I would not have thought that my young adult fiction class would be the class to provoke most of my "deep thinking" for the semester. "Deep thinking" is the name I gave just this instant to what I consider to be the very best part of my academic career--the thinking I do beyond, above, around, and through my assignments. It's when I take ideas and carry them through and really explore them. Usually it has nothing to do with actual class work or credit. And I repeat, I did not expect my YA fiction class to be the one to spark it.
But I have been lucky. My professor has assigned us, thus far at least, some truly superb books. This week's was Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I read it today. I think I read it once before years and years ago, but apparently it was one of a very small list of books that I don't remember very well at all. So today was an essentially fresh and new reading.
Somehow, inhumanity and cruel treatment of others has become a theme in my life the last couple of weeks. Last week I read the Hitler Youth book, about which I posted. Then the Holocaust and WWII seemed to keep coming up in various disparate points in my life. Then there is this book, which fits right in to the theme. And now, after two weeks of stories about people hating, hurting, and dehumanizing other people, I am starting to chafe and feel raw.
The fact is, when I read these stories about Nazis beating and murdering Jews without remorse, or white men slapping and kicking black children who happened to look at them wrong, the fact is that I am flooded with righteous wrath. I want to take the fear those poor people experienced and I want to take it right into the hearts of their tormentors. I want them to know exactly what they put their poor victims through. I want to cause them the same pain they cause to others because I feel like that is the only way they could ever understand what they'd done. And it is the only way to make things right and even and square...
Even as I'm writing this I'm brimming with emotion--utter fury that a human being could treat another in such a way, wringing sympathy for those who suffered such vindictive treatment, and embarrassment that I should presume to pity these people as though I can even begin to comprehend their experiences. I mean, I can read this book, or To Kill A Mockingbird or Hitler's Youth, or any other book, but I can never really fathom what it was like to live in the same world as the actual people. So who am I to be angry on their behalf or sorry for them? Who am I to read their stories and then write a blog post as though I have something important to say?
But I must. Because as I was sitting here on my bed, wondering how things like Slavery and the Holocaust could exist, I suddenly had a bright shining realization that had the gleam of truth about it.
To understand I will take you on somewhat of a tangent. I'm sure you all remember the movie Taken. The Liam Neeson movie that came out a year or two ago that everyone just loved. In it an ex-CIA operative has retired to be closer to his daughter. She goes on a holiday to Europe and is kidnapped by sex-traders. Her father then goes on a bloody rampage through Europe to rescue her, killing brutally, mercilessly, and without the slightest remorse anyone who happens to stand too close to him. Everyone loved this movie because we all loved seeing Liam Neeson circumvent laws that so often seem more a hindrance than a help, and get bloody, efficient results. I walked out of that movie deeply disturbed as I realized that I had just watched literally hundreds of people die and I had relished it. I can't tell you how many people responded "yeah, but they were horrible people! They deserved it!" Be that as it may, I couldn't help but feel that a movie like Taken played to an unhealthy place in human nature which ought not be cultivated.
Because the fact is, the moment you start rationalizing cruelty by any sort of reasoning, you are on the dangerous slope. One of the great tragedies of something like the Holocaust or of Slavery is the scarring left in its wake--the mental and emotional backlash. You take a group of people and categorically demean them to a point where their lives hold no value...what could you possibly expect would happen to those people once they're finally released from your power? The hatred of the Jews for the Nazis or the blacks for the whites is a horrible thing. Their lives and their children's lives for generations are warped and mutated by a hatred that is just as blind as the hatred that they experienced.
What I'm trying to say so unsuccessfully is that these terrible points in history often lead to reciprocation. That righteous anger I feel, that desire to hurt the tormentors as their victims were hurt, those same feelings are felt by others and we try to punish the tyrants somehow. They need to suffer because they made others suffer!
But what does that make us? What does that make the victims? Suddenly the roles are reversed. And just because you were once a victim doesn't mean that you cannot become a bully.
The epiphany that I had as I was sitting here on my bed was this:
If you cannot possibly find any way to value yourself besides setting yourself up over another person by stripping them of their humanity...how low...how little must you value yourself? And how immensely must you loathe yourself?
That was my epiphany. And along with it came the realization why righteous wrath simply will not work. Why you cannot punish away that kind of bad behavior. If you hate yourself that much--that the only thing that can make you feel good is to compare yourself to something you consider less than human--no amount of punishment or pain will fix that. Indeed, it will but add fuel to the fire.
What can fix that? The horribly beautiful or beautifully horrible truth is that love is the only thing that can fix that. Love and forgiveness and acceptance. If you hate me and I hate you back, that does nothing but create an endless cycle of hate. But if you hate me and I love you and forgive you back...even if you hate me till the end of time, by removing my own hatred I have managed to decrease the net hatred in the world even just by a little.
My righteous wrath isn't gone. In fact when I think about forgiving someone in a situation like that a large part of me revolts. Where is the justice in that? How can I possibly suggest that such a thing is even possible? Honestly, it may not be possible for many people. Maybe their suffering passed the point of no return beyond which they cannot come back without some recompense being paid. And maybe that's good. But just try to imaging for a moment a world where everyone loved others--and more importantly, everyone felt well and truly loved. Imagine a world where everyone knew who he or she was, the value they had, and that they were loved by those around them.
Can you imagine a Holocaust in that world? Because I cannot.
Forgiveness and love are the way to that world. Not hatred or vindictive punishment or retribution.
I love your writing and I totally agree with the sentiments of this post.
ReplyDeleteI really like these thoughts. I think they also dovetail into what I've been thinking a lot about lately which started with reading the passage in Alma about the people of Ammon. They would rather die than fight. I think that's a pretty profound statement that a lot of politically conservative people like to ignore.
ReplyDeleteThis is super weird and random that I read this, but holy crap, Emily; you are a writer. This is eloquent and insightful, while simultaneously maintaining a certain defiance. I absolutely love how you write and particularly what you said here. I'm blown away right now. So well written.
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