On social causes and compassion
I finally found someone who expressed perfectly the ambiguous perspective that troubles me so much whenever I get more involved in various forms of social activism. Even though my politics are in alignment with the people I try to work with, eventually some sort of frisson occurs due to my discomfort with the social dynamics that happen in such committed groups, and I find myself unable to sustain my own willingness to continue openly identifying as a member or even supporter of that group.
This someone turns out to be a Trappist monk, Thomas Merton:
"One of the problematic questions about nonviolence is the inevitable involvement of hidden aggressions and provocations. I think this is especially true when there are… elements that are not spiritually developed… There is the danger one observes subtly in tight groups like families and monastic communities, where the martyr for the right sometimes thrives on making his persecutors terribly and visibly wrong. He can drive them in desperation to be wrong, to seek refuge in the wrong, to seek refuge in violence… In our acceptance of vulnerability, we play [on the guilt of the opponent]. There is no finer torment. This is one of the enormous problems of our time… all this guilt and nothing to do about it except finally to explode and blow it all out in hatreds, race hatreds, political hatreds, war hatreds. We, the righteous, are dangerous people in such a situation… We have got to be aware of the awful sharpness of truth when it is used as a weapon, and since it can be the deadliest weapon, we must take care that we don’t kill more than falsehood with it."
[From here.]
I liked what someone told me recently -- that justice must be good for everyone to truly be justice. That compassion does not shine more brightly on the unlucky or dispossessed for it to truly be compassion. And I think that commitment to social causes for a lot of people turn out to be a very elaborate form of denying one's own aggression and dealing with it by simply channeling it to more "worthy" things. No wonder it burns out so quickly.
This is not a justification to avoid action and stay sublimely in the territory of fence-sitting pretending that one is above the fray. This is my fresh insight that there must be a balance between contemplation and action where one stays alive to what one is really committed to, here and now.
This someone turns out to be a Trappist monk, Thomas Merton:
"One of the problematic questions about nonviolence is the inevitable involvement of hidden aggressions and provocations. I think this is especially true when there are… elements that are not spiritually developed… There is the danger one observes subtly in tight groups like families and monastic communities, where the martyr for the right sometimes thrives on making his persecutors terribly and visibly wrong. He can drive them in desperation to be wrong, to seek refuge in the wrong, to seek refuge in violence… In our acceptance of vulnerability, we play [on the guilt of the opponent]. There is no finer torment. This is one of the enormous problems of our time… all this guilt and nothing to do about it except finally to explode and blow it all out in hatreds, race hatreds, political hatreds, war hatreds. We, the righteous, are dangerous people in such a situation… We have got to be aware of the awful sharpness of truth when it is used as a weapon, and since it can be the deadliest weapon, we must take care that we don’t kill more than falsehood with it."
[From here.]
I liked what someone told me recently -- that justice must be good for everyone to truly be justice. That compassion does not shine more brightly on the unlucky or dispossessed for it to truly be compassion. And I think that commitment to social causes for a lot of people turn out to be a very elaborate form of denying one's own aggression and dealing with it by simply channeling it to more "worthy" things. No wonder it burns out so quickly.
This is not a justification to avoid action and stay sublimely in the territory of fence-sitting pretending that one is above the fray. This is my fresh insight that there must be a balance between contemplation and action where one stays alive to what one is really committed to, here and now.