Red In Tooth and Claw

Who trusted God was love indeed

And love creation's final law

Tho nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shreik'd against his creed.

-Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H

I have been thinking a bit lately about how it is often necessary to listen to unfriendly criticism.  It starts with the present and obvious reality that we all tend to inhabit bubbles of our own creation.  We want to have our worldview and our egos affirmed as often as possible.  I know I live in a bubble every time I turn on Fox News or listen to Donald Trump give... well I guess you could call them speeches.  There is screeching dissonance between the things I hear and see and the world I want to exist.  The question I have to ask myself then is whether the dissonance is between my own opinions and thoughts about how things are, which are essentially creations of my ego, or whether there is something more real underneath.

This is where the unrelenting assault on the truth becomes critical.  This is where the idea that we cannot trust anyone to help us discern the truth becomes savage.  This is where the postmodern blitzkrieg against objectivity and meaning becomes truly destructive.

These days I truly appreciate people who have the wherewithal to poke through bubbles rather than just comfortably dwelling within those bubbles. Richard Rohr names the enemy of our common humanity as something rather different than you might expect from a Franciscan priest, it is not Satan, it is not even evil, it is Dualism.  It is our stubborn insistence on creating dichotomy: good/bad, smart/dumb, believer/apostate, orthodox/heretic, Democrat/Republican, liberal/conservative.  Even as I wrote that list, I realize that I (unconsciously) put things in a certain order.  The things I consider good were first and the bad, or maybe less good were second.  Lord have mercy upon me, a wretched bubble dwelling sinner.

The problem with Dualism, from a Christian/Jewish/Muslim perspective, is that there is one God.  In fact, the Muslim mantra: "There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet," is a pretty important feature in their belief and practice.  Likewise, the Hebrew prayer Shema: "Hear O Israel, the Lord, the Lord your God, is ONE."  We Christians have probably muddied this up more than our Abrahamic kinfolk with the whole Father, Son, Holy Spirit, perichoresis thing, but believe me, most of us do actually believe that God is one, just three in one, one in three, triune, God in three persons, blessed Trinity (sorry, I just started singing a hymn for no good reason).

I can't really begin to deal adequately with polytheism, pantheism, paganism, Hinduism or any of that, because while I can seek to understand them, they are too far outside my bubble for me to really feel them, so what I feel like I need to do is try to use the tools and weapons that I find within my own worldview to slay the dragons of dualism that I find here.  Helpful things that appear within my sphere, like say the opinion page of the New York Times.  Yeah, yeah, I know, liberal media, failing Times, fake news, whatever, they actually give some pretty good conservative folk a voice and even a few that probably should have their voice taken away (sorry, there I go with the Dualist hating again).  David Brooks consistently impresses me with his analysis of things.  This piece is no exception, TL;DR he talks about the rather troubling culture of the call out.  This is something I know, because in certain sub-cultures the call out has been around for a long time.  When I was in high school, my friends and I would have conversations/arguments about music groups that had either "sold out" or not sold out.  Depending on the group of people this could have been about punk bands like Green Day or metal bands like Metallica, and even the occasional rap group/artist.  In the punk scene, as the Invisibilia, episode Brooks is on about describes, there was a certain rigorous morality to the argument.  The most serious punk rockers of the 1990's were "straight-edge," which meant no drugs, no alcohol, sometimes even no sex, or at least sex within the confines of committed relationship only.  Fugazi, a very well put together band, insisted on never signing with a major label, never writing empty pop-punk songs, never charging more than $5 for a show, never giving in to the pressure/opportunity of becoming big time rock stars.

I saw Fugazi perform several times over the course of my high school/college years, and each time it became less fun.  The last time I went, Ian Mckay spent most of the night lecturing the frat boys in the mosh pit about playing nice, and getting genuinely upset when they seemed more intent on hitting the boys and groping the girls then they did about actually moshing in the good old fashioned way.

Those were the days when call outs were born.  Those were the days when a sort of fundamentalism that has overrun the interweb was hatching out of some vile egg of individualism.  They came for the pseudo-punks and I said nothing because those guys are jerks.  They came for the fans of crappy music and I said nothing because who needs more crappy music.  You get the idea, but eventually all of us get called out, and it's not any fun, especially if you kind of deserve it, like you make a racist or sexist comment, or if you forget to "check your privilege," in the wrong company.

I respect Ian McKay as an artist, and for his moral values, but man, he just flat out ruined a good concert with his call outs.  What Brooks is lamenting in his opinion piece is a very real problem for our current brutally polarized culture: no one wants to be the "victim" of a call out, and some people are willing to go to extremes to avoid it.  See sometimes Call Outs backfire.  

Example: A fairly equality minded white kid makes some comment that rubs a black kid the wrong way, a call out on racist ground ensues, and shame is introduced.  Do you think that that white kid became more or less racist on the basis of that call out?  If they are reflective and open enough, maybe they get better, but probably not.  Most likely the sting of that convinces them that they are, in fact, a victim, even though the reality may be quite different.

Example: A man makes what he considers a gesture of friendliness or politeness towards a woman at work and gets called out for sexism or even sexual harassment. Do you think he automatically becomes more conscious of gender inequality? Or does he become more hostile towards women in the workplace as a sort of defensive posture?

This is a serious problem, this is how you make majority groups who are objectively privileged feel threatened and unpredictable and likely to do something irrational that may even be contrary to their own interests.  How does everyone these days seem to think the media is biased against them and their tribe?  Why do most of the people you talk to feel like the world is just sliding into the abyss in some way, shape or form?

I think it's because they have bought the dualism at the heart of all of our worst impulses: if I'm good others are bad, if I'm going to win others have to lose, if I'm going to survive others must die.  Nature, red in tooth and claw, but that is not the ultimate truth.  There is a "more excellent way," as the Apostle Paul says.  Love is creation's final law, because God is One and God is love.  Love not only casts out fear, it casts out dualism altogether.  You can't really "call out" someone you love, at least not in the way it's being done these days. You can challenge them, you might be able to correct them, but you have to love them first, and that, friends and neighbors is sorely missing from our world.