Not So Instant Karma

See, this alone I found, that God made human beings straightforward,

but they have devised many schemes.

-Ecclesiastes 7: 20

As a Christian, I do not have an explicit belief in the idea of Karma, the Hindu belief that your actions will resonate both positively and negatively into the future. Observation of reality though tells me that something very much like Karma is rather real.  As tempting as it is to dally around with eastern philosophy and talk about Dharma and Karma, that's really not my end of the pool, so let me tell you about the Teacher of Ecclesiastes, called Quoheleth in Hebrew.  You may know that I am super fond of Ecclesiastes because it is the most punk rock book in the Bible.  I always kind of wished that somehow, somewhere the Bad Brains had recorded a sped up, raged up, version of Pete Seeger's Turn, Turn, Turn, because that would have actually brought the words and the feeling of Ecclesiastes together in an almost perfect artistic moment, but I digress.

Let's just say I love Ecclesiastes because it does not sugar coat life, like at all. Kings are powerful, power and wealth usually rule the day, but in the end, none of that is going to make you happy, because it's "all vanity and chasing after the wind."  What's more, the greater your schemes get the harder your fall is probably going to be, and Quoheleth, for all his nihilism does seem to believe that there is inevitably going to be a fall, a judgment, an accounting for what has been done.

The Teacher seems to think that the best strategy is to hang back and keep it simple, don't try to fly to high, that will only attract destruction.  Mythology tells us this with tales of Icarus flying too close to the sun and Prometheus aspiring to god like power only to have his liver perpetually eaten by vultures. Quoheleth clearly advises people to keep it simple and stop trying to rule the world, it's going to end badly, as Homer (Simpson that is) told his son, "The moral of the story is never try."

If you accept the scholarly analysis that Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon at the end of his life, after his political career had blown up and he had been brought low by intrigue and old age, you might be tempted to disregard this clearly jaded wisdom, but I think Quoheleth is more than just grumpy, worn out, Solomon, I think he is the voice of perspective and honestly something very much needed no matter where or when you happen to be living. Something very like Dharma and Karma inhabit his observations: goodness and righteousness don't always seem to win, but just wait. It's like the rests between the musical notes or the negative space in painting, it's there, it's real and it is going to show up sometime.

Do you notice how people who push the boundaries of decency, especially in the public sphere do seem to get their comeuppance?  I know, it seems like it can take a long time, as it did with Harvey Weinstein and such, but do you notice how the universe just seems to pull back the wicked eventually?  You might despair as it can sometimes take a long time, but don't lose faith and patience in God or Dharma, or whatever you happen to call it.  Observe the curious case of Sean Hannity, rage muppet extraordinaire.  Sean has made a rather successful career being angry about liberal media bias, manning the watchtower of "fair and balanced" over at Fox News.  Sean has been bombastically certain that George Soros and Barack Obama were surely out to try and turn America into a Socialist state under Sharia law (as if that was possible).  He would rail in his best "Am I the only sane rational person?" tone of voice about how college professors were actively trying to do away with the first amendment to the Constitution and how Jeff Bezos of Amazon and The Washington Post was somehow trying to squash his rag-tag group of freedom loving conserva-hawks (as if he didn't work for Rupert freaking Murdoch).

So now, as it turns out, Sean Baby was in some papers seized from Trump's fixer, ahem lawyer, under a duly executed warrant by New York State with Federal Court approval.  Hannity had said lawyer on his show many times and they puzzled quizzically about how upset the snowflakes were about the just and holy Donald.  Sean scrambled the defense forces and insisted that Cohen was not his lawyer, just a friend that he sometimes asked for legal advice.  This does not make Hannity come out clean, it just makes him into a moocher among other things.

None of this is really a surprise.  We all knew that Hannity was on the Trump bandwagon early and he has pretty much become lead sycophant in the administration. That's pretty much on message for Fox, but what isn't going to sit well at a network reeling from Bill O'reilley and Roger Ailes, is the perception of shadiness.  Raw partisanship is one thing, being in some sort of elite boys club that specialized in hush money and silencing women who were used by your wealthy, powerful alpha males?  Well that's probably not going to win friends and influence people.  The thing that Hannity has railed against for years, in fact built his brand upon, is the thing that he now appears quite guilty of: being in the hip pocket of an administration, that's what is particularly Karmic about this whole thing. Hannity and Fox News in general whooped and hollered about how The New York Times and The Washington Post were practically Obama's Press agents, while those outlets often issued quite critical reports about the previous administration, and certainly had no conflicts of interest on par with the Han man and the Donald sharing a freaking fixer (sorry, lawyer).

I'm more thankful than ever for the perspective of the Quoheleth, because without knowing that it's all vanity and chasing after the wind, this might just drive me crazy.

It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

-Ecclesiastes 7: 5