"We need to bring back shunning." "We should crack down on X." "We should round up all the degenerates and..."
You hear these kinds of statement a lot. And it's not that they're always wrong. Sometimes more structure and discipline is needed in society.
But recognize that you're probably not part of the "we" in these sentences. I'm certainly not. If they start punishing something that wasn't punished before, you and I are more likely to be on the receiving end than the giving one. Crackee, rather than cracker. People tend to forget.
2 comments:
There's just something unsustainable about an environment that demands constant atonement but actively disdains the very idea of forgiveness.
I think there's also a growing sense that any disagreement on a social, cultural or political idea can be used against you, where it begins acting as not a conversational starting point but some kind of reflection of your lack of inner purity. You, not the idea or the sentiment, is dismissed, because the idea is you, in some sense, or it's perceived to be.
Perversely, there seems to be status conferred in always demanding and never forgiving. Maybe not enough people know who Saint Just was, and that he pretty quickly went to the guillotine as well.
There's no single person I would trust as a final arbiter on everything. But neither is there a committee of people to whom I would give that kind of power. And that's what you often get: committees--official and otherwise--who believe they can represent everyone and judge everyone. Sometimes because they're "diverse" although they all have pretty much the same perspective.
Post a Comment