The Raven Foundation

 

 

“Those who say that the media and our political leaders are out of touch with the ‘real’ America have a point.”  Thus begins Stuart Muszynski in his fascinating article on the Huffington Post called “Taking America Down the Rabbit Hole”. Muszynski (who runs "Purpe America", a really cool educational organization that explores America's values) claims that the news media has become a form of violent entertainment by “framing everything [in politics] as a fight.” This pattern of violence infects more than the news media, of course.  Muszynski says it permeates much of our television airwaves and he specifically holds “reality” TV responsible for its use of violence.  He tells a story of someone who works for a non-profit that raises money for an “important and worthwhile cause.”  According to this person, the co-chairs of the non-profit “have been increasingly disagreeable, catty and outright, publicly mean.”  Muszynskin explains the behavior by stating that it turns out “they’ve been watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

 

This violence has real effects on our culture, according to Muszynski.  He warns that “Our children and even adults replicate the language and actions they see on TV, on the Internet and in the newspaper.”  From a mimetic theory perspective, this is fascinating because of its truth about human nature.  As I read the first five paragraphs, I kept thinking:

 

“C’MON!  SAY MIMETIC THEORY!!!”

 

Then came the sixth paragraph.  “It’s human nature to mimic what we frequently see.”  Exactly.  But there is something missing from Muszynski’s analysis.  He’s right that we humans are mimetic, or imitative, creatures.  And it’s easy to see how the news media often frames political debates as a violent battle between gladiators, and how politicians frequently fall into the trap of demonizing one another.  The problem, though, is that this pattern of violence is much bigger than the news media or politicians. In fact, when we blame the news media, television, and politicians for their violent rhetoric, we usually do so using violent rhetoric in return.  Muszynski says that current American political conversations are not sustainable.  “By vilifying one side over the other and turning everything into a fight, public policies become intense wars that will be reversed once the other side comes to power.”  I appreciate the truth in that statement, however, I can’t help but think Muszynski is mimicking that fight.  His solution to the vilifying in media and politics is to vilify the media and politics.  The final paragraph of his article is evidence to my point.  The way to fight the corrupt power in American culture is through … yup, you guessed it, power.  “So let’s demand art, politics and citizenship that reflect the values and goodness of America and spur us to be our best.”

 

Now, I want America to be a more peaceful place and I agree that the escalating, combative rhetoric in politics and on television is a problem for American culture.  But I disagree with Muszynski’s solution.  Demanding that “art, politics and citizenship reflect the values and goodness of American” and vilifying the news media and politicians is simply another form of violent rhetoric, which is exactly what he is critiquing.  Violence, even violent language that seeks peace, breeds more violence.

 

What’s the way out of this cycle?  One of the first steps in transforming our pattern of violence is to acknowledge that we all (even good, peaceful people) fall into the “rabbit hole of violence.”  We all have our scapegoats that we enjoy vilifying.  Acknowledging this truth about human nature leads us to the next step, which is transforming the pattern of violence into a pattern of forgiveness.  Only through forgiving ourselves and others can we begin climbing out of the rabbit hole.

 

 

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Is there any rational reason to believe in miracles? The question is not about belief in miracles per se, but the reason behind belief. Lots of times the question of miracles involves the search for a rational explanation. If you find one, then bingo, you debunk the miracle and score another triumph for reason. Recently I experienced a miracle trifecta in New York City’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral: mass was being said at the central altar; to the left was a really impressive nearly life-size crèche complete with adoring camel; and to the right was a chapel dedicated to the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe to a Mexican peasant in 1531. Transubstantiation, incarnation and visitation – easily debunked miracles, right? Yet there I was all dewy-eyed and verklempt receiving communion, lighting a candle at the crèche, and joining the crowd adoring Our Lady of Guadalupe because it just happened to be her feast day (coincidence or miracle?!). Had I taken leave of my senses and given in to some emotional, romantic experience of the presence of God or had my reason come along for the ride?

 

The question of rational reasons to believe in miracles might seem to be off the table from the start as a contradiction in terms. Yet I do think that there is a very rational reason to believe in miracles, a reason rooted in the very mundane reality of this world. At Christmas, angels (another easily debunked miracle!) announced that the mundane reality of the world was about to change. They proclaimed that a Messiah had entered the world as a little child to bring peace on earth. Really, now?? That would be a reality shifter of volcanic magnitude! The reality of this world is definitely one of not-peace and the idea that it could be transformed by a child, well, that would be a miracle! I couldn’t agree more! What I’d like to propose is that the reality of not-peace is sustained by a powerful, totalizing logic which would take a miracle to disprove.

 

Here goes: the desire for peace on earth is nearly universal, yet peace has been an elusive dream. Why is that? There always seems to be one more obstacle to peace, one more evil villain who must be defeated before peace can reign on earth. The job of good people is to be vigilant against evil and, if possible, to learn to identify evil before it can do harm to innocent people. This is the current quest of our own Department of Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, Department of Defense and so on. The logic of good versus evil requires them to identify evil and destroy it by any means possible, all in the service of goodness and peace.    

 

This logic is familiar to us and it permits the use of violence by good people in the name of peace. I have written about this many times before, so it will not be surprising when I point out that everyone who employs violence is doing so in the name of some ultimate good or another. Goodness is defined using me and my aims as the standard, of course, and evil is always located somewhere outside of me and my community. If goodness is always me-orientated, then anyone who opposes me, my goals or desires is by definition evil. Do you see how totalizing this is and how completely logical? If you begin with the premise that goodness equals me and evil is that which opposes me, then every “me” on the planet can self-identify as good and justify the destruction (figuratively or literally) of all the evil others out there who get in my way. We see it in domestic politics, international relations, and our own personal relationships when others seem to be willfully intent on obstructing our desires. They can be none other than evil by virtue of their opposition to the good – moi! This logic prevents us from seeing the truth that our enemies are using the same logic to define themselves as good and we as evil. All parties to a conflict use this logic to justify their use of violence so no one employing violence is self-identifying as evil. It is the good people, at least in their own opinion, who are doing all the bad things. Paradoxically yet logically, we find ourselves very busy creating a world of not-peace in the name of peace while never doubting our own goodness! A real predicament, isn’t it?

 

So what is the way out of this logical system? We could try to reason our way out, but ironically we have reasoned our way into it so successfully that any challenge to the system fits neatly into it: challenge my goodness or use violence against me and I have proof of your wickedness. Yet if I challenge your goodness or use violence against you, magically this is evidence of my commitment to the good. So anything that could crack open the logic at play here can’t come from within the system itself. A successful challenge would have to come from outside the system and appear other worldly, outside of our everyday experience – in other words, a miracle. A miracle that allows us to see ourselves in the face of our enemies and our enemies as children of God. The miracle can come to us in and through our mundane experiences: a birth, a meal, a message of love. When it comes, the logic of good and evil and of violence in the name of peace is revealed for a lie and peace becomes possible.

 

I believe in miracles because their existence challenges our reliance on logic and reason, which is an absolutely good thing given how much trouble logic can get us into. But miracles have a logic of their own, the logic of the possible impossible. In fact, the idea of a miracle might actually have some support from mathematics, the language of science. In the early twentieth century, the mathematician Kurt Godel discovered what he called the theorem of incompleteness which is the proof of a paradox, that there are true but unprovable statements. True but unprovable: maybe that’s what miracles are. You see, it was very reasonable for me to be verklempt at St. Pat’s and for all of us to be a bit dewy-eyed at the sight of the babe in the manger. Miracles make sense! Peace is possible! Merry Christmas!

A.C. Grayling (from left), Matthew Chapman, Rabbi David Wolpe and Dinesh D'Souza faced off on the notion "The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion."

 

A rabbi, a descendant of Charles Darwin, a philosopher and a scholar recently teamed up at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts to debate this motion: “The world would be better off without religion.” The live studio audience was polled before and after the debate and a winner was declared. Before I tell you the numbers, what do you think? Would the world be better off without religion?

 

Even more relevant – what do you think of the question? I had a hard time taking it seriously, especially after I started listening to the debate. I had hoped that before they jumped into arguing for or against the motion they would define what they meant by “religion”. They did not. For the sake of clarity, I hoped they also might have defined what “better off” meant since it requires a comparison to an imaginary world in which religion doesn’t or never did exist. They did not do that either.  Those arguing for the motion said the things you would expect – we’d be better off without religion because it is the cause of war, provides justification for violence, and is indicative of faulty reasoning. People who believe in God are irrational, hypocritical and violent. Those arguing against the motion said that more wars and genocides had been committed in the name of atheism than God, that religion is an organized system that encourages people to be better and to work for a better world.  They made the counteraccusation that those who said we’d be better off without religion were the ones guilty of faulty reasoning. Nothing either side said changed my opinion that the motion itself was flawed.

 

What the two opposing teams had in common was more telling than their so-called differences. For example, they both clearly got that there was a strong connection between religion and violence. One side thought religion made the world more violent and the other side thought less, but “less violent” was clearly what they meant by “better off”. What both sides failed to see, however, was that it isn’t the presence of religion in the world that’s the problem or the solution, but rather how successful religion is at any time or in any place at doing its job. In other words, the problem is not religion but violence itself. The job of religion is to respond to the problem of violence. Anyone familiar with anthropology knows that wherever human culture is found so is religion. The one does not exist without the other. A key idea of mimetic theory, which is the study of the connection between religion and violence, is that religion solved the problem of human violence, thus making human culture possible. Religion can be thought of as the mechanism that made the proto-human world less violent, putting the side arguing against the motion on the right side of the issue.

 

But to say that religion makes the world less violent misses a crucial point: If it was religion that controlled violence in the proto-human world, how did it do it? Ancient or archaic religion was a religion of sacrifice and it used violence to control violence. It involved rituals, prohibitions, myth and sacrifice: violence was controlled through sacrificial means, temple rituals in which humans and animals were killed often after ritual reenactments of wars or wild times in which all prohibitions were relaxed, kind of like Mardi Gras. The community discharged all its angers, resentments, little built up hurts and grudges in a ritual frenzy ending in the shedding of blood. Mel Gibson’s movie Apocalypto captured the pre-sacrificial frenzy and the calming effect of the sacrifice really well. A little bit of violence in a controlled (ritual) setting kept the violence outside of the community and life could flourish.

 

We no longer have ritual sacrifice per se, but archaic religion survives in a more subtle form. Anywhere violence is justified as a way to bring peace by invoking God’s name – or in the name of any supreme good like ethnic, racial, tribal or national identity – you have archaic or sacrificial religion. Today’s revealed religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism are the biggies) are still engaged with the problem of violence just as they were when they were revealed. The presence of violent passages in the sacred texts of these religions does not mean that they are advocating violence, but that solving the problem of violence is their main function.  To think that those texts are the cause of violence would be like concluding that hospitals cause people to become sick and die. Violence is in the texts for the same reason sick people are in hospitals: everyone is looking for a cure. Revealed religions, though, offer a different cure than archaic religions. Rather than using violence to control violence, they aim at building peaceful communities through practices of love, mercy and forgiveness. This is the non-sacrificial solution but not all their adherents get the message. Religious and non-religious people too easily revert to ancient sacrificial practices: we find all kinds of excuses for using violence, including invoking God’s name, despite the efforts of revealed religions. When Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or any religious group claims God to be on their side, they are caught up in an old and dying paradigm. The long trajectory of human history is a religious journey away from the use of sacrificial violence toward a new way of achieving peace by peaceful means.

 

Here are the results of the audience survey: Before the debate 52 percent of the live audience thought the world would be better off without religion and 26 percent disagreed, with 22 percent undecided. Afterward, those in favor of a world without religion jumped to 59 percent and those against the idea rose to 31 percent — making the side arguing for a world without religion the winners of the debate. Ten percent of the audience remained undecided, maybe because they sensed the debate had been about the wrong question. The better motion would have been: The world would be better off without the justification of violence by anyone for any reason. Revealed religions are in favor of that motion. Which side are you on?

 

 

One of the ugly truths of human existence is that violence works.

 

As a proponent of nonviolence, it is hard for me to make that statement, but please hear me out.  The anthropologist René Girard claims that we gain temporary peace through sacrifice, expulsion, and other acts of violence.  In this sense, violence works to bring a sense of peace and calm, but that sense of peace and calm is simply that – an illusion that the problem has been solved.  Although violence brings this sense of peace, it doesn’t have the capability of solving underlying problems.  In fact, violence covers up the problems.  Because those problems are not dealt with, they emerge once again.  We remember the sense of peace that violence brought us before, and so we repeat the cycle.

 

To paraphrase the great non-violent activist Michael Nagler in his book The Search for a Nonviolent Future, violence may work, but violence never works.  It might give us a temporary sense of peace, but it never solves our problems.

 

What does this have to do with the recent events at University of California, Davis?

 

The UC Davis campus police believe that violence works.  They used pepper spray to coerce the students who were nonviolently protesting.  That violence worked temporarily as a means to forcibly remove students, but it didn’t work, as two days after the incident student protesters once again occupied the quad, leaving the authorities wondering how they should now respond.

 

Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi believes that violence works, and employed that belief yesterday in the form of expulsion.  She claimed about her decision to place campus Police Chief Annette Spicuzza on administrative leave that “As I have gathered more information about the events that took place on our Quad on Friday, it has become clear to me that this is a necessary step toward restoring trust on our campus.”  The Los Angeles Times correctly reports that this act of expulsion is an attempt to restore peace.  The authors of the article claim that “Katehi announced Monday that she had put campus Police Chief Annette Spicuzza on administrative leave, an effort to restore peace to the 32,000-student public university.”

 

UC Davis assistant professor Nathan Brown, along with some other faculty members, also believes violence in the form of expulsion works.  Brown wrote an impassioned article on his blog calling for Katehi’s resignation.  “I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation…”

 

I want to be clear: What the UC Davis campus police did was an irresponsible act of violence that put nonviolent protesters in physical danger.  But here’s the thing: All violence is irresponsible because it never works.  It only covers up the underlying problems.  Expelling a police chief by placing her on “administrative leave” may give a sense of peace, but that form of violence isn’t going to solve the bigger problem of our faith in violence.  Demanding Katehi’s resignation might give a sense of peace as we think we are holding someone responsible, but that act of expulsion will only teach that expulsion is an effective way to solve problems, and thus, cover up the real problems.

 

Perhaps our hope lies with the students.  I hope that all of this violence and talk of expulsion will not distract them for the real issues that they are protesting – universities throughout the country are raising tuition costs and cutting budgets.  In the face of further violence, I hope they remain nonviolent in their protests, because violence will only cover up the issues they are protesting.

 

Because violence never works.

 

 

“We will fight for our freedom, and we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.”

Muammar el Qaddafi

 

“It is a historic moment.  It is the end of tyranny and dictatorship.  Qaddafi has met his fate.”

Abdel Havez Ghoga, National Transition Council Spokesman

 

Freedom.  Tyranny.  Fate.

 

Libyans took to the streets in celebration last Thursday as the news of Muammar Qaddafi’s fatefully violent death spread throughout the air waves.  People cheered in the streets in celebration of this historic event that many claim has brought freedom and an end to tyranny in Libya.

 

We know the fate of Qaddafi, but we don’t yet know the fate of Libya.  The chapter on Qaddafi’s freedom to rule through tyranny and violence has ended, and Libya’s next chapter has begun.

 

We should pause and reflect on how Libya arrived at this moment. The battle for Libya began last February, on what was called “The Day of Rage.”  Of course, there was good reason for rage and protest in Libya; Qaddafi’s government ruled with an iron fist, was politically and economically corrupt, and supported terrorism throughout the world, including terrorism against his fellow Libyans.  Eight months after “The Day of Rage,” Qaddafi was found by rebels hiding in a large drainage pipe, tortured, and then murdered.  Video proof of those events are apparently available for viewing online.  Pictures of Qaddafi’s bloody face are ubiquitous on the Internet.  In researching the topic, I’ve accidentally stumbled across those ghastly images.

 

Presently, many are now asking if Qaddafi’s murder was just.  The Chairman of the Transitional National Council of Libya, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, announced yesterday that, because of demands from the international community, a “commission of inquiry into the death of Colonel Qaddafi” would be formed.

 

I’m not sure who in the international community is demanding such an inquiry, but I wonder if that demand might be hypocritical.  Libya is in this position now largely because of the international community.  The UN, France, Britain, and the US all supported and participated in the violence against Qaddafi and his regime.  Thus, the solution that the international community provided to the violence of Qaddafi’s rule was … violence.

 

Of course.  Because that’s the way violence works.  In the words of Andrew McKenna, we cannot control violence, violence controls us.  We celebrate our violence and we demand the “freedom” to use it.  Qaddafi demanded that “freedom.”  Libyan rebels demanded that “freedom.”  The international community demanded that “freedom.” But the truth is that we are enslaved to violence.  We cannot control it.  It controls us.

 

And so, Libya starts a new chapter in its history.  That chapter starts like nearly every other chapter in world history: it starts with violence.

 

So, what is the fate of Libya?

 

That chapter will soon be written.  But if Libya’s story is consistent with world history, “freedom” will continue in the form of slavery to violence.  Libya is not alone in that fate.  The international community stands with Libya in our enslavement to violence.

 

We do have a choice, of course.  We don't have to be enslaved to violence.  We are free to choose the way of nonviolence, love, and forgiveness.  That freedom is within our power.

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Adam discusses the child sacrifice in Uganda. He claims that it is the result of the myth of redemptive violence. That myth claims violence is an efficient way of solving our problems and bringing prosperity to our lives. The BBC reports that in Uganda, which is modernizing very quickly, wealthy business people are having children sacrificed by witch doctors, believing that it will bring them economic prosperity. The only people challenging this myth are priests and pastors. They do this because they do not believe in the myth of redemptive violence; rather they believe in the truth of Jesus - that love and compassion are the ways to bring about true community. Salvation comes when we live into the resurrected live of Jesus that doesn't believe in violence, but forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation.

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I reflect on the 9/11 anniversary events I attended in the Chicago area: the Ground Zero 360 exhibit at the Field Museum and a conversation with community leaders at the WBEZ studio sponsored by the Project on Civic Reflection. When asked how we could recapture the unity of those early days after 9/11, one women I met at the Field said, "Turn to God". That got me thinking.

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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.

I’ve had a lump in my throat since I heard about the terrorist attack in Norway. Youth, for God’s sake. Talk about literally killing hope. For Americans dealing with the aftermath of our own terrorism, the implications are chilling, for this was not an Islamic terrorist. This was a Norwegian killing his own in order to promote his political agenda and he took inspiration from American right wing ideologues he found online. The New York Times printed this quote from his 1,500-page manifesto: “The time for dialogue is over. We gave peace a chance. The time for armed resistance has come.” Just when you think you know who the enemy is and where he is hiding, someone destroys your certainty.

 

One thread of the attempt to make sense of all this is very similar to the aftermath of the Arizona shooting in which 6 people were killed and 14 wounded, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, by Jared Loughner. Who or what could inspire such a grotesque act of violence? It’s a natural question, and the right one to ask in both cases. The finger is being pointed at far right politicians and bloggers who proclaim that European identity must be defended against an onslaught by Islamic immigrants. For an excellent overview of the state of Islamophobia on both sides of the Atlantic, I encourage you to read Roger Cohen’s article Breivik and His Enablers. Cohen well chronicles why overt fear mongering against Islam on the part of the Christian West should remind us of facism and we should be chastened.

 

There’s just one thing I’d like to add to the debate. What should be making us queasy is a weird paradox: Christian and Islamic extremists insist that there is no way to compromise or co-exist with the other yet they seem strangely similar. It certainly gave pause to Thomas Hegghammer, a Norwegian terrorism specialist, who was quoted in the New York Times as saying that Breivik’s rhetoric reminded him of bin Laden’s and other Al Queda leaders. He said of Breivik’s manifesto, “It seems to be an attempt to mirror Al Queda, exactly in reverse.” Hegghammer misses that this is no conscious attempt on Breivik’s part, but an odd characteristic of enemy relationships. The more each side insists on its absolute difference from the other, the more the two sides mirror each other becoming what René Girard calls enemy twins. Enemy twins only appear different to each other – to outside observers who have no stake in their fight all differences vanish. Why? Because while the adversaries only hear their own voices loudly rehearsing the litany of abuse they have suffered at the hands of their opponent, all observers see is that they share a belief in the legitimacy of violence and that shared belief speaks much louder than the supposed differences between them.

 

The problem is actually much bigger than these particular enemy twins. The problem is the universal belief in violence as a legitimate method to achieve ends, even good ends like peace and security. The entire world is captive to a culture of violence that traps governments and good people everywhere into a perverse logic that allows us to justify our own violence while condemning that of our enemies. It is no wonder the Breivik or Loughner or Bin Laden and his deputies believe in violence, or that Americans can support drone attacks and military campaigns in which thousands of innocents, including youth, are killed. We cannot condemn them without falling under the same condemnation. If we are searching for the inspiration for acts of terrorisms, the truth is closer to home than we might want to admit. The enemy, it turns out, is us.

 

The only way to distinguish ourselves from violent extremists is to become truly different than they are which means we must abandon our faith in violence at both a personal and institutional level. Americans must demand that our government abandon faith in military means to achieve our ends. The Raven Foundation is inviting Americans to take the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to begin a year long examination of what it would mean for our nation to continue to pursue peace, justice and democracy for the world, but to do it by peaceful means. Please join this important conversation by going to our website, Honor Their Memory – Be a Hero for Peace to see what we can do to get the lumps out of our throats. Peaceful people need to find our voice so we can be heard in political conversations. Be a hero for peace – start today.

 

 

 

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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.