There’s a street preacher on the corner of Whyte Ave and 105 Street. He’s not there all the time but, when he is, you know it.
He’s there doing his best to spread the good word, as he sees it, from his raised platform, microphone in hand and, though I disagree with him, I can’t help but admire the commitment to keep showing up despite any visible signs of positive response and having to wrangle with the drunks and belligerent passer-byes.
His words are a lament on behalf of our souls. “You’re a sinner. I’ll prove it to you. Have you ever lied?” he cries out. “Of course you have. So, what does that make you? It makes you a liar! Have you ever committed adultery? Ever cheated on a partner? Then what does that make you? An adulterer!”
He bangs on as if his logic in unassailable. It’s the most common go to argument I’ve heard Christians use to prove our sinful nature, “If you do (or even think about doing) ______ then you’re a _______.”
Of course, it never seems to get flipped around. I’ve never heard a minister fomenting at the pulpit and haranguing his congregation with, “You’re innocent. I’ll prove it to you. Have you ever helped a stranger or even thought about it? Then what does that make you? A good Samaritan! Have you ever helped a friend in need? Then what does that make you? A solid friend that’s what! Can I get an amen!”
I’d pay good money to see that sermon.
After all, if it’s true on one side, then it’s got to be true on the other side too. But, is it true at all?
Most of my friends wouldn’t use the word ‘sinner’ and would foam at the mouth and rail against those who do for all of the reasons there are to rail against the idea that we are inherently, deep in our core, bad and unredeemable except by choosing the right Church to go to to get guidance. I have friends who would rail against how this story of Adam and Eve is at the root of misogyny, pagans who would rail against how this word creates a divide between the divine and humans, atheists who think the whole idea is rubbish, and others with deep and elaborate critiques of their own.
No, the people I tend to roll with don’t call people ‘sinners’ anymore.
And so, it’s easy to make fun of the street preachers and what we imagine to be their twisted logic. But as much as we might want to skewer them with our sense of superiority, we might be better served in learning what they’re saying, not to agree with it but to be informed by the deeper story of how it came to be because we do the exact same thing in our own ways all of the time.
It’s one of the most penetrating and worthy conundrums we face and perhaps one of the central perplexions around which culture is formed. “What do we do when someone causes real harm or pain?”
“What do we do when someone causes real harm or pain?”
In this day and age, for the most part, if we deem it to be bad enough, we label them and do everything we can to make sure that label sticks. We decide who they are once and for all because it makes life easier and we don’t have to deal with the heartbreaking reality that good people can do bad things and that bad people can do good things.
If someone struggles with the drink, then they are ‘a drunk’. If they can’t stop using, then they are ‘an addict’. If they struggle with their moods then they are a ‘manic depressive’. And, of course, these kinds of labels can be a form of discernment that help people become aware of the true nature of their struggles and get much needed help. But they can also be used to dismiss people and write them off.
We describe a situation as ‘problematic’ instead of the more vulnerable position of ‘I have a problem with that.’ We say an dynamic is ‘troubling’ instead of saying we are troubled by it. We affix permanent lables. We are a culture obsessed with naming who and what people are and utterly out of touch with what is alive inside of ourselves and what we might be feeling or needing at any given moment or what others might be feeling or needing.
I remember a friend of mine in London, England taking in a friend after he’d had a near fatal - though accidental - overdose on what he’d thought was cocaine. Her roommate, upon hearing the story became livid, “You brought a coke-head into our flat?!” She ended up moving out within a week as things spiralled out quickly. He wasn’t interested in learning anything more about the situation.
“Do I contradict myself? So I contradict myself! I am vast! I contain multitudes!” - Walt Whitman
Many of us can sympathize when the person’s patterns mostly hurt only themselves and might push back to say, “Hey, that’s not all they are!” but when it hurts others or hurts vulnerable people and crosses certain lines... suddenly we’re not so quick to defend their humanity.
If someone steals money from you, then they become ‘a thief’. If someone rapes another person, then they become a ‘rapist’. If someone kills another person, then they become ‘a murderer’. If someone abuses a romantic partner, then they become ‘an abuser’. It is no longer something they have done, it is now who they are. It’s no longer a pattern of behaviour, it’s now an identity.
We stick the label on, them in jail and to our certainty that we’ve got them figured out and that our society is safer with them out of the way.
I’m not arguing that jail isn’t needed in some cases. But I am lifting up the question of why we think this will solve everything and inviting us to consider what might be underwriting that knee-jerk impulse.
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
This culture doesn’t seem to be very good at expressing pain or grief without turning it into a moral judgment of some sort.
The language we have inherited is based in a static, hardline, black/white, right/wrong, correct/incorrect, good/bad, acceptable/unacceptable, intellectual and rigidly moral view of the world.
This language doesn’t have a strong vocabulary to express what’s really alive inside of us, or of needs and feelings. An inner life is hardly recognized and is rarely expressed because the language only allows for thoughts, beliefs and opinions to be conveyed.
Most of the language used, and encouraged, by modern culture has a number of troubling characteristics but there are a few worth focusing on here:
It morally judges: I’m right . . . You’re wrong . . . We’re good . . . They’re bad . . .
It labels: You’re mean . . . She’s bossy . . . He’s dumb . . . I’m lazy . . . You’re so stupid! . . . Stop being such a cry baby . . . What a loser . . . You’re awesome . . . He’s a winner . . . He’s so smart . . . He’s rude! . . . She’s so needy . . . He’s so aloof . . .
“Before you get too cocky, remember that there’s someone is therapy because of you.” - Wayne Dyer
Think about that thing you did.
You know the one.
That one you’re the most ashamed of. The one you haven’t told anyone save, perhaps one or two trusted friends. The one that taught you the meaning of unspeakable. If you don’t have such a one in your life, consider that neither did others until the moment after it happened and that it’s not impossible that such a stone of regret might be added to your days before you go.
Think of that as you read the rest of this.
Think of how much you believe that you deserve to be punished.
“When you refer to humans as cockroaches that is a mandate for murder. Let’s be clear about that. The moment human beings become non-human, that is a mandate for murder.” - Akala
On Frankie Boyle's 2015 UK Election Autopsy rapper Akala pointed out the way that Syrian refugees were being referred to as cockroaches. He pointed out that, “...when you refer to humans as cockroaches that is a mandate for murder. Let’s be clear about that. The moment human beings become non-human, that is a mandate for murder.”
Think of all the racial slurs you’ve ever heard. This is what they do. They say, “You are less than human. You are bad. You deserve to be punished. You do not deserve support.”
It’s easy to condemn this manner of speaking about people. But we do this all the time.
“She’s a feminazi.”
“He’s a redneck racist.”
“Fucking anarchist.”
“Corporate sell out.”
“Dirty hippie.”
“Vegan loser.”
“Meat eating animal hater.”
We do this all the time. And, when we do it, it justifies the worst possible treatment of them because, “they deserve it.” Just like some Christians believe that sinners deserve the ultimate punishment of hell.
Restorative justice, at the deeper level demands that we contend with the deeper question of, “How did it get to be this way? How is it that this person came to do these things that caused so much harm?”
All of this, of course, leads us to our core notions around safety and justice.
We label people to simplify the process of keeping our communities safe. If we can identify that someone is causing hard and then label them as some kind of abuser then we don’t have to treat them as a human and we have carte blanche to punish them.
This is the basic algebra of punitive justice: There is such a thing as good and bad. This will be determined by those with the most power in a given context. People who do good things are good people. People who do bad things are bad people. Good people deserve to be rewarded. Bad people deserve to be punished. If bad people are punished and everyone sees that, then they’ll be scared to do the bad things they might have been tempted to do. Punitive justice also rests in the understanding of justice as purity. If we can identify all of the offending persons and get rid of them, then our community will, finally, be safe. This is the model of the United States jail system. And, of course, this all isn’t without merit and utility, but is it a complete answer?
Restorative justice has a different algebra: Rather than looking at right or wrong, it looks at consequence, damage and harm (and if any was even done). It looks at pain being triggered. It understands that people are deeply complicated and are capable of doing things that weave the fabric of community together and rending it apart. It understands that a part of being human is that we forget how to be one at times. Rather than looking at ‘who is what?’ and ‘who deserves what?’ it steps back and asks, ‘What is needed here to bring more wholeness?’ and seeks to redeem the one who caused the harm. It seeks to keep them in the community and find a path towards reintegrating them in a way the honours both what happened, the amends made and the new role of the one who caused the harm. Restorative justice rests in this understanding of justice as wholeness and that, if we can identify the troubled parts of our community, stop the harm and find the right role for them, then our community becomes stronger, safer and more resilient. This is the model of many indigenous communities in the world.
Restorative justice acknowledges that it's easy to throw lables on people without seeing how it hurts any chances of correction. Because, of course, the offender they will either resist the lable or collapse into it. Either way, nothing is learned and the pattern is likely to continue.
It’s important to note that a restorative approach is not soft. It doesn’t mean we let the abuse continue. It begins with stopping it but it does not end there. It cannot meaningful begin until the damage-making stops and it understands that it will rarely be stopped by asking nicely. It understands that a protective use of force may be called into play.
“Reconciliation is the most important process we need to become good human beings because we are flawed and so we need a process. Reconciliation is seeing each other as humans and as deserving of love as we are. But it’s not appropriate to talk about reconciliation when injustices still persist.” - Wab Kinew
And there’s something deeper here. Restorative justice, at the deeper level, demands that we contend with the deeper question of, “How did it get to be this way? How is it that this person came to do these things that caused so much harm?”
If we say, “It’s because they’re a bad person,” then the mystery is over and curiosity withers on the vine long before its needed fruit can appear. Punitive justice is the end of learning, possibly the end to any real justice and, almost certainly, a guarantee that the harm will continue on as its roots lay untouched and unexamined, the fruits of harmful behaviour plucked off the vine and the vine hacked away. But, of course, the vine is ready to grow back stronger than before when everyone has moved on.
*
There are many indigenous tribes that do not have a verb ‘to be’.
The only way they can speak about others would be in relation to something else. There would be a heavy use of verbs but there would be no verb to connote an isolated existence or solitary, atomized ‘you’ that I could get an easy handle on and know. If there was, then I could know it and never really have to learn anything more about you again because I’d really know ‘you’. Without this, the only way to talk about you is to talk about the context in which you appear. Indigenous words for animals are rich with examples of this.
Plato and Aristotle assumed that to abstract from the incarnate to the essence was an immense, creative achievement but, what if it was actually at the root of the catastrophes we face today and what if we are trying to address those catastrophes with the same approach that created them?
Now consider how you would communicate your hurt and rage at someone’s actions without being able to say, “You are...”
What would you say instead?
*
This modern culture traffics deeply in essentialism, the notion that everything in this world has an essence to it in it that is unchangeable. That there’s an essential part of me that doesn’t depend on you. That my humanity doesn’t hang on the way you treat me, look at me or speak to me because it’s independent of all of that.
This notion, with roots deep in the history of Western Civilization, seems liberating, but is, in fact, isolating. It seems like it makes us strong, but it is the achilles heel of modern culture in two ways. The first is that is lays the groundwork for our modern narcissism and worship at the altar of the self. The second, and the real scorpions tail of it, is this: what if that essence is bad? What if someone in authority or enough people decide that who I am is bad?
Essentialism promises us invulnerability but delivers us vulnerability.
Do you remember that thing you’re ashamed of that no one knows about?
“Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.” - Malcolm X
I have friends who still drink and drive. No one has ever been hurt. But it’s Russian Roulette every time they do.
I have a friend who was a heavy drinker. And, one night, in a drunken black out, he was told that he sexually assaulted a girl he was seeing. He hasn’t been told any of the details. He’s signed up for AA since then and is devastated that this came out of him.
No one ever thinks they would have been a Nazi if they’d lived in Germany in the 1940’s.
But let’s say the adult thing here: Just because the conditions haven’t conspired to bring out the ugly side of you, doesn’t mean it’s not there. Just because you’ve gotten away with bad behaviour without anyone getting hurt, doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have happened easily. Just because no one knows about what you did, it doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been all over the internet.
And so what does that make you?
It doesn’t make you good. It doesn’t make you bad. It makes you lucky.
*
The perspective that life is about right and wrong carries with it consequences. One of those consequences is that, if something is wrong, then we’re not allowed to acknowledge that any goodness or beauty came from it. We’re not allowed to harvest the unwanted blessings from hard things. It’s it’s wrong and bad, then we have to burn it to the ground until there’s no trace of it left.
What if they weren’t monsters but monstered?
We tell ourselves that if we banish what’s bad it will be gone. But, it could also be that if what banish what’s bad it becomes worse. Looked at another way, it could be that the banishing is what made it bad in the first place.
If you read old European Folk tales, you will come across all manner of demons and monsters who mean humanity no good. But try this if you’re willing: read those stories again with the possibility in mind that these demons and monsters were once the traditional gods of this place, turned into monsters by the neglect of their people as a result of religious conversion. What if they weren’t monsters but monstered? Read Beowulf like that and you’ll read a very different book. That which you banish doesn’t go away. It goes underground. It comes out at night. It leaves a space for toxic mimics to appear.
*
Secretly, most of us are so terrified that, if people really knew who we were, what we think about and what we’d done they'd hate us. We wouldn't be enough. And so we posture and pretend to be something else; to act more together than we feel. After all, we've seen how others have gotten ostracized, shunned and judged for being less than perfect. We've seen that, when someone triggers pain in another, they can instantly be turned into the enemy. And we've heard the words said about them (sometimes those words even came out of our own mouths).
“All concepts are like a jar we break.” - St. Teresa of Avila
There’s a man I know, deeply steeped in spiritual practice for decades who, one day, realized that he didn’t love his wife and children. His wife realized this and told it to his face a week later. “I know,” he said. “I just realized that myself.” What he’d seen was that he didn’t really love them. He loved what they gave to him and how they bolstered his identity as a ‘good man’ and ‘kind father’ and a ‘loving husband’. His attachment to those ideas about himself was what had stopped him from seeing the painful truth. Once he really saw that, the love began to flow more fully.
Our ideas that we are good people and bad people may be the first ones that need to be questioned before our genuine, whole humanity can appear.
*
Punitive justice seems to be obsessed with tallying up who did what and therefore who deserves what.
But the word tally comes from the same etymological roots as the word tale which is a word for story.
Punitive justice seems to be obsessed with holding people accountable for what they’ve done. And the word account is another word for story.
But there’s not much capacity for story-listening present in punitive justice at all.
"How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light." - Barry Lopez
Real harm is being done to others. We’ve all perpetrated harm to some degree (and those who claim not to have are the most dangerous of all). The consequences are very real. We all carry deep, unexamined trauma inside of us and it’s passed down from generation to generation.
And so, what do we do about it?
New Age aphorisms of ‘it’s all meant to happen’ and ‘it’s all for love’ don’t seem to cut it.
Sweeping it under the rug works in the short term but leaves a larger mess to be cleaned up by those who come after us.
Ignoring the seriousness of what’s happening doesn’t work.
But neither, in the long run, do the ‘lock’em up or kick’em out!’ notions of punitive justice.
*
I walk by the street preacher some nights as I head to meet friends at the Black Dog for a beer and I wonder how he got there, how street preaching ever came to be seen as a good idea or time for anyone, how his Church got to where it is, and how Churches came to be at all.
There’s a lot to wonder about.
The street preachers lament about our sinful nature needs to be learned but it doesn’t need to be our battle cry, anymore than we need to be lulled asleep by the new age, nursery rhymes about how everyone is love.
I think something else is being asked of us.
I think what’s being asked for us is to be willing to be utterly heartbroken by how bad things have become amongst us. The Okanagan tribe in Canada didn’t even have a word for rape and now this world is over-run with it. Eco-systems are being destroyed. Our climate is being destabilized. The gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow.
I think what’s being asked of us is the hard learning of how things are.
I think what’s being asked of us is to see that all clearly and let it break us open and to sustain the gaze at it. I think what’s being asked is the willingness to admit that we don’t know what the answers are to this and that we are terrified and overwhelmed by it.
I think this is all particularly being asked of those of us who have long been on the receiving end of the unearned privileges of our times. I think this seeing of how it is is mostly asked of those who have been blind to it and insulated from it the most.
I think what’s being asked of us is to stop obsessing with who is what and to start sharing the truth of what is alive inside of us even when it’s terrifying to do so.
I think what’s asked of us is the capacity to hear the human pain in people that is underwriting whatever labels and judgments they might be using without making them wrong for using them.
I think what’s being asked of us is to see how woefully inadequate labeling and punishing people are to resolve the crises of violence and abuse we see in this world.
I think we’re being asked to see that hurt people hurt people and that one of the most bankrupt notions in the world is that the worse we treat people, the better they will behave.
I think what’s being asked of us is to acknowledge that there are no ‘good people’ or ‘bad people’ in this world but that humans are deeply complicated and that the same person who is capable of wonderful things may also do terrible things - that this reality or potential lives inside of all of us.
I think what’s being asked of us is to see the deep poverty of our culture in how we are being expected to, somehow, bring out only our better angels and wrestle our worst demons... entirely on our own. One of the central roles of a larger culture, mythology and ritual is to contend with this so that we are not left us to our own devices.
I think what’s being asked of us is to give up the juvenile demand that the world be simpler, easier to understand and reducible to good guys and bad guys so that we can finally relax and feel certain about what to do. This is what children do. But we aren’t children anymore. And, if we are, then wrestling with this meaningfully and honestly is what might have the best chance to finally end that childhood for the good of all involved.
I think what’s being asked of us is to stop trying to gain some strange and unearned moral authority from the never seen but often quoted from Book of Supposed To and starting singing the hymns from The Book of How It Is.
I think what’s being asked of us is to not so much to accept the deep complexity of our times but to give voice to it and articulate it faithfully with the most eloquence we can muster.
I think what’s being asked of us is to stop obsessing about the labels we put on people and to start asking, “What’s needed here? What are these times asking of me?”.
I think what’s being asked of us is to get real about whether our goal is to work for the healing of the world and the expansion of a community of people doing this healing or if we are just posturing to be seen as better than others in the ever shrinking congregation of the truly devout and the closing ranks of the worthy. Are we working for a holier world or just to be seen as 'holier than everyone else'?
I think what’s being asked of us is to see that our manner of approach to the very real damage in the world is, itself, a result of the damage and a creator of more of it.
I think we’re being asked to see that banishment of the painful parts of our culture and psyche into the shadows (be those shadows cast by our shunning or prison bars) is what creates more of the thing we’re banishing.
I think we’re being asked to get better at courting the participation of others into the larger work of redemption.
I think we’re being asked to learn new ways to see life that might bear some other, sweeter fruit than retribution and punishment.
I think what’s being asked of us is to do the hard and expensive learning of what’s happening and ask the troubled parts of the world closest to us, those parts doing the hurting and being hurt, “How did you come to be this way? What is the bigger story of you, the one that began a long time before you were born? Tell us the tale and account of how you came to be here amongst us in this way. How did you become so starving that you ate so many things that were not food? How is it that you were eaten?”
I think we’re being asked to learn how to fashion meaning and beauty from all the kindness we’ve extended and the harm we’ve done, every part of our legacy woven together, nothing left out.
Suggested Reading:
Non Violent Communication - Marsall Rosenberg
The Outside Circle - Patti Laboucane-Benson
Changing Lenses: Restorative Justice for Our Times - Howard Zehr
Great insights, Ted. Thank you for writing and posting this.