not
Dear Aminah,
Thank you for your very thoughtful response. I mostly agree. We definitely have to do much more about the social issues that cause people to be vicious and build the more peaceful kindom that I know we can build.
But… we do need a bit more control of guns. For someone to be able to walk into a gun show and buy a semi-automatic weapon without any background check is wrong. Those who have been convicted of domestic violence crimes, or have restraining orders against them, or who have been deemed mentally unstable, should not be able to easily get their hands on guns.
BUT, I also recognize that there are countries where people have much easier access to guns, who still have much lower murder rates.
So, like always, nothing is simple!
Much peace,
Craig
Thank you for the post and the poem. It really does come down to thinking of the common good, not just what’s good for me and mine.
Anna T.S.
Excellent thoughts and words!
Change will only come when we truly realize “We ARE the world.”
Unless “We” change, nothing will change.
A FUNDAMENTAL change will never come as a result of external pressures.
Only an internal change, is a FUNDAMENTAL change.
Dear Craig–you cannot sell a semi-automatic weapon in a gun show. you cannot sell them by mail order. you can hardly buy one unless you have a special permit issued by the Feds and the State.
gun shows are flea markets for gun collectors.
here is a very excellent book by an Oxford Uuniversity scholar named Abigail Kohn. i recommend it to everyione i know–if you only rad the forward on one of the book selling marts web pages it will give you cultural literacy with shooters.
the book is called SHOOTERS. it is about USA gun culture. this is one of the best and truest explorations i have ever read.
i so appreciate your kind words, you so often touch my heart and head yet i hesitate to write though i care very much to engage with the beautiful and deep discussions here.
BTW, i am sorry i erred on my post above–virtually all handguns that are modern are “semi-automatics”–usually when someone is talking about gunshows they are thinking of assault weapons which are banned as i have stated.
so that is the caveat for permits etc and i am checking with my gun forum to be sure i can be more accurate and specific about the differences. it is fascinating, actually.
Here’s what I do to reduce energy use. Hope it makes a difference. All the lights in my household are either LED or compact fluorescent bulbs. All clothes are washed in cold water. The dryer is seldom, if ever, used. Clothes are hung outside or in the basement to dry. Short showers only (although every four days I “treat” myself to a bath rather than a shower). Lights, TV, etc. are on only in the rooms we are occupying. All major household appliances are designated “energy saver.” Outdoor plants are watered with a watering can, although I do confess to using a handheld hose a couple of times last summer. No sprinkler system and, therefore, no desire to have that perfect emerald green lawn. In fact, most of my property is wooded which cuts down on A/C. The A/C is set at 80 degrees and is used only on hot, humid days.
The result? So far my household energy use has been cut in half. I also drive a fuel efficient car but need to better coordinate my trips so that I made fewer of them.
Let’s stop talking about the problem and take steps to reduce energy use.