The Taliban and the Navy Seals - Violence and Nonviolence
Adam discusses the new Raven Foundation project "Be a Hero for Peace" and how violence and non-violence work. Violence is mimetic in that it leads to more violence, and violence that escalates. This happens in our personal lives with physical and verbal violence, but it also happens on a national scale as well. What's the way out? Nonviolence, forgiveness, and love. Nonviolence, used in the spirit of love and forgiveness, is the force that allows us to see our enemies as human and allows our enemies to see us as human, too.
The Psalms: Violence, Revenge, and Transformation
Adam discusses the Psalms. Why are we so uncomfortable with violent passages of the Psalms? They make us confront our own ugly desires for revenge. But the Psalms also allow us to see that the Judeo-Christian God stands with the victims of culture. As the Bible continues, we see that God stands with the victims, not in order to create more victims, but to heal broken relationships in the spirit of love and forgiveness.
The Casey Anthony Verdict: Is the Devil Dancing?
Emotions have been running high since last week’s acquittal of Casey Anthony in the murder trial of her two year old daughter Caylee Anthony. Many have lived with this case since Caylee’s murder three years ago. The case has been a media sensation for many reasons, one being that Casey Anthony has made for a very good villain. She is portrayed as monster of a human being – a mother who would rather party and hook up with men than care for her daughter. She lied to police and investigators at the beginning of their investigation into Caylee’s whereabouts. Public opinion turned against her as she was seen partying just hours after her daughter went missing.
As the father of a boy who just turned three and another boy soon to turn 5, I understand the extreme emotions felt by many throughout the country when Casey Anthony was acquitted of the murder. But, the facts remain that, for one reason or another, the case against Casey was weak. As John Cloud of Time Magazine states, “Casey Anthony is guilty of many things. She is an enthusiastic liar. She was an indifferent mother. She mooched off her overindulgent parents for years. Even after her daughter went missing, Anthony partied and got a tattoo. But the state of Florida did not make a good case that Anthony murdered her daughter. In acquitting Anthony, the jury made the right call.”
The jury not only made the right call, but it was also a very brave call. They knew the high emotions of the American public riding on this trial. We wanted a guilty verdict so that we could know justice had been done. So, an acquittal meant that, for many of us, justice failed. One prominent television talk show host on a major new network put it like this: “there's something wrong with that. Because Caylee — is dead. And her body decomposed, 15 houses away from where the Anthonys put their head on the pillow every night, every day searching, searching for this little girl. Now I know, I know it is our duty as American citizens to respect the jury system. And I do, believe me I do ... But I know one thing. As the defense sits by and has their champagne toast after that not guilty verdict? Somewhere out there, the devil is dancing tonight.”
I think this commentator is right - the devil is dancing, but for reasons the speaker is blind to. The devil is not so much a red mythological figure personified with horns and a pitchfork. No. The devil is so much more dangerous than that. The devil is symbolic of a way of life that paradoxically leads to chaos and to order. As Mark Heim writes in his book Saved from Sacrifice, “Satan is the sower of discord and also the bringer of order. The devil delights in nothing so much as in instigating conflict among humans” (148).
The devil continues to dance because the seeds of conflict continue to be sown, and those of us on the side of “justice” are not innocent. We sow those seeds. For many of us, justice means retribution, which is a nice word for revenge. The satanically mimetic pull of uniting against a common enemy is in motion. We are thus well ordered in uniting against Anthony for a crime that can’t be proven. We have already begun to unite against a jury which made an honest and brave decision based on the lack of evidence put forward by the state of Florida. They made that decision with great risk, as jurors have even been threatened with murder, one by her co-workers!
We hate Casey and we hate the jury with a mimetically shared and uniting hatred. That hatred blinds us to our own corrupt desires for revenge and violence that we validate in the name of “justice.” And, indeed, that hatred, and that form of justice, is the song that causes the devil to dance.
Taylor Swift's Revenge
Taylor Swift’s latest hit, Mean, is full of anger, resentment, bitterness, and a desire for revenge.
And I like it.
Swift apparently wrote Mean after a critic wrote very “mean” things about her. So, Swift is a victim of a mean critic and she sings the song for all people who have been victimized. She claims, “When you write a song and it comes from such a vulnerable moment in my life and then you get to stand on a stage and the affirmation that 50,000 people have gone through that too and they’re singing along, it’s been kind of wonderful.”
It may be a wonderful feeling, but is it good?
As I mentioned, I like the song. I think it’s catchy, but more than that, I think it’s very human. There is an anthropological truth to the song that we can all relate to. And yet, in our culture, we’re not supposed to give voice to that truth. As civilized people, we shouldn’t talk about our feelings of anger, resentment, bitterness, and desire for revenge. No. We should bottle up those emotions because it is socially unacceptable to talk about them. You may discuss them with your psychiatrist, but you may never admit them in public.
I appreciate Swift for giving voice to emotions we all experience and for giving us the opportunity to discuss them. At some point in our lives, we all feel victimized. So, I’ll go first. When someone belittles me and has me “feeling like I’m nothing,” I want revenge. Sure. I want to see that person suffer in some way. We victims like to see the tables turned. My hope is similar to Swift’s hope when she writes, “Someday, I’ll be living in a big old city, And all you’re ever gonna be is mean.”
“Yeah,” I think. “Someday, the tables will turn. I’ll be successful and live in the big city while that jerk will be known as ‘a liar and pathetic and alone in life and … mean, and mean, and mean, and mean!”
Ohhhh, it felt wonderful to get that out. And I think it’s good that Taylor and I can be so honest about our feelings. Yes, yes. There are dangers. Revenge feels good, but in the end, we become mimetic doubles. That is, my desire for revenge makes me just like my enemy. As Rene’ Girard points out in his latest book Battling to the End, while you are in a conflict with another person you “must always believe in your difference and respond more and more quickly and forcefully. From the outside, the adversaries look like what they are: simple doubles” (page 14).
Mean comes close to recognizing this mimetic truth when Swift sings, “I bet you got pushed around, Somebody made you cold, But the cycle ends right now, You can’t lead me down that road …”
But, from the outside, we can clearly see that Swift and her critic walk hand-in-hand down the same road of anger, resentment, bitterness, and revenge. Indeed, her critic may have been mean, but her song is mean. It is due to bitterness that she rants about personal success while her enemy becomes “washed up … ranting about the same old bitter things.”
Along with Swift, we may want the cycle to end, but it never will as long as we desire revenge. Mean is a very human song that expresses very human emotions, but it doesn’t point to the only thing that can provide personal healing – the spirit of forgiveness. Forgiveness is more empowering than revenge. Living in the spirit of forgiveness means we are no longer enslaved to a relationship of anger, resentment, bitterness, and revenge with our enemy. The great danger is that once we are enslaved to those emotions, they infect our other relationships, too. The spirit of forgiveness frees us from those toxic emotions and empowers us to walk down the road of healing.