being more than animals
Recently, a young woman, a 15 year-old girl, was gang-raped outside a high school dance in Richmond, across the Bay. Several more boys stood there, watching, and did nothing to help her.
It is a horrible, horrible thing.
That it happened is also not nearly as odd or uncommon or as beyond the daily course of life as all the commentators and outraged and newly-concerned citizens would have us believe.
I was driving to work this morning, listening to NPR and getting increasingly angry at the stupidity and vapidity of the callers-in and the moderator and the guests.
They had a very normal reaction: they kept trying to affix blame for this incident on various social, familial, and moral failings. It's the broken families these boys come from! It's the gangsta culture! It's the hyperviolent video games they play! They're animals! Ad nauseum.
I understand their attempt to explain it, and assure themselves that it was "bad people" who did this--and by doing so, reinforce that they are "good people," and thus, not capable of such actions, and not responsible for such people as are.
My problem with that is that it's utter bullshit.
The fact is that these boys who did such a horrible thing to that girl--and especially those who stood by and let it happen--are not substantially different from the boys who were inside at the dance, oblivious to what was going on. The fact is that human beings are, in fact, animals, and the struggle to be more than that--especially in the face of horror--is one that not enough consciously undertake. The fact is that when situations demand that someone stand for someone else who is being dehumanized, very few are capable of it. Instead of standing, most hide. And it is always easier to hide in a crowd.
Human beings freeze, hiding within themselves, or buy into the dehumanization and become actors of horror, or sympathizers. Convictions and will bend, deform, and judgments are issued in the blink of an eye. Hands are washed, and responsibility rejected. If no one stands, no one needs to--no one should, no one can! Instant rationalizations. Anything to protect the self.
It's how we're made.
This is not apologia. This is explanation.
But we are also capable of standing, of rising above the fear for the self and acting to protect another.
It's only that very few do it.
Do all of those boys--the watchers as well as the rapists--deserve punishment? YES. They deserve every barbarism we can imagine. Castration, kneecapping, clever things involving rats and live coals, YES.
But then, how do we stand?
We must punish them, yea, verily: but we must not allow ourselves to become agents of horror when we do so by denying that we and they are alike.
We must punish them because they deserve it, and that girl and all of us need justice. We must punish them because they were not able to rise to be more than animals. We must punish them for us to be more than animals. And we must punish them because we need to be reminded that we are animals, who are striving to be more.
We cannot hide in the outraged crowd, pretending that we are different, that in such a situation all of us would have done the right thing. The truth is very few of us would have. And, in order for it to be more of us, we cannot pretend that those boys are not people like us, or that people like us are anything more than what we are. Animals, who strive to be more, and fail.
Only in recognizing that we must strive, can we then hope to succeed.
Only in standing, in rising above what we are, can we strive for the justice that we all--that girl, those boys, and us--need.
It is a horrible, horrible thing.
That it happened is also not nearly as odd or uncommon or as beyond the daily course of life as all the commentators and outraged and newly-concerned citizens would have us believe.
I was driving to work this morning, listening to NPR and getting increasingly angry at the stupidity and vapidity of the callers-in and the moderator and the guests.
They had a very normal reaction: they kept trying to affix blame for this incident on various social, familial, and moral failings. It's the broken families these boys come from! It's the gangsta culture! It's the hyperviolent video games they play! They're animals! Ad nauseum.
I understand their attempt to explain it, and assure themselves that it was "bad people" who did this--and by doing so, reinforce that they are "good people," and thus, not capable of such actions, and not responsible for such people as are.
My problem with that is that it's utter bullshit.
The fact is that these boys who did such a horrible thing to that girl--and especially those who stood by and let it happen--are not substantially different from the boys who were inside at the dance, oblivious to what was going on. The fact is that human beings are, in fact, animals, and the struggle to be more than that--especially in the face of horror--is one that not enough consciously undertake. The fact is that when situations demand that someone stand for someone else who is being dehumanized, very few are capable of it. Instead of standing, most hide. And it is always easier to hide in a crowd.
Human beings freeze, hiding within themselves, or buy into the dehumanization and become actors of horror, or sympathizers. Convictions and will bend, deform, and judgments are issued in the blink of an eye. Hands are washed, and responsibility rejected. If no one stands, no one needs to--no one should, no one can! Instant rationalizations. Anything to protect the self.
It's how we're made.
This is not apologia. This is explanation.
But we are also capable of standing, of rising above the fear for the self and acting to protect another.
It's only that very few do it.
Do all of those boys--the watchers as well as the rapists--deserve punishment? YES. They deserve every barbarism we can imagine. Castration, kneecapping, clever things involving rats and live coals, YES.
But then, how do we stand?
We must punish them, yea, verily: but we must not allow ourselves to become agents of horror when we do so by denying that we and they are alike.
We must punish them because they deserve it, and that girl and all of us need justice. We must punish them because they were not able to rise to be more than animals. We must punish them for us to be more than animals. And we must punish them because we need to be reminded that we are animals, who are striving to be more.
We cannot hide in the outraged crowd, pretending that we are different, that in such a situation all of us would have done the right thing. The truth is very few of us would have. And, in order for it to be more of us, we cannot pretend that those boys are not people like us, or that people like us are anything more than what we are. Animals, who strive to be more, and fail.
Only in recognizing that we must strive, can we then hope to succeed.
Only in standing, in rising above what we are, can we strive for the justice that we all--that girl, those boys, and us--need.