Violence like the weekend shooting in Arizona is scary. Random violence, like the death of 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time this weekend is particularly terrifying.
In the face of such terror, we seek reasons and explanations. We want to know who and what is to blame, hoping that if we could figure that out and make it go away, we would be free of such horrors as the mass murder that occurred in a Tucson shopping center just 48 hours ago.
I appreciate that impulse, and even indulged it for a while, seeking to figure out who created the context which enabled and empowered the accused shooter, Jared Loughner. Appreciating that he is obviously mentally ill, and accepting that we were not going to solve the problem of mental illness in the immediate future, I, like so many of us, wanted to find something I could address.
Like most people experiencing a moment of powerlessness and pain, I wanted something I could point to, something I could do something about. I found that "something" in Sarah Palin's gun sight ads. I wanted to lash out about the ways in which the Tucson shooting and the critical wounding of Rep. Gabby Giffords was a natural outcome of portraying her district in Palin's crosshairs.
Like many in the Jewish community, I even made quick comparisons to the rabbis whose teachings contributed to the context in which Yigal Amir -- the assassin who murdered Yitchak Rabin -- found justification for his actions. When leaders speak of violence, and use violent metaphors, actual violence is sure to follow. The problem is that even if that is so, shouting about it now will not actually help us.
The truth is, while there is a momentary burst of comfort in finding a cause, or contributing factor, in the shooting -- particularly one that gives us the moral high ground -- it doesn't really help. For starters, the initial analyses that follow a tragedy are rarely correct. They tend to be more about reassuring ourselves of the goodness of our own position than anything else. Second, such analyses typically provides comfort only by making us feel bad about something else -- in my case, Sarah Palin's ads, which is small comfort indeed.
Instead of raging about what someone else did to contribute to the shock, sorrow and pain we are feeling, we need to look to ourselves. Trying times, in Jewish tradition, have always called for self-examination. In Hebrew, it's called Heshbon HaNefesh, or soul searching.
Soul searching is not about letting those who pull the triggers off the hook. It is not about letting those who contribute to the culture in which pulling triggers seems more reasonable, off the hook either. But it is about looking inward to address those things which really are within our control, rather than simply raging about those things which are not.
In the wake of the shooting which took six lives and wounded 14 more, including Rep. Giffords, we can do more than rage about what others did and continue to do to contribute to incivility of our political culture. We can begin to change that culture by changing ourselves, something which we all have the power to do. I think it's what Gandhi meant when he taught people to be the change they wanted to see in the world.
In the wake of rising incivility, each of us can be a bit more civilized. Every one of us could speak a bit more gently, with a bit more appreciation of those with whom we come into contact. It's amazing how healing that can be, as anyone who lived through the events of 9/11 in New York City can attest to.
Following the 9/11 attacks, the people of New York City behaved better for weeks. There was a healing which came from deciding to treat each other better after others had attacked us so savagely. If this weekend's shooting is as big a tragedy as people are saying, then let's use the weeks following 9/11 as a model. Let's create the culture we want, even if it is in millions of "small" acts, rather than bemoan the absence of such a culture.
And if we still want to locate accountability, here's another thing we can all do, one which really will change our political culture: We could start supporting politicians based not only on the policies they support, but based on how they advocate for those policies.
If changing the political culture is really what we want, it's within our reach. As soon as being right about any given issue takes a back seat to how people behave when working on that issue, the culture will change.
When we hold our officials, from the left and the right, to that shared standard, we are being the change we want and making that change in the world. That too is about soul-searching. It's about deciding if the quick hit of moral superiority which comes from being right will outstrip our desire for more durable decency.
It's up to us, even in the midst of events which we often feel are beyond our control and out of our reach. We can search our souls and be the change we hope to see, and it's amazing how healing that can be.
Follow Brad Hirschfield on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bradhirschfield
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We could again (hopefully) change society by each of us being more polite, listening instead of making our point. By following Gandhi, "be the change you want to see."
I'm not being a Pollyanna. There are consequences for actions. But "millions of small acts", as you said, can change the whole. Unexamined minds do not lead to wisdom.
Thank you, Mr. Hirshfield. I am starting today to put this into practice, and I will keep your post to remind me of my own inadequacies.
Many people are perfectly capable of looking outward at events and inward simultaneously.
They can look at the gunned up rhetoric quite accurately.. without raging or frothing.
Sarah Palin's website proposed a solution and placed rifle cross hairs on Giffords.
No matter how you or I or anyone else feels or talks about it...
Giffords got taken down and history will record these two points.
The media game now is all spin.
Even the religious will rush to get in on this...
....after all they like to role play as if they have a special providence concerning life death and morality.
F&F'd.
I don't have an answer for what happened, and I agree that fumbling around in the dark looking for an answer, or someone to blame won't help, and will only hurt, if we blame the wrong one.
That said, there is only one person to be held responsible for this tragedy, the shooter. Ultimately, he is responsible for what he did.
And we are responsible for how we respond to what he did. I think it reasonable to be angry, disgusted, even outraged, but how do we respond to that? Do we become him?
Fortunately, we don't, and the way we don't become like him, is our heritage: rational law.
Rational law is a gift. It is a gift to both ourselves, the victims, and the criminal. Rational law is forgiveness. Etymologically, for- means complete, and give means gift.
What the young man gave us, and especially to the victims and their friends and families is completely and utterly irrational, unjust and criminal.
When we give back rationally by establishing a just judicial system, we give both him and ourselves a gift. The gift is for- giveness in the best and most productive way that mankind can give. The gift is completed appropriately.
I know this offers no comfort, but it does and should offer pride. We are not perfect, but we can't fall into despair and irrationality.