spirituality – The Social Critic

For anyone saying [the death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of five black Memphis police officers] was about abuse of power and not race, the disproportionate brutality inflicted upon Black people doesn’t become less racist because of the race of the officers. The system of policing in this country treats Black people like they are less worthy of humane treatment in the eyes of many in law enforcement. Policing is the problem.
Anoa Changa, January 24, 2023, NewsOne

Suppose that the whole of American society agreed that white supremacy is the cause of police brutality? Then what?

Abolishing police departments would undoubtedly favor anarchy. Anyone who cannot afford private security — a majority of Americans — would find themselves living in a Lord of the Flies dystopia, which is no kind of social justice at all.

What if, instead, we agreed on police reform? Even if we were to “reimagine policing”, how do we stop systemic racism from coming along for the ride?

As the saying goes “Wherever you go, there you are”. If we are all products of a racist culture, then it also follows that we can scarcely legislate, name-change or reimagine our wrongdoings away.

Marxists have an answer: Scrap the American Experiment and start all over again. But again, the same people who comprise the old system will create the new system. Even those who are aware of the problem are products of the problem. So then what?

Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that on our own power we cannot fully escape our sins, past or present. Nevertheless, we owe people of faith — Martin Luther King, Jr., among many others — credit for much of the progress society has achieved.

If King were here, would he approve of how the fight for equal opportunity and equal rights continues? Would he go about “dismantling” racism the same way modern activists do?

Some things have faded from public consciousness in the 60-some years since the Civil Rights era. Too often we forget that King did not merely advocate for social justice — although that was undeniably part of it. Rev. King also appealed to a higher moral authority in a way today’s activists generally neglect. In King’s day, “original sin” was a theological reference to having been born into a damaged world run by damaged people who are in universal need of personal redemption. Today, by contrast, original sin is a 1619 Project reference to the date when slavery made landfall with European settlers. Still, the troubling fact remains: Humanity’s capacity for evil is as old as Adam and Eve and the knowledge of good and evil itself. Try though we might, we have yet to cure a spiritual disease with a political answer, however well-intended or woke.

After decades of attempts to raise Americans’ awareness through education, the apparent conclusion is that unless or until we fully transform K-12 curriculum (CRT), the legacy of white supremacy will carry on. But is this really true? Is the magic bullet an earlier start to an antiracist education?

Can we educate our way out evil?

At some point the conversation must be taken to the next level — for our societal, if not personal, health. Academia has constructed entire fields of “critical theory” studies to identify the scope and breadth of The Problem. But how much thought has gone into The Solution?

For his part, antiracism thought leader Ibram X. Kendi questions whether any “‘group in history has gained their freedom through appealing to the moral conscience of their oppressors.’ He pushes us to instead focus on policy, because while other approaches may benefit individuals, ‘only policy change helps groups’.”

Equity is one such attempt to address racism via public policy. Equity rejects the notion of a color-blind society and is in some ways at odds with the equality-driven 1964 Civil Rights Act. If homebuyers, job seekers and college applicants who hail from historically marginalized groups are at a disadvantage to a white privileged, heterosexual majority, reverse racism and gender “nonconformity” are acceptable ways to level the playing field. Similarly, it is the goal of antiracists to define hate speech — and, more importantly, laws by which to criminalize undesirable forms of expression. And yet for all this effort, the question remains: Does a reordering of preferential treatment and/or the criminalization of wrong-speech change minds — or do top-down solutions simply force hateful attitudes underground where they are more difficult to address?

The fly in the critical theorist ointment is the largely unexamined assumption that government can achieve what appeals to human decency and a higher power cannot. If the sources of oppression past and present are in fact institutional, then placing greater trust in those institutions, however we may imagine they will be run, is naive at best. Dr. Kendi may lament in How to be an Antiracist that changing hearts and minds is a fool’s errand — but short-circuiting this more tedious and tiresome effort is to trade the hope of social transformation for the seduction of tyranny.

But for a handful of short-lived experiments in Democracy, history has lurched from one oppressive regime to another, in virtually every case under the pretense of the “greater good”. (Perhaps if we were being more honest, we would identify misplaced faith in systems and schemes over minds and hearts as the mechanism by which oppression becomes institutionalized in the first place?)

If we omit spirituality from the social justice conversation, we lose a key element of successful civil rights movements past. Only when we confront deeper truths about what it means to be products of the human condition, does humility rise above politics, and healing triumph over hate.

The stain of slavery is one of trauma. As such, the social media and political spaces in which the so-called cultural wars play out do as much to amplify trauma as to condemn hate. If King were here, he would do more than call for courtroom justice on behalf of Tyre Nichols and the countless others who have been lost to senseless violence. He would also remind us that when we neglect to take a knee, we are no longer aiming high enough.

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What does talk show host Oprah Winfrey, psychologist Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, medium James Van Praagh and “The Secret” author Rhonda Byrne share in common?

A belief that what you get out of life depends on how you think about life.

It seems straightforward enough. Empowering, even. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite that simple.

Have you ever found yourself wondering if there’s too much ego attached to this trendy philosophy? Or what to make of its logical inverse: that victims are self victimizing?

It’s no surprise, really. Those who are successful seek out a self-affirming explanation for their success. A successful individual may look around and see plenty of people with great potential who nonetheless never seemed to get it right. So what was the deciding factor? Talent? Persistence? Intellect? Good looks? A great attitude? Good timing? The right set of parents? Birthplace? A superior education? Friends in high places?

Out of all the possible explanations — perhaps luck (destiny), preparedness (talent), or persistence (dedication) — how many times does it seem even modestly successful individuals adopt seemingly self-congratulatory explanations, concluding, “I maintained a positive (better) attitude”, or “God has blessed me because I have been faithful”, or “I sent good karma out into the world, and it returned to me in spades”?

Whereas ancient man comprehended his own frailty in the face of a brutal natural world, modern man believes in choice over fate, and self confidence over faith. Insulated within the relative safety of our man-made environments, we feel largely invincible. Going from a victim of the whims of the gods to a victorious Creator certainly holds a certain attraction. We are no longer helpless in the hand of fate, for the only destiny is the one we create.

Over the past 40-some years, however, a darker side to the man-as-god mythology has emerged. The same perception of control that inspires a successful individual, forms a motivation to assign blame. “Negative” and “lazy” become character descriptions for those who do not validate another’s perceived sense of order in the universe (control). This attitude doesn’t merely trickle from the top down, either. An unsuccessful individual may brand him- or herself as one’s own worst enemy — the primary cause of one’s adversity. Such an individual may spend years in therapy attempting to negate the innate genetic, biochemical and personality characteristics that make him or her unique.

In a world that holds there are no victims, only self saboteurs, it is easy to embark on a path of self doubt and criticism for one’s perceived lack of willpower (control). This negative self-determination carries weight because it implies the power of choice. If we made some aspect of our lives go wrong via wrong thinking or wrong choices, we can make all right with the world through right thinking and right decision making. We prefer this viewpoint because if circumstances are deemed outside our control, we are forced to confront unvarnished reality: Control is largely illusory.

At one time, American culture tempered emerging New Age assumptions with levelheaded reminders that we are not captains of destiny. The Serenity Prayer, which became a fixture in the 12-step recovery movement, reminds us that we need a higher power to show us the difference between that which we can influence, and that which is beyond our control. Scripture, likewise, deals with this same question, for it is an age-old concern:

“As Jesus went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life,'” (John 9:1-3).

Here we see an example of Jesus teaching that in our frailty, God’s glory, grace and power shines. But in New Age parlance — and, tellingly, even from prominent megachurch pulpits — we learn to measure God’s love with a yardstick that is almost entirely dependent on outward measures of success (abundance — physical, financial and social). Year after year, these false promises are repackaged and re-branded by one talk show guest and bestselling author after another, who in so doing profits handsomely from this self-as-center-of-universe ideology. It is, after all, what the narcissist within each of us wants to hear.

What gives these half-truths such staying power in American culture?

As someone who spent a number of years in the book business, I can venture an educated guess: Books that postulate that there is less order and more chaos fail in the marketplace. After all, the type of people who are likely to seek out and read self help books are typically those who believe that the truth is “out there”. They believe they can find answers in a book, a religion, a philosophy. When at last they connect with an articulate author’s prose, the crowing revelation is that of self as judge, jury and, ultimately, God. Readers aren’t looking to be reminded that the answers to life’s biggest questions are rarely contained in a $15 paperback, or that cultivating a mentality of control may lead to more suffering than success.

Revered author Ralph Waldo Emerson — perhaps because of his success — also advanced this half-baked philosophy:

“Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances — it was somebody’s name, or he happened to be there at the time, or it was so then, and another day would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”

While the principle of cause-and-effect is by no means entirely false, it is most often observed within the confines of a scientific laboratory. Boiling complex social, spiritual and interpersonal realities down to a question of input vs. output is an outgrowth of the Industrial Revolution and the Scientific Age, not the real-world complexities that humans have been grappling with on this planet for millions of years. The child receiving cancer treatment didn’t “choose” his or her illness. The parents who agonize over a drug- or alcohol-abusing child are not necessarily the cause. The fellow who was injured on the job and struggled to get himself back together cannot be written off as someone lacking in ambition or a solid work ethic. The doctor who is sued for malpractice is not necessarily an incompetent practitioner. The overweight woman at church may not be a couch potato.

A desire to project ourselves into circumstances where others are neither to blame nor congratulate seems innate. But ancient sources of wisdom paint a more restrained picture. A biblical proverb states “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (Pr 19:21). Another says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps” (Pr 16:9).

Scripture confirms the idea that life is not fair, and may never be fair no matter how much we struggle to maintain the idea that the universe merely reflects our own intentions. Rather, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous,” (MT 5:45).

An odd anecdote from the life of the late trance-medium Edgar Cayce backs the biblical concept of fate.

“One day in a large city I entered a department store to do some shopping. I was on the sixth floor and rang for the elevator. While I was waiting for it I noticed some bright red sweaters, and thought I would like to look at them. However, I had signaled for the elevator, and when it came I stepped forward to enter it. It was almost filled with people, but suddenly I was repelled. The interior of the car, although well-lighted, seemed dark to me.

“Something was wrong. Before I could analyze my action I said, ‘Go ahead,’ to the operator, and stepped back. I went over to look at the sweaters, and then I realized what had made me uneasy. The people in the elevator had no auras. While I was examining the sweaters, which had attracted me by their bright red hues—the color of vigor and energy—the elevator cable snapped, the car fell to the basement, and all the occupants were killed.”

Does this sound like a simple case of cause-and-effect? Were the people trapped in that elevator any more deserving or selective of their tragic destiny than the blind man in Jesus’ day whose friends and neighbors presumed a sin on the part of his parents?

Perhaps the strongest “cause” for any form of success is persistence. But persistence doesn’t necessarily correlate with greater intellect, greater talent, better looks or a better attitude that somehow entitles one individual to more “open doors” than another. So rather than allowing popular philosophy to create an insalubrious expectation that one can or should be able control outcomes — an assumption that parallels the meteoric rise in antidepressants, ADHD medications and all manner of costly prescription and illicit coping aids alike — it is time we make our peace with the counterintuitive.

Let go.

The idea that we can or should live a charmed life if only we project the right set of intentions backed by the appropriate thought process is insidiously toxic. It breeds arrogance among the elite and self doubt among those who have applied such principles only to realize that the Universe does not revolve around, nor faithfully reflect, them. Accepting the reality that good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people may not seem all that comforting, and it certainly won’t sell any books or self-help seminars. Yet acknowledging that the mysteries of life are more numerous than the answers is strangely liberating. Letting go allows us to make peace with an awe-inspiring aspect of life that might otherwise tear at our morale. Only when we remain humble — but for the grace of God there go I — do we allow gratitude, awe, contentment and compassion to heal our relationship with God, ourselves and others. For unlike Eastern philosophies born of gurus who retreated to the solitude of the wilderness, humility will stand beside us amidst our hectic, distracting, and unpredictable contemporary lives.

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The Social Critic

Tag: spirituality

Tyre Nichols, Victim of White Supremacy (What would MLK Do?)