“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke
What is our role in the perpetuation of injustice and suffering?
Morality – ours – is increasingly less hypothetical. We are asked at every step to consider our unconscious bias, our privilege, our role in perpetuating discrimination. Our good actions and intentions are not enough. With every moment of silence, of apparent indifference to the words and behaviours of others, we facilitate the cycle of violence, oppression and suffering. We fertilise the soil of anger and water the cries of injustice. Prejudice and the demand for reparation are growing strongly, like twin vines, intertwined.
Is it a betrayal to treat prejudice with compassion and meet people where they are? Are we excusing bad behaviour when we feel compassion for it? We know, at a deep, personal level how hard it is to confront our own moral failure. We are all handicapped by our desire to be good and the pain of hearing evidence to suggest that, despite our best efforts, we are not. It feels like a profoundly unsafe and unacceptable place to be. That knowledge may send us quickly into denial or at least into a desire not to see. Knowing this about ourselves and about those around us, where is the moral balance between confronting wrongdoing and taking the action most likely to result in long-term change, no matter how slow, no matter how much the path seems to favour the wrongdoer?
I heard a wonderful description of growth a few months ago. It is simplistic in nature, “black and white” in its imagery, but I find hope within in. Imagine a continuum that runs from the greatest evil you can imagine at one end, all the way through to moral perfection (or sainthood) at the other. Now imagine that this continuum is a physical road with a beginning and an end. For the sake of argument, let us suppose that we are standing at the very beginning of the path, at the point of evil. Can we see our destination from where we are standing? No. It is unimaginably far away. It is not real to us. We do not know what it looks like or even if it is worth attaining. But we can still look down the road a little way and see much greater ground than we can cover in a single step. Thus, even the short distance we can see seems very far, and possibly even daunting. Even if we do take a step, all that happens is that the view extends out yet further. We seem no closer to the horizon, no closer to reaching our destination. The road is impossibly infinite and our steps apparently meaningless. And yet, with every tiny step, we are heading along the road. With every step, we are that little less in the grip of pain and suffering. For all that the road seems to wind in and out, even back upon itself, our actions are, with each step, that little bit less hurtful and destructive.
Somewhere there is a balance between the "indifference" that excuses bad behaviour, and compassion, that sees all the good within us as well as all the challenges that we face. Compassion finds the courage to love all, despite clear vision. The challenge of compassion is to recognise that, by not standing in another’s shoes, we are blind to many of the things they see and at the same time awake to what they cannot see. Change comes when we can each see a little more clearly from where we stand. We cannot travel the road in a moment, nor drag another to see the view from where we stand. What we can do is help each other to safely take a step. And perhaps, if we feel safe enough, perhaps we may one day choose to take another.
Is it enough? Of course it isn't, nor can it be. It can never be enough. All those who suffer deserve relief - and reparation - now. Can they get it? Sadly, no. In a just world, we should all change ourselves completely overnight. We cannot. We will continue to be roadblocks for each other, barriers on the path and the cause of injury. But we can each take a step, finding within ourselves enough courage and self-compassion to look up at the road ahead. At some level that is all the "enough" there is and can be. The hope is that some of those tiny steps may be transformed into enormous, collective leaps, often without our conscious planning. And that is the desperate miracle of it all.
The sins of omission are a killer. If you think about it, you could completely overwhelm yourself with all the things you "should" do. In a way, it's a wonderful thing to contemplate, because, quite simply, it's the contemplation of impossibility. We can reduce our trespasses but we can never, ever eliminate them. Not unless we become infinite and capable of being all things to all people at all times, without the presence of a "self" at all. And that's the whole paradox of existence: we believe that our being is of love, and yet we literally cannot breathe or take up space without causing harm and destruction. It is the nature of all life. We give and we take, and even in death we cannot cease from causing harm. It is the great and terrible truth of being. For me it is a personal struggle of faith.
And so, compassion. There is a need to remember that all that is good and beautiful and true in the world is still good and beautiful and true. It is our dream and vision – our guide along the road to peace. It exists within us all, alongside all that we would rather excise. The light and the dark are inseparable. It will not help to focus to exclusion on either. If we are to walk the path towards justice and peace, we must befriend contradiction. In others. In ourselves. And even as we condemn, we must see the beauty in each being and hold out the helping hand, knowing that we are offering it to ourselves.
Morality – ours – is increasingly less hypothetical. We are asked at every step to consider our unconscious bias, our privilege, our role in perpetuating discrimination. Our good actions and intentions are not enough. With every moment of silence, of apparent indifference to the words and behaviours of others, we facilitate the cycle of violence, oppression and suffering. We fertilise the soil of anger and water the cries of injustice. Prejudice and the demand for reparation are growing strongly, like twin vines, intertwined.
Is it a betrayal to treat prejudice with compassion and meet people where they are? Are we excusing bad behaviour when we feel compassion for it? We know, at a deep, personal level how hard it is to confront our own moral failure. We are all handicapped by our desire to be good and the pain of hearing evidence to suggest that, despite our best efforts, we are not. It feels like a profoundly unsafe and unacceptable place to be. That knowledge may send us quickly into denial or at least into a desire not to see. Knowing this about ourselves and about those around us, where is the moral balance between confronting wrongdoing and taking the action most likely to result in long-term change, no matter how slow, no matter how much the path seems to favour the wrongdoer?
I heard a wonderful description of growth a few months ago. It is simplistic in nature, “black and white” in its imagery, but I find hope within in. Imagine a continuum that runs from the greatest evil you can imagine at one end, all the way through to moral perfection (or sainthood) at the other. Now imagine that this continuum is a physical road with a beginning and an end. For the sake of argument, let us suppose that we are standing at the very beginning of the path, at the point of evil. Can we see our destination from where we are standing? No. It is unimaginably far away. It is not real to us. We do not know what it looks like or even if it is worth attaining. But we can still look down the road a little way and see much greater ground than we can cover in a single step. Thus, even the short distance we can see seems very far, and possibly even daunting. Even if we do take a step, all that happens is that the view extends out yet further. We seem no closer to the horizon, no closer to reaching our destination. The road is impossibly infinite and our steps apparently meaningless. And yet, with every tiny step, we are heading along the road. With every step, we are that little less in the grip of pain and suffering. For all that the road seems to wind in and out, even back upon itself, our actions are, with each step, that little bit less hurtful and destructive.
Somewhere there is a balance between the "indifference" that excuses bad behaviour, and compassion, that sees all the good within us as well as all the challenges that we face. Compassion finds the courage to love all, despite clear vision. The challenge of compassion is to recognise that, by not standing in another’s shoes, we are blind to many of the things they see and at the same time awake to what they cannot see. Change comes when we can each see a little more clearly from where we stand. We cannot travel the road in a moment, nor drag another to see the view from where we stand. What we can do is help each other to safely take a step. And perhaps, if we feel safe enough, perhaps we may one day choose to take another.
Is it enough? Of course it isn't, nor can it be. It can never be enough. All those who suffer deserve relief - and reparation - now. Can they get it? Sadly, no. In a just world, we should all change ourselves completely overnight. We cannot. We will continue to be roadblocks for each other, barriers on the path and the cause of injury. But we can each take a step, finding within ourselves enough courage and self-compassion to look up at the road ahead. At some level that is all the "enough" there is and can be. The hope is that some of those tiny steps may be transformed into enormous, collective leaps, often without our conscious planning. And that is the desperate miracle of it all.
The sins of omission are a killer. If you think about it, you could completely overwhelm yourself with all the things you "should" do. In a way, it's a wonderful thing to contemplate, because, quite simply, it's the contemplation of impossibility. We can reduce our trespasses but we can never, ever eliminate them. Not unless we become infinite and capable of being all things to all people at all times, without the presence of a "self" at all. And that's the whole paradox of existence: we believe that our being is of love, and yet we literally cannot breathe or take up space without causing harm and destruction. It is the nature of all life. We give and we take, and even in death we cannot cease from causing harm. It is the great and terrible truth of being. For me it is a personal struggle of faith.
And so, compassion. There is a need to remember that all that is good and beautiful and true in the world is still good and beautiful and true. It is our dream and vision – our guide along the road to peace. It exists within us all, alongside all that we would rather excise. The light and the dark are inseparable. It will not help to focus to exclusion on either. If we are to walk the path towards justice and peace, we must befriend contradiction. In others. In ourselves. And even as we condemn, we must see the beauty in each being and hold out the helping hand, knowing that we are offering it to ourselves.