For Whom the Bell Tolls...

How did we get here? Yet another terrorist attack, this time in New Zealand where 49 innocent people lost their lives and countless others are left in grief, despair and fear. There was a time when terrorist attacks were a shock to the system, because they were so rare. Today it seems they are so common we almost expect them. No one knows where the next one will happen or by whom, and so we trudge on through our daily lives, sitting on that niggling fear of when and where and who it will be next. There was a time when it was a shock; when the trauma of it all ran deep in our veins. The thing about repeated shock is that at one point our survival mechanisms kick in and we go numb. I think we have collectively reached a point of numbness when it comes to mass violence, though we still pay lip service on social media, possibly feeling sad for a brief moment before moving on with our day.

Terrorism; white supremacy; patriarchy; colonialism; systemic racism. All of these things exist and yet none of them have a specific form. They are abstract concepts conceived of in academia to express the different faces of a single human trait; oppression. The belief that my group is superior for reasons XYZ. The belief that that superiority gives me the right to impose myself on those not like me.

Anthropologists call it ethnocentrism and it is a universal human trait. In its healthy expression it allows groups to have cohesive beliefs that unite them as a people. In its neurotic form it manifests as evidence that my group has rights and privileges that others don’t. Coupled with the biological reality that humans are predatory animals, this leaves us in a sticky mess, 7 billion humans deep.

So what do we do with this information? It seems to me we have a choice to make, one that is more philosophical than anything else. Do we choose to believe that humans are governed solely by their animalistic impulses, or do we believe in a collective ability to grow and change? It seems that if we give credence to our biological evolution as a species, then there is also the potential for a moral and social evolution. On an intellectual level I think many of us can agree on this point. But what does this then demand of us on a practical level? How are we agents of this evolution (or potential devolution) on a day to day basis? Are we standing up to injustice? Are we supporting those who don’t have the same privilege as us? Are we teaching our children that love and respect trump being the “winner”? Are we conducting ourselves with integrity and kindness? Are we reflecting on our actions? Are we working on our inner lives? If the answer to any of these is ‘no’, then it becomes clear where the process of change must begin.

Acts of hate are so common place that to sit with them each time they occur would mean to live with a gaping wound. But there truly is no other solution other than to face that gaping wound. Change occurs when individuals begin to make new choices. Our current status quo is simply unacceptable; we all see it, and yet we are so deep in the grind, the rat race, in survival, in the dizzying orbit of our little lives, that we don’t feel we have the energy, time or will to make a change. The only antidote to our collective numbness is to resensitize ourselves; to feel the pain. Sit with the grief. Now I say this with some trepidation; I am not saying we should wallow. The numbness we feel is there for a reason, after all. It is a protection mechanism that makes it possible for us to continue to function in spite of fear and pain. There is a massive conundrum in feeling the pain, because pain often causes us to lash out in a vain attempt to make it stop. It makes it hard to think straight or with any nuance. ‘Nuance’ is the take away here. Pain turns the entire world to simple black and white terms; you hurt me, I hurt you back. You hate me, I hate you more. Finding the nuance in the pain breaks that cycle; it stops diluting the complexity; it ushers wisdom into the foreground, a quality that is sorely lacking in the collective analysis of our issues.

The brutal reality is that we are all responsible for either our collective ascension or demise. It does not lie in the hands of our government or our corporations; it is not the fault of our perceived enemies. Nuance recognizes that there is both a structural reality of violence and oppression and an individual responsibility to address it. Reality is never black and white, a simple yes or no; it is always both. We are both the oppressed and the oppressor. We are both the victims and the ones responsible to make the change. In acts of violence we are both the perpetrators and the wounded. We did not write the narrative but we perpetuate it. We did not choose the path, but it is our responsibility to forge a new one. These changes will not happen at any level of power until they are consciously exercised, daily, in our tiny, inconsequential, and yet vastly precious lives.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main… any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. Therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee." – John Donne