This was an annoyingly long Facebook post that I'm putting here for easier access:
The tragedy last week in Charleston, SC has naturally sparked widespread debate about “guns”, and “racism”, and “symbols of racism” (the Confederate flag), and “White people”, and “mental health/anti-social behaviour” ad infinitum. I’ve, uncharacteristically, participated in some FB threads concerning some of these issues, and as usual, have felt it quite unsatisfying and fragmented to contribute to a malaise that is never fully unpacked or interpreted in the context of the wholeness of each contributor.
One contributor to a thread I was in said something that made me want to write my own post. She said, “our system is broken.” Now perhaps I should begin by stating that I am not suggesting that guns are evil, or that the owners of guns are evil. Instead, I’m addressing systemic evil, which may also be referred to as group or institutional evil.
M. Scott Peck writes in his book, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, “Evil...is the force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness. And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness.” With this as a working definition of evil, both individuals and groups have the capacity to commit evil acts.
The first exposure I had to the concept of systemic evil was in theologian Walter Wink’s book, Powers that Be. Wink points out that “Evil is not just personal, but structural and spiritual. It is not simply the result of human actions, but the consequence of huge systems over which no individual has full control.” Wink explains that systems of domination are “characterised by unjust economic relations, oppressive political relations, and the use of violence to maintain them all.”
So when we see these characteristics in our societies and communities, we see systemic evil at work. Whether it’s unjust economic relations where a CEO earns more than 300 times what the average worker earns... or we hear of voter suppression laws where oppressive political relations are at work... or we recognise evidence of biased race relations in how differently the police treat black men than they do white men... or when we see patriarchal gender relations where women are oppressed and told that they are a “lesser cut of meat” (actual words of one state congressman)… Or this latest example of repugnant excess, the torture and slaughter of thousands of alligators so the likes of Beyonce, Kim Kardasian and Victoria Beckham can have the Hermes Birkin bag that retails for more than $50,000 (Beckham has more than 100 -- that’s $5M worth of alligator skin handbags at three dead alligators per bag!!!)... and there are a slue of areas within the retail clothing industry that exploit and abuse people in their workplace… we can point to each of these examples and say that systemic evil is present there.
And so it goes. Wherever there are systems of domination over which no single individual has control, we have systemic evil.
The two primary factors that allow systemic evil to take hold are: selfishness and ignorance. When combined they create in us a narrow-mindedness that allows us to deny, to not see, our connection to others. For most of us, if we’re not directly affected by systemic evil in the moment, it’s pretty easy for us to focus on our own lives and on our own individual struggles and simply ‘get on with it.’ We’re like horses wearing blinders, undistracted by the evils of the world around us. Meanwhile, we don’t see the oppression, death, poverty, and devastation that may be happening mere feet away from us. If we have the ‘privilege’ of wearing such blinders, we’re not outraged because we’re not even paying attention.
Oh, but if we remove those blinders we may become immediately overwhelmed with the evil that’s all around us, and that we feel powerless against. And so we put the blinders back on, and we become immune to it. Evil becomes normalised. We accept that the media continually uses the wrong gender pronouns for transgender people, and may even scoff at their own gaffe after doing so. We participate in systemic evil if we have other options, yet continue to shop at major monopolistic supermarkets, knowing that they make enormous profits, but pay their employees a pittance wage. We do it when we buy disposable pop music because it’s catchy and has a beat you can dance to, even though it tells women “your sexuality is your power,” or “you know you want it,” indicating that consent is really just about “blurred lines.” Or when we go about our bottomless consumption while ignoring the damage we’re doing to Creation. These are all ways in which we participate in systemic evil on a daily basis, and continue repeating to ourselves, “I’m just one person. How big of a difference can I really make?” You’re either squirming a bit right now, or trying to decide whether or not to ‘unfriend’ me. I know I’d be doing one of the two if I was reading this.
As Peck points out, whenever…”it becomes possible and easy for the individual to pass the moral buck to some other part of the group [evil occurs]. In this way, not only does the individual forsake [their] conscience, but the conscience of the group as a whole can become so fragmented and diluted as to be nonexistent… The plain fact of the matter is that any group will remain... evil until such time as each and every individual holds himself or herself directly responsible for the behaviour of the whole group.”
And that my friends, is sweet redemption; our salvation: taking responsibility for the behaviour and actions of the whole group. But how do we actually do that? How can we hold ourselves accountable to a systemic evil that I’ve only just described as something that no individual has full control? Of course no one person can take total blame for it. But we can hold ourselves accountable for the ways in which we perpetuate the systemic evil, and by seeking to stop contributing to it when we can. I mean removing the blinders, and allowing our hearts to break and our spirits to become outraged at poverty, injustice and destruction that’s going on in our respective societies as well as around the world. For example, the U.S. could hold itself accountable by doing something to curtail the amount of gun-related deaths that happen annually on its soil.
Let’s be honest.
We have a problem.
I can recall two stories in the last few months where a three-year-old found their parent’s handgun and fatally shot themselves.
Last year, handguns killed 263 people collectively in Japan, Britain, Switzerland, Canada, Israel, Sweden and Germany. They killed 10,728 in the U.S. That’s a collective population pool of 332 million people to the U.S.’s 319 million people.
Surely steps can be taken.
In the same way that selfishness and ignorance enable systemic evil, there are a few factors that can neutralise it as we seek to hold ourselves accountable. The first is by educating ourselves. Peck says, “The task of preventing group evil - including war itself - is clearly the task of eradicating or, at least, significantly diminishing [intellectual] laziness and narcissism… The effort to prevent group evil… must therefore be directed at the individual. It is, of course, a process of education.”
Educate ourselves about the history of discrimination and oppression perpetrated by the justice system against the marginalised, minorities or asylum-seekers so that when an incident of injustice or brutality occurs, we’re able to understand the event in the larger context. Educate ourselves as to the different Muslim sects so that we’re able to affirm the peaceful while condemning fundamentalism.
But while we educate ourselves, we do not want to, at the same time, emulate those who seek to oppress or advance the systemic evil; we don’t want to contribute to the evil - no ‘eye for an eye’ mentality. Wink says, “Evil can be opposed without being mirrored. Oppressors can be resisted without being emulated. Enemies can be neutralised without being destroyed.”
Which leads to the second way we can address systemic evil in our lives: to engage our sense of wonder and curiosity. “Really,” you ask, “Engage our sense of wonder and curiosity? That’s weird.” Wink points out that, “Provoking a sense of wonder...tends to diffuse hostility. It seems to be nearly impossible for the human psyche to be in a state of wonder and a state of cruelty at the same time.” We can ask questions - of ourselves and those around us. We can ask UKBA officials (or government officials where you live) how they might feel if it were their son or daughter being turned away at the border or denied access to medical care; or being shot to death at their own school. We can write a quick email to a columnist or TV network when they refer to a trans person with the wrong pronoun, offering insight into the issue. We can wonder aloud to our local government officials what will happen to our children, or our grandparents if benefits are cut, or if transportation services to poorer areas are reduced. Even if we can’t change it, we can pay attention and wonder about the ways that we benefit from unearned privilege, due to race, gender, sexual orientation, economic class, education level, etc. In so doing we are able to take responsibility for our part in systemic evil, and decrease our unintended participation.
The most important step in reducing our participation in the systemic evil that is all around us is the most practical, and likely the most challenging for most of us. With more and more frequency we must remove our blinders and pay attention. Allow ourselves to see things as they really are. As a result, our empathy will not allow us to remain unengaged, and when our empathy is engaged, we will act in ways that affirm and promote the unsurpassable worth and dignity of individuals, as a well as honouring our place in this interdependent web we share.
Most people will read these perspectives as virtuous, moral, and good, and the truth is anyone can engage these virtues to initiate change. But as Christians, we are compelled to oppose injustice - not merely for the sake of virtue or morality, but for the sake of Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. I find that we often lose sight of which kingdom we’re called to stand for and seek to advance; the kingdom of the world (or nation we live in), or the Kingdom of heaven. Make no mistake - I do believe the two are mutually exclusive. We have a holy and sacred text, and it’s not the Constitution (though it seems that it’s more vehemently defended than the messages of peace and self-denial that we find in the biblical teachings of Jesus). Jesus never said, “Stand up for your rights; defend your rights.” He did say, however, to stand up for the poor, the marginalised, the oppressed and the least of these. He did say, however, to turn the other cheek. He didn’t say, “Put away your sword...unless someone is coming after your family; then you can kill them.” He did say, however, “He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.”
Now before you read my thoughts as unpatriotic, please know that I don’t hate the USA or Great Britain anymore than Jesus hated Jerusalem (which is not at all, in case you’re wondering). I simply pledge my allegiance to the cross and to Him who overcomes it.
So those are my thoughts on the “real issues” we’re dealing with when we’re dealing with gun violence or racism or the general badness that we see going on in the world around us.
