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The week’s news continues - elections in Ontario, primaries in the US, hate crimes in cities, wars, resignations. So much involves anger that can turn to violence.
I’m interested in Larry Rasmussen’s and Matthew Fox’s comments about the common metaphors that we use, The former talked about the Great Chain of Being - a picture of how the universe was understood - with a supreme Being at the top with a series of steps down with lesser and lesser agency at the bottom. The Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny are similar examples - how those in power “lorded” it over those below by assuming the right to take over their territory, their culture and their language. To do so, it is necessary to think of the other as inferior. The most extreme is a Master/Slave relationship but there are lots of gradations that are more nuanced. Witness our attitude toward people of so-called colour and toward nature itself.
We often are smug as Canadians in examining American race and immigration rhetoric while conveniently ignoring the history of our treatment of our original inhabitants. Whether we believe that humans are inherently good or inherently bad, we nevertheless cannot ignore the existence of evil - as a possibility within ourselves or a reality in the larger world around us. But how does the possibility gain such a foothold?
Is tribalism learned? We belong to many groupings. As a small child I was troubled when my Presbyterian mother commented on a coming wedding. “She’s marrying a Catholic”, she said. “It’s too bad”. Something piqued my curiosity. We had a live-in maid in the household who was a Catholic who sometimes too me to her church. As a five year old rather liked an Angel who would bow her head if you put a penny in an urn she was holding. That probably is long gone and not representative of Catholicism in any way, but at least I questioned the tribalism pf my mother’s comment at the time. Why as it too bad? Since I didn’t get an answer, I decided for myself that on that point at least, she was wrong.
How do we get from too bad to replacement theory? How does a teen embody so much hatred in the span of 18 years. Is it fear? Is it the desire for celebrity? Do we have any idea of the difference between a disagreement on a certain issue or policy and turning someone with a different point of view into an “other”?
Matthew Fox today notes that hatred has always been with us as a species when we don’t examine the five year old’s conscience or curiosity to ask why. We protect our own. And when that doesn’t allay our fears we turn the other into a scapegoat. The other side of that is the hubris that builds our view as the right one and gives us the authority to exercise power. When we turn that power into an institution, we may be on the way to hatred in some circumstances - and violence is the eventual outcome.
Abandon all hierarchies and we often end in chaos. Keep them in place and the other may become objectified. It spreads to gender, race, nations and the elements of the planet - fire, air, water, soil.
How Fox deals with hatred is seeing it as the negative form of energy - the positive one being love. Both come from the heart before the mind deals with them. Anger, he says, can be part of the positive side when it follows from compassion for the other as an injustice is clearly perceived. But it can also grow into resentment that becomes hatred and ultimately leads to violence.
I can see in myself how a small thing can lead to resentment. Without reflection, it can so quickly lead to scapegoating and blame. Reflection has never been more necessary in our world of constant noise. We need to examine the small resentments that lead to such engrained ones that spring up and grow among us like viruses. They have always been part of human history in all cultures. We are no long part of a world of chains. We live in a world of networks. How do we use them to infect others with love?