inklingfair It’s 5:23 AM. I’ve been kept up by this Twitter thread of a debate between Filipino capitalists and leftists across the spectrum, arguing about the legitimacy and morality of rebellion/war. Leni has always said that rebellion is justified in the UDHR:
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Even the writer of Ecclesiastes asserts there is “a time for war and a time for peace“. I dislike violence. Or to be more accurate: I dislike violence against me. As a catechumenate, I know this isn’t Christ-like. To be Christ-like is to be a peace-maker, yet to also accept violence against my person if it is the only way to love the Other. When is it the only way, then? I don’t have an easy answer. But I do believe that the struggle isn’t just against human enemies, but against the evil that enslaves them. This is not to discount human agency, though. We make choices, selfish and proud ones. And so perhaps it makes sense that the only way to win is to make the choice to “be small”: selfless, humble. To do what Christ did, bearing others’ faults:
Yet he was pierced through for our faults,
Isaiah 53:5
crushed for our sins.
On him lies the punishment that brings us peace,
and through his wounds we are healed.
It makes no sense at all, and yet it makes perfect sense. To stop the war we bear the wounds of war in our bodies. To be frank, I don’t think I have that spirit or courage. And I think this is the worst lie of Western individualism: telling us to “love ourselves”. No wonder we are unwilling to die to ourselves for our community. We pursue our own happiness at the expense of others (capitalism, I’m looking at you). Hence apathy, inequity, oppression, tyranny, war. Is the answer a government (or community) that orchestrates how much “love” we ought to give our neighbor? Even that sounds like organized religion.
I struggle with the smallest, simplest conflict in my life: the one I constantly have with Amy. Today a wise person helped me realize that my harshness towards her is unjust: after all, she has a largely undeveloped prefrontal cortex, and her amygdala (reptile brain) acts on impulse a lot of the time. But that doesn’t mean I have to. Before my own amygdala hijacks my heart rate (100bpm) and triggers my fight response (yelling, sarcasm), I can step out and take 10-second breaths for 20 minutes and put my prefrontal cortex back in command. I can tell my reptile brain: “Be small”. (That’s not the job of government, btw. That’s just PFC reclaiming agency.)
Back to war. Perhaps there are situations that call for it. But if we could dial it back first to the fundamental conflict between people, I wish we could say: It is just to love the Other. And I wish we knew how best to do that. By this we cover many wrongs done, and maybe stop the violent cycle.
