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The Ostrich Mentality
More unprovoked murders today in Israel: this time the victims included men in the act of prayer.
The approach taken by the Obama administration and much of European leadership, differentiating between terrorism and Islam so not to further alienate the Muslim world, might sound plausible. But the incontrovertible evidence from Paris, Beirut, and Tel Aviv is that it’s not working. Ayaan Hirsi Ali makes a case no thinking person can refute.
But, of course, that’s the point: people aren’t thinking; they’re feeling. If only the rich and powerful Western nations would humble themselves before the oppressed peoples of the third world, then there would be peace. If only the intransigent Israelis would stop their illegal occupation, then there would be peace. If only the culture of white supremacy in America would confess and atone for its evil ways, then there would be peace.
From the United Nations to the European Union to the White House to many of the elite universities around the country, Utopian ideologues bury their heads in the sand and ignore reality so they can persist in their chants of kumbaya and we are the world, reaching out to embrace people who want nothing but to watch the world burn.
In every aspect of our lives we are becoming more confused: we alienate our friends while we appease enemies who want to kill us; we disdain the blessings we have while chasing shadows in pursuit of happiness; we preach tolerance while attempting to silence all who disagree with us; we dream of a perfect world while we stand idly by and let madmen tear down the world our fathers and grandfathers worked so hard to build.
The chaos of our times didn’t start this week in Paris. It won’t end there, either, unless we open our eyes and start confronting the moral anarchy that is eating away at the heart of civilization.
The Price of Principle
Early last month, Kentucky clerk Kim Davis became the latest standard-bearer of civil disobedience in the face of governmental overreach. Her refusal to sign marriage certificates for gay couples made her first a hero among traditionalists in an age of moral anarchy, and then a martyr for conservatism when she chose jail time rather than compromise her beliefs. In the eyes of many, she has become a latter-day Rosa Parks.
Except that she wasn’t.
Let me be clear. I agree with Ms. Davis in every way: the Supreme Court decision conjuring up gay marriage as a constitutional right is an offense against moral and legal tradition, a blow against the crumbling integrity of the family structure upon which civilized society depends, and a travesty of jurisprudence. In his embarrassing decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy didn’t even pretend that his ruling was based in law, but rather on feelings. In many ways, he himself set the stage for Ms. Davis’s act of rebellion.
But all of that is really beside the point.
The point is this: Ms. Davis took an oath of office. If her conscience does not allow her to fulfill her duty, then the principled course of action is to resign. There are consequences that go with conviction, and in this case the path of conscience requires her to remove herself from her position, not to assert that her personal values prevent her from discharging her duty while insisting that she can keep her job. That rationale is akin to Lois Lerner claiming innocence and then taking the fifth. You can’t have it both ways.
In an interview with Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, Senator Ted Cruz responded to those calling for Ms. Davis to resign by asking, “where have those voices been calling for the Mayor of San Francisco to resign for having made San Francisco a sanctuary city and defied the immigration laws [and] for President Obama to resign — for six in a half year he has defied immigration law, he has defied welfare reform law, he has even defied his own Obamacare…?”
With all due respect, the Senator had it exactly backwards. By supporting Kim Davis, Senator Cruz undercuts his own objection to President Obama flouting national immigration laws. If Kim Davis is permitted to pick and choose which laws she follows as a matter of conscience, how is that different from Barack Obama’s failure to enforce legislation his conscience tells him is unjust?
This is what happens when respect for the law gives way before personal ideology, regardless of whether that ideology is right or wrong. The result is a societal free-for-all, in which individual feelings and sensitivities trump civic order. My conscience is my own, but it does not permit me to deprive others of their civil rights, no matter how flawed the legal underpinnings of those rights may be.
Not surprising, there is a talmudic precedent. On one occasion, the sages of the Sanhedrin, the highest body of Torah legislation, were engaged in an unusually heated debate. Rabbi Eliezer, the most revered scholar of his time, was unable to convince any of his colleagues to see a particular point of view. Eventually, he became so frustrated with his fellow scholars that he invoked the name of G-d to support his opinion.
According to tradition, a heavenly voice rang out in the chamber declaring that Rabbi Eliezer was correct in his ruling.
Astonishingly, another sage, Rabbi Yehoshua, stood up and replied, “The Law is not in Heaven.” Not only were the sages not swayed by Rabbi Eliezer’s demonstration, but the actually expelled him from the High Court.
The talmudic narrative goes on to record that the Almighty, upon hearing that the sages had disregarded the divine endorsement of Rabbi Eliezer, responded that, “My children have defeated Me.”
In other words, once G-d put the system in law in force for His people to follow, even He may not abrogate the dictates of that law. For once the system of law becomes subject to exceptions, the system will no longer serve its function.
Nevertheless, it must also be said that Senator Cruz was not completely off the mark. If the President of the United States will not uphold the law of the land, if Supreme court justices usurp power over the constitution without the slightest legal pretense to justify their decision, if the Attorney General of the United States will not prosecute local officials or former cabinet officers who show contempt for the law they are sworn to uphold, then why should there be any objection to a county clerk standing up for the tenets of her own religion?
The answer is that wrong behavior does not excuse other wrong behavior. When mutineers are doing their level best to scuttle the ship of state, when even the captain of the ship cannot be trusted to steer a clear and steady course, the solution is not for the crew to take up their hatchets and begin hacking away at the gunwales.
Ultimately, Kim Davis is just the latest symbol of the spreading disgust with politics as usual. The real offenders are the highest officials in the land whose conduct promotes personal feelings over responsibility and accountability. The effects of their civic negligence can be seen in the senseless violence on the streets of Ferguson and Baltimore, and in the surreal ascendancy of Donald Trump.
Personally, I applaud Kim Davis for her conviction and her principles. But only when all of us — from the chief executive to the most humble civil servant — put respect for the law before our individual predilections, only then will we be able to restore a climate of common purpose to our fragmented society.
Remembering 9/11: Visionaries and Ideology
Who knew a trip to New York could be so emotional?
Our first stop was the 9/11 museum. I marveled at the artistic vision that had conceived the memorial pools, the water channeling down in rivulets that mirrored the face of the fallen towers, the continuous downward rush balanced by the redemptive feeling of water — the source of life — returning to the heart of the world. Here there was solace, closure, and consolation.
But a very different feeling accosted me inside. Almost upon entering the doors a single word brandished itself across my mind’s eye: Holocaust.
Obviously there is no comparison between the monstrosity of wantonly dehumanizing genocide and any single act of terror; obviously there is no equivalence between the systematic psychological, spiritual, and physical destruction of millions and a few thousand relatively instantaneous murders.
But then again, yes there is.
Read the whole article here:
The Greatest Moment in the History of the Universe
Well, no. It wasn’t.
But to hear Ann Coulter tell it, it was awfully close.
Just to be clear, this has nothing to do with politics. Hardly anyone thinks that Donald Trump’s immigration plan is viable, no matter how much it may appeal to hardliners. It probably would require a constitutional amendment, it would certainly take half a century and over 100 billion dollars to implement, and it would effectively make Mr. Trump unelectable — if he isn’t already.
But none of that is the point.
What is absolutely clear, beyond any doubt or debate is this: Donald Trump’s plan is not the greatest political document since the Magna Carta.
No matter what Ms. Coulter says.
This is the same kind of irresponsible hyperbole that turns every ideological opponent into a Nazi, a terrorist, a rapist, or a child molester. It shows the same kind of disregard for history that led Ms. Coulter to attempt to resurrect Joseph McCarthy as a fallen hero in place of the paranoid pit-viper that he was. And it’s the same kind of disregard for language and reality that allowed Al Sharpton to laud Bill Clinton as “the first black president,” that enabled Bill Clinton to redefine the word “is,” and that lies at the heart of the political correctness that Ms. Coulter herself (correctly) abhors.
To brand every antagonist a Nazi is to devalue the horror of the Holocaust and to insult its millions of victims. To call newspaper columnists and television hosts terrorists shows a vile lack of empathy for the victims of 9/11 and Oklahoma City. And to suggest any comparison between the Magna Carta and a political platform that is 90% grandstanding and 10% policy is to muddy the waters of logic and reason whey both are clouded enough already.
What an insult to the Summa Theologica, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, and the Emancipation Proclamation. What a mockery of political history.
“Words, words, words,” wrote William Shakespeare. When we don’t respect them, when we twist them to gain cheap rhetoric advantage without regard for accuracy or authenticity, we become complicit in accelerating the Orwellian doublethink that is already eating away at the civil discourse that is the foundation of a functioning democracy.
When Prejudices Become Principles
Two cheers for Freedom to Marry, the gay-rights advocacy group that is taking the unorthodox step of closing its doors for no other reason than because it got what it wants — namely, the redefinition of marriage (according to Anthony Kennedy’s unilateral revision of the constitution). So I’m adding my small voice to that of the New York Post to praise the group’s president, Evan Wolfson — irrespective of how much I disagree with his position — for having the integrity to take his victory and go home rather than persisting in advocacy for the sake of advocacy.
Which doesn’t mean, of course, that all his allies will do the same. It took almost no time at all before ABC’s Nightline ran a segment on polyamory, clearly the next step in the dismantling of the nuclear family. “We’re just trying to be the pioneers like in the civil rights movement,” gushed one member of the “trailblazing triad” trumpeted by network.
Finally, in an inevitable but long-delayed surrender to the tide of history, the Boy Scouts of America have released their hold on traditional values by ending their ban on openly gay troop leaders. One feeble cheer to the organization for holding out as long as it did.
With the abyss of moral anarchy looming before us, I’m revisiting my thoughts on the subject from six years ago. At the very least, when archaeologists dig up the remains of Western Civilization some time in the distant future, let them see that Civilization didn’t go down without a fight.
“We must be ever on our guard, lest we erect our prejudices into legal principles.”
This concise jewel of wisdom, from former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, may eventually take its place as either the standard or the epitaph of Western Civilization. While the evolution of social sensitivity can claim an impressive record of civil rights legislation, we have now to question whether our collective obsession with personal privilege threatens the very foundations of the legal system that protects us.
For his inauguration this Tuesday, soon-to-be President Barak Obama has chosen evangelical pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation. Instantaneously, the politically correct Left launched its blitzkrieg, excoriating Reverend Warren for the unpardonable sin of supporting Proposition 8, California’s recent gay-marriage ban. Because he used his First Amendment rights to speak his conscience, and because he recognizes his obligation as a representative of religious conviction to defend religious doctrine, Reverend Warren finds himself where almost all defenders of moral integrity now find themselves: under attack by the zealots of moral anarchy.
The offensive against Reverend Warren may not rank among the most disturbing examples in the aftermath of California’s Proposition 8 referendum. In Riverside, California, 40 to 50 signs supporting Proposition 8 were found arranged in the form of a swastika on the front lawn of a Roman Catholic church. Mormon temples in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, along with a Catholic Knights of Columbus printing press in Connecticut, received packages containing white powder presumably intended to imitate the 2001 anthrax scare. Reports from around the country include harassment, vandalism, and disruption of church services.
What would Justice Brandeis say?
He probably would not agree with Justice John Paul Stevens, who quoted him in his dissent against the June 28th, 2000, Supreme Court decision allowing the Boy Scouts of America to dismiss an open homosexual from his position as scoutmaster. Invoking Justice Brandeis as a beacon of light to dispel the darkness of prejudice, Justice Stevens (together with the three justices who voted with him) cast his dissenting vote in an effort to canonize his own prejudices within the body of constitutional law.
But if Justice Stevens argued with the reasoning of colleagues in the majority, presumably he accepted the authority of their decision. Not so the moral and legal vigilantes who have deputized themselves as protectors of the American People against both due process of law and the erroneous decisions of the United States Supreme Court.
Back then, government officials and corporate officers across the country began cutting off financial support to the Boy Scouts and restricting their access to public and private resources. Sounding the charge, predictably, was the New York Times, which asserted that “by allowing a group that bans gays to use public facilities and supporting it, they violate their anti-discrimination statutes.” This, of course, was patently false for two reasons. First, BSA never issued any ban against gays, but only refused to allow leaders in its organization who openly advocated behaviors antithetical to BSA’s core values. Second, and most important, is that BSA was not violating any anti-discrimination statues, since that was precisely the point on which the highest court in the land has just ruled.
“Lest we erect our prejudices into legal principles.” Wasn’t this kind of self-righteous legalistic coercion precisely what Justice Brandeis warned against? Nothing about the policies of the Boy Scouts, who then faced accusations of prejudice, could be reasonably considered prejudicial. Quite the contrary: through their choice of leaders they have always endeavored to inculcate traditional morals and values among a generation of young people bombarded by the relentless media messages of self-indulgence and self-absorption. That they were vilified for adhering to a moral code should have raised a cry of outrage from every parent, every teacher, every community leader, and every responsible citizen in the nation. But all we heard instead, from the highest elected offices on down, was mealy-mouthed equivocation about diversity and open-mindedness.
Sometimes, however, we can be so open minded that our brains fall out. Indeed, the larger issue now, as then, is whether our personal-rights mentality has given birth to an amoral culture that is systematically becoming mandated by law. Even now, those activists who have announced their intention to turn their backs on Reverend Warren when he delivers his invocation are within their rights to do so and should not be legislated against. But what they consistently fail to realize is that respect for differing opinions that are reached through reason and integrity is essential to the survival of a free and democratic society.
Do we really want to live in the kind of lobotomized society where there is no greater sin than judgmentalism? By definition, where there is no judgment there is no justice. By intuition, where there is no civil discourse there is no civilization. To bash each other over the head with legalistic bludgeons is to act like cavemen, and it leads down the road to social chaos far more directly than it does toward social utopia. It doesn’t allow much room for personal freedom, either.
If there is any change that we should truly hope for, it is that this new administration will lead us into a new era in which we stop demanding that the law protects our every right and start acknowledging our responsibility to uphold the system that makes it possible for us to have any rights at all.
The Language of Confusion
Political Correctness has reached a new high — or low — at the University of New Hampshire, where administrators have issued a Bias-Free Language Guide. Forbidden words include the following: “mothering, fathering, healthy, homosexual, rich, poor, senior citizen, and American.”
Perhaps we should find it comforting that a taxpayer-funded school is prepared to go so far to protect its students from hurt feelings. Presumably, educators believe that this measure will improve student’s self-esteem and thereby lead to greater success in the workplace.
Once again, life imitates art, as I discussed in this essay from 2009, written to honor the 60th anniversary of George Orwell’s 1984.
If only they would teach it in New Hampshire.
It never takes more than a day or two into the new school year before I hear the chant of my students’ favorite refrain: That makes no sense!
“What you mean,” I answer the first student who utters that unutterable phrase, “is that you don’t understand.”
“That’s what I said,” the student responds, predictably. “It makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” I insist, “as you will see once you understand it.”
The student doesn’t give up without a fight. “You know what I mean,” he says. “What difference does it make how I say it?”
“It makes no sense implies that, if the material we are learning does not conform to your way of thinking, then it must be wrong. I don’t understand acknowledges the possibility that the flaw in reasoning may reside in you, rather than in the material.”
He stares back at me, trying to digest this new idea. Over the course of the year, through constant repetition, most of my students will learn never to saythat makes no sense. At least not in my class.
I’ve been challenged on this many times. Is it really my job to belabor this point, to demand that my students express ideas concisely, even when the intent is clear? After all, I’m not a speech or language instructor. Why not just teach the material I’m being paid to teach?
WE THINK WHAT WE SPEAK
In his essay “The Principles of Newspeak,” the appendix to his classic novel, 1984 (published 60 years ago this month), George Orwell describes how the leaders of his totalitarian future have contrived to assure their hold on power by replacing English with Newspeak, a language containing no vocabulary for concepts contrary to the platform of the state-run Party. By controlling language, the Party controls its people’s very thoughts.
Intuition suggests that language is a product of thought: if we think clearly, automatically we will speak clearly. Orwell demonstrates the opposite, that thought is a product of language. Because we formulate our thoughts in words and sentences, incompetent use of language guarantees muddled thinking. If there are no words for rebellion, uprising, or discontent people will find it difficult to formulate and articulate the concept of overthrowing even the most corrupt and oppressive government.
Students of Orwell will shudder when applying this simple axiom to the corruption of modern language. Advertisers and politicians have known for years that the best way to manipulate public perception is by arranging words in unconventional combinations. Car dealers know that potential customers will feel better buying cars that are “pre-owned” rather than “used.” A certain former president knew that the American people would not respond to the gravity of his presidential peccadilloes if distracted by pondering what the meaning of “is” is.
But linguistic confusion became institutionalized with the rise of political correctness. By dodging frantically out of the rain of potentially offensive terms, we soak ourselves in a torrent of euphemisms for simple words the thought-police deem pejorative. When illegal aliens become “undocumented workers,” we lose all sense of the danger posed by the porous condition of our borders. When terrorists become “insurgents,” we more readily accommodate the moral equivalence that blurs the line between aggressors and defenders. When abortion becomes “reproductive freedom,” the horror over the indiscriminate murder of innocents vanishes altogether.
Similarly, when marriage is bereft by judicial fiat of the definition that has served for thousands of years, the foundations of the family structure erode like sand castles before the approaching tide. And as it becomes taboo to make any direct reference to race, class, ability or performance without fear of hurting one group’s collective feelings or another group’s collective self-esteem, the words that form our thoughts and understanding end up so fully shorn of their dictionary definitions that they cease to mean much of anything at all. In short, nothing makes sense.
CONFUSION BY DESIGN
In truth, for advertisers, politicians, special interest groups, and the politically correct, the real purpose of language is no longer to convey meaning – it is to obscure meaning, to appeal to emotions while bypassing the intellect. Their motive is obvious: it is far easier to evoke a strong emotional response than it is to present a logically developed argument. But by allowing meaning to be drained from our language and our words, we have not only denuded them of their clarity, but also of their depth.
Even worse, we are no longer allowing confusion to reign free but legislating it into the public square. Earlier this year, London decided to remove apostrophes from its street signs. King’s Heath will now become Kings Heath. What’s the reason? Apostrophes are too confusing.
According to Councilor Martin Mullaney, who heads the city’s transport scrutiny committee, “Apostrophes denote possessions that are no longer accurate, and are not needed,” he said. “More importantly, they confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don’t want to have an A-level (high school diploma) in English to find it.”
Linguistic laziness in both syntax and vocabulary has worn smooth the sharpness of our minds. When I say that I love my wife, and I love my car, and I love ice cream, am I not indulging a subtle self-hypnosis that affirms an equation between all three, that suggests that my feelings for my wife is no more profound than my taste for Baskin Robbins and BMW? By impoverishing our words, we impoverish our thoughts as well.
What is love? And what is honor? and loyalty? and commitment? As we strip our language of both its clarity and its nobility, these concepts become caricatures of what they once were, defined by the mass media who, like the Orwellian Party, have as their only concern the selling of their own values and their own agenda. And as much as we the people are willing to buy, they will continue to sell.
“Teachers, be careful with your words,” warns the Talmud, “lest the disciples who follow you will drink of evil waters and die.” When the waters of wisdom become polluted with confusion and contradiction, it is society’s youth who will pay the price through the erosion of moral clarity and moral principles.
Back in the classroom, my student continues to stare at me, contemplating my rebuke for a few more seconds before he responds. “What I meant to say,” he finally answers, “is that it makes no sense to me.”
I shake my head. “Don’t make it sound like what you want it to mean,” I tell him. “Just say it the way it is.”
Mike Huckabee’s the Bomb Thrower?
“This President’s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven. This is the most idiotic thing, this Iran deal.”
These are the incendiary words of Mike Huckabee in an interview with the Breitbart News Network. Woe upon us.
It’s hardly surprising that Barack Obama found the governor’s words offensive; for six years the president has taken offense at every utterance that isn’t laudatory, obeisant, or downright reverential.
It’s also no surprise that John Kerry found the governor’s comments offensive. The Iran deal is Mr. Kerry’s only shot at a Nobel Peace Prize, and the unwelcome reality check of fear-mongers like Prime Minister Netanyahu and Governor Huckabee might, if they find traction (which they won’t), jeopardize his chance to join the ranks of such great historic peacemakers as Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and Yasir Arafat.
Elbowing God Out
Back when I possessed the charming innocence of a twelve-year-old, I took offense at the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance. Why, I wondered, was I expected to pledge my allegiance to a flag? Proclaiming loyalty to my country I could understand, but to a piece of fabric?
Moreover, as I had concluded with unshakable, preadolescent self-confidence that human existence was nothing more than a cosmic accident, I found the phrase “under God” equally offensive.
So while my classmates were loudly reciting the full text of the Pledge of Allegiance, I was quietly editing my own recitation: I pledge allegiance… to the United States of America… one nation… indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
By my final year in high school, however, having acquired a sufficient measure of sophistication to appreciate the importance of symbolism, I no longer resented being asked to swear loyalty to a flag. But we weren’t reciting the Pledge of Allegiance any more, so I had no chance to mend my ways.
I was also less certain concerning the existence of a Creator. Six years of secondary education had opened my eyes to a universe so enormously complex that to embrace any world view as extreme as atheism seemed the height of arrogance. The phrase “under God,” therefore, struck me as a comforting expression of humility, that we as a nation recognized the grandeur of our universe and conceded its unfathomability.
Perhaps the circuit court judges who ruled the phrase “under God” unconstitutional might have interpreted the law with more humility if they had familiarized themselves not only with the letter, but with the spirit of the Constitution. Perhaps they might have better understood the intent of the Framers if they had read, or remembered, the words of Alexander Hamilton: “The sacred rights of mankind… are written, as with a sun beam in the whole of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”
Considering the many references to the Almighty among the writings of the Framers of the Constitution, it’s astonishing how often we hear the Constitution invoked as the basis for expurgating every reference to God from the public arena. If the founding fathers weren’t afraid of mentioning God in the Declaration of Independence, why should we fear the utterance of His name in our courthouses or schools? But many among us are afraid, afraid with a fear born of insecurity.
Indeed, what is more terrifying than the unknown, and what is less known than what awaits us when we depart this mortal coil? As Prince Hamlet pondered: “To sleep? Perchance to dream! Ay, there’s the rub.” For the devout atheist, there is no greater dread than the haunting suspicion that he might be wrong, that there might truly be a Creator and an accounting before Him upon arrival in the hereafter. To the atheist, every reference to God is an unwelcome reminder that the rest of the world is not so certain that our existence is random and without purpose.
The great Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik summed it up like this: “All extremism, fanaticism and obscurantism come from a lack of security. A person who is secure cannot be an extremist.” And, indeed, extremism in the form of radical religion or radical nihilism is one and the same. The 19th century anarchist used techniques not unlike the suicide bomber of today to advance his own variety of jihad. The modern anarchist uses manipulation of the law to advance his cause, supremely confidant that he understands the Constitution better than its authors.
The Talmud describes how, during the last days of the second Temple in Jerusalem, the Jewish people observed the law of the Torah meticulously according to its letter. But they failed to look beyond the letter of the law, to strive for understanding and fulfilling of the spirit of the law, to labor in applying the essence of the law toward the transformation of their character. This failure, together with a senseless hatred born of mutual suspicion, mutual contempt and, ultimately, the uncompromising assertion of their own egos, resulted in the destruction of the Temple, the deaths of millions of Jews, and the beginning of our long, dark exile scattered among the nations of the earth.
It has been observed that the word ego is in fact an acronym for Elbow God Out. A daily reminder that we should receive our national freedoms with humility is among the surest means of preserving those freedoms for our children. Close to two thousand years ago, instead of subduing their egos before the Highest Authority, instead of subjugating their ideological differences to the pursuit of shalom, peace, the Jews distorted Divine law to serve their own agendas, thereby sealing their fate and the fate of the Temple.
The sages teach that any generation that does not rebuild the Temple is considered to have destroyed it. But if we return to the law with humility and reverence, then we can truly hope to rebuild that which for so long has been lost.
Adapted from an article previously published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Baltimore Sun, and Aish.com.
Why Marriage Matters
From the United States Constitution to the French Revolution, from the Emancipation Proclamation to the 19th Amendment, from the Civil Rights Act to last week’s Supreme Court decision affirming the right to gay marriage, the world has taken (by a vote of 5 to 4) another great step forward on the road to universal equality and justice.
That’s what the pundits would like us to think. Except that it wasn’t a step forward.
And, more important, it was never about the right to marry…
As an institution, marriage created a moral structure upon which all other moral structures found purchase: Partnership, self-sacrifice and, perhaps most critically, respect for the natural boundaries and limits imposed by the design of the universe in which we live. Human beings took for granted the imperative to conform to nature’s laws and nature’s plan. Individual desire and ambition learned to submit to a higher reality and universal truths. Personal gratification was not the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong in a society that required cooperative spirit and collective commitment to ideals that extended beyond oneself.
Unforgivable
Should Dylann Roof be Forgiven for the South Carolina Massacre?
In an extraordinary example of human nobility, relatives of those killed in the Charleston, South Carolina, massacre expressed their forgiveness for Dylann Roof, the domestic terrorist who opened fire and took nine lives from the historic Emanuel A.M.E. church community. The mourners’ refusal to indulge their natural human impulse for revenge and to return love for hatred shows us all how it is possible to heal our fractured society.
Proverbial Beauty: Read now at Amazon.com
On a deeper level, however, the question of forgiveness is vastly more complicated.
One of the most compelling works of Holocaust literature is The Sunflower, an anthology built around the experience of survivor Simon Wiesenthal in the Lemberg Concentration Camp. In 1943, Mr. Wiesenthal was summoned to the deathbed of Karl Seidl, a Nazi soldier haunted by the atrocities he had committed, who wanted desperately to receive forgiveness from a Jew before he died.
Mr. Wiesenthal describes how he could find nothing to say and left the soldier without uttering a word. He then grapples with the question of whether he should have offered forgiveness, ultimately offering his answer by reframing the question:
ONE FOR ALL?
The crimes committed by the Nazis were not directed against individual Jews but against the Jewish people as a whole. Consequently, the torture and torment inflicted upon any Jew was in fact a crime against every Jew. Each individual victim was not a person but one of a people — the perpetrators didn’t care who he was but what he was — and therefore no individual had the power to grant forgiveness since an entire nation was targeted through each act of individual violence.
In other words, it wasn’t a matter of whether Mr. Wiesenthal should forgive, but whether forgiveness was his to give at all.
The same reasoning applies to all hate crimes. Whether the victim is black or white, Hispanic or Asian, Jew or Gentile, citizen or immigrant, rich or poor, any act of violence motivated by identity is not merely a crime against one person but a crime against mankind. As such, it transcends mere brutality or wickedness and rises to the level of gross inhumanity. By doing so, it becomes unforgivable.
So how can an act of forgiveness be both noble and impossible? Part of the confusion stems from a lack of clear definition. What is forgiveness? And why should forgiving evil ever be considered noble?
In the best-case scenario, forgiveness is a response to contrition. When a perpetrator recognizes the evil of his own actions, sincerely regrets them, and seeks to repair or atone for the harm he caused, then to withhold forgiveness becomes an act of evil itself. In such a case, to grant forgiveness becomes not merely noble but a moral obligation.
Proverbial Beauty: Read now at Amazon.com
But what if the perpetrator feels no remorse? Or what if he has no intention of righting the wrongs he has caused?
Even in that case, if one can understand, or even imagine, what motivated an act of evil, then it might be possible to forgive the offender for his own human weakness, whether it was a momentary lapse in temper or judgment, an innate lack of moral clarity or, as may or may not be the case with Dylann Roof, demonstrable psychological instability. To be able to see past one’s own pain and find a mitigating factor to excuse violence is truly noble… even saintly.
WITHOUT REMORSE
However, in the case of conscious, calculated evil, forgiveness may actually be a perversion of morality. Moral values should be so deeply rooted within that we can’t help responding to any violation of them with indignation and outrage. If we are truly committed to the values of good, how can we possibly tolerate evil, or those who do evil, especially when they do it in the name of good?
This is what the sages of the Talmud meant when they said, Be discerning in judgment. Look for every possible means of explaining away bad behavior. But after all is said and done, evil remains evil. Nonjudgmentalism is an empty slogan that allows evil to proliferate unchecked.
What often gets lost in the discussion of forgiveness is the matter of accountability. If I break your window, my apology means nothing unless I’m willing to pay for the window. And if I’ve caused damage that can’t be repaired, punitive restitution may be the only means through which society as a whole can preserve respect for the rule of law and confidence in the institutions of justice.
The particulars are open to debate. There are legitimate grounds to oppose the death penalty, mostly based in the real concern that an imperfect legal system cannot guarantee the guilt of those sentenced to death.
But to oppose capital punishment on the grounds that the state has no right to take a life misses a larger point. One who takes the life of another member of society forfeits his own place in that society; moreover, a society will retain its respect for the sanctity of life only with the recognition that by taking a life one forfeits his own right to life as well.
To take the life of any one person is, on some level, to take the life of every person. Justice must be served. Only then may it be possible to forgive.
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Yonason Goldson 