The source of good and evil
What the Jersey City massacre tells us about ourselves
Senseless murders. Desecrations. Hate crimes. Anti-Semitism.
Religious extremists. Political ideologues. Black Hebrews. White supremacists.
How often, when we hear reports of violence, do we immediately point our fingers at those we think most responsible for every form of social evil?
It’s only human. We all have our prejudices and biases. But we should also have an equal measure of self-control, self-discipline, sound judgment, and common sense. Individually and collectively, don’t we have a moral obligation to not rush to judgment, to keep our presumptions to ourselves until the facts either bear us out or prove us wrong?
All the more so if we’re members of congress or talk-show hosts.
Increasingly, we resist allowing reality to govern dialogue. Honestly, we can’t even call it dialogue anymore. The airways and innerwebs overflow with polemics, screeds, and diatribes — too many of them utterly disinterested in facts and untethered to any semblance of truth.
It’s easy to rationalize. If the other side indulges in hyperbole and shameless partisan editorializing, why shouldn’t we be? Don’t we have a duty to counterbalance their inaccuracies, even if it means skewing our own side of the story? Emboldened by the spirit of self-righteousness, we contribute to a new normal that legitimizes defining the narrative as whatever we want it to be, cherry-picking facts, and fabricating stories that conform to our biases and inclinations — all without the consequences of accountability.
In response to every headline, we blame the other — the enemy, the wicked, the extremist, the fanatic — all the while oblivious to the contradiction in our own narrative that makes us complicit with those we despise as we contribute to the culture of hate we decry.
THE SOURCE OF IT ALL
Perhaps the most perverse symptom of our societal disintegration is the claim that religion is responsible for divisiveness and extremism. Applying the same logic, one might blame sunshine for heat stroke, medicine for overpopulation, and cutlery for eating disorders.