Broken Not Crushed living life as a statement, not an apology

21/03/06 22:50
I read a quote the other day that really resonated with me:

Strange thing about these peace movements: They rarely mobilize to oppose the killing, torture and imprisonment practiced by dictators. It is only when their own country attempts to end the oppression that the activists become active against America, not the initiators of evil. Peace, like happiness, is a byproduct, not a goal that can be unilaterally attained. Peace happens when evil is vanquished. – Cal Thomas 03/06/06

The last two sentences caught my attention, and I thought they were brilliant. The more I thought on it, the more I thought that this pretty well sums up what I see as the two dominant worldviews responsible for most of the political differences between right & left, dove & hawk, conservative & liberal, even theist and non-theist.

They are:

1. Human beings are basically good. Left to themselves, they will achieve a state of peace & prosperity. Harmony is the norm, derivations from it can be resolved through negotiation, and there is no need for appeals to the divine.

2. Human beings are basically rotten. Left to themselves, they will tear each other apart. Bloodshed and misery are the norm, and derivations from it can only be achieved through forceful (or divine) intervention.

I think the folks sporting the “War is never the answer” bumper stickers must subscribe to the first. They truly do not see real evil in the world, but only reactions to injustices perpetrated by the strong on the weak. Take away the injustices, level the playing field, make the strong weak, and the bad things will go away. This was Marx and Engels — abolish capitalism, the mechanism for the rich to make the poor miserable, and the misery will go away. This is also home to the idea of the “Noble Savage” — the peace-loving, untouched, primitive peoples who were untainted by evil until they came into contact with the “civilized” West.

The second view is that of Orwell in “Animal Farm”, or Golding in “Lord of the Flies” — given the opportunity, anyone will take advantage of the weak for his own gain (or, to quote Steve Taylor, “Ideals fall like dominoes, when the money looks good”). There is true evil in the world, and negotiating with it won’t make it go away. This is the realm of theism, that recognizes the natural state of things as broken, and sees the only answer as one OUTSIDE the natural realm.

In my philosophy studies, we were taught to define terms, and look always for underlying presuppositions. Without those pieces, you will be talking over each other but never communicating. And that’s the state we seem to be in now.

Which brings me back to Cal Thomas. Everyone wants peace. The doves aren’t evil and the hawks aren’t evil – they simply believe different things will achieve peace. But peace “is a byproduct”. It’s simply not possible to force someone to be peaceful if they don’t want to be. The only way to ensure peace is to “tie up the strongman”. That’s how Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Not because he always turns the other cheek. Quite the contrary. He is the Prince of Peace because he will crush the enemy under his heel.

Peace happens only when evil is vanquished. There is real evil in the world, evil that will never respond to negotiation. Personally, I don’t understand how anyone, given the headlines and the brutal videos of innocent people having their heads sawed off, could believe that humans are essentially good. To watch Nick Berg being murdered, to hear his screams, puts that idea to rest in a hurry.