guns
- Support good schools. One of the best defenses against a nation falling apart is a well-educated populace. People who are able to think for themselves are less likely to let others do their thinking for them, which is one of the surest defenses against abdicating to a tyrant. People who know their rights and their history will be well-prepared to fight to defend them. People who only know how to fight but don't know what they're fighting for promote instability in government.
- Promote economic opportunity for everyone. We celebrate Dr. King as a promoter of equal rights, but it's worth remembering that for him those rights were closely tied to the opportunity to exercise them and to help one's family to flourish.
- Encourage bright people in your community to become teachers. Public school teachers play too important a role for us to not want our brightest minds in our classrooms. I'm not just talking about STEM fields, either. Literature, history, social sciences and arts are the disciplines that shape our imaginations. Without good art and good stories, you don't have a nation, period.
- Subscribe to your local newspaper. Here are two of the most important professions for any democracy: law and journalism. Without defense attorneys to defend rights, equal rights don't mean much. And without investigative journalism, power will corrupt governors unchecked. Your subscription is your share of the paycheck of people who will watch the custodians of the state. There's not much more important than that.
∞
Of Men and of Angels
"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but I have not love, then I have become a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal."
That's from one of St. Paul's letters to the church in Corinth. It's a passage often read at weddings, probably because it speaks eloquently about agapic love.
I like it for another reason: it has a nice onomatopoeic pun in the Greek text. Paul's "If I speak..." is lalo; his "clanging" is alaladzon, which sounds like the noise a gong makes and sounds like it could mean "un-speaking." (In Greek, words that begin with "a-" are often like English words beginning with "un-".)
This week, as we approach the third Sunday in Advent, I was looking again at a poem I wrote during this week a few years ago, after the school shooting in Newtown. In it I compared first responders and teachers and others who give up so much for the sake of the common good to angels. That is my second-most read post ever.
The most-read post is one I wrote after Ferguson, about the militarization of our first responders, and the way the tools we equip ourselves with change the way we interact with the world - and with other people.
Both of these posts are about public servants. Taken together they remind me that what is done in love can be heroic and life-giving, and what is done in fear can become tyrannical. They remind me that we have a tendency to revere the outward signs of badges and uniforms, when we should judge characters by the habits they embody and by the actions that show the habits.
And they remind me that we have a long, long way to go before we can say we have learned to love one another.
*****
I should add that even the title to this post is misleading. The word Paul uses is not "men" but "humans." I like the cadence of the old translation "men" but the word is anthropon, not andron. Normally I prefer the more inclusive (and more accurate) "humans" but I first learned this verse in an older, poetic translation and the rhythm of it has stuck with me.
That's from one of St. Paul's letters to the church in Corinth. It's a passage often read at weddings, probably because it speaks eloquently about agapic love.
I like it for another reason: it has a nice onomatopoeic pun in the Greek text. Paul's "If I speak..." is lalo; his "clanging" is alaladzon, which sounds like the noise a gong makes and sounds like it could mean "un-speaking." (In Greek, words that begin with "a-" are often like English words beginning with "un-".)
This week, as we approach the third Sunday in Advent, I was looking again at a poem I wrote during this week a few years ago, after the school shooting in Newtown. In it I compared first responders and teachers and others who give up so much for the sake of the common good to angels. That is my second-most read post ever.
The most-read post is one I wrote after Ferguson, about the militarization of our first responders, and the way the tools we equip ourselves with change the way we interact with the world - and with other people.
Both of these posts are about public servants. Taken together they remind me that what is done in love can be heroic and life-giving, and what is done in fear can become tyrannical. They remind me that we have a tendency to revere the outward signs of badges and uniforms, when we should judge characters by the habits they embody and by the actions that show the habits.
And they remind me that we have a long, long way to go before we can say we have learned to love one another.
*****
I should add that even the title to this post is misleading. The word Paul uses is not "men" but "humans." I like the cadence of the old translation "men" but the word is anthropon, not andron. Normally I prefer the more inclusive (and more accurate) "humans" but I first learned this verse in an older, poetic translation and the rhythm of it has stuck with me.
∞
The Tools That Hold Us
If you equip your police with military tools, it should not surprise you to find that the police begin to regard the problems they face as problems best solved with military tools. This is because tools are not inert. We think we hold the tools and wield them, but we should remember that they hold us, too.
In one of his notebooks the Puritan Jonathan Edwards observed that “If we hold a staff in our hand we seem to feel in the staff.” [1] He was noticing that we are less aware of the wood in our hand than of the gravel on the path when it connects with the staff.
To put it differently, the things we hold become extensions of ourselves. In a way, our tools make new knowledge possible. We should remember, though, that every awareness comes at the price of other awarenesses. When you peer through a telescope you can see what is distant at the expense of seeing what is near at hand. Holding a staff means not having a free hand to touch the lamb's ear and feel its softness.
Michael Polanyi, in his book Personal Knowledge, says it like this:
So with the police: when our tools are tools designed to give us mastery over others, we find ourselves becoming habituated to wielding that mastery, and regarding everyone who challenges that mastery as a natural slave.
In the face of this presumed mastery, the resentment of the mastered is not at all surprising.
Evan Selinger wrote insightfully about the way tools of mastery like guns affect us in an article in The Atlantic a few years ago. I was especially struck by a line he cited from Bruno Latour:
So if you give your police armor and military weapons, it should not surprise you if they begin to regard themselves as engaging in military activity. And it similarly should not surprise the police when the unarmed, un-armored populace feels that the police is not acting "to serve and protect" but quite the opposite.
I don't mean to exonerate anyone by these words, but to try to explain why right now there appears to be a growing hostility between the police and civilians. Police have a very hard job to do. Police officers I know have described long hours of dealing with people at their very worst, day after day. I'm impressed by how many police manage to keep calm and help to defuse potentially explosive situations, and do so repeatedly, every day on the job. And as more Americans own and carry handguns, it does not surprise me that many officers now wear bulletproof vests. They never know who might fire a foolish and angry shot, and they want to return to their families at the end of the day, alive and intact. That's not hard to understand.
But all of us face a hard choice. As I've argued before, we need good laws, and we need to maintain and enforce those laws. However, enforcement should not primarily mean the use of force, but a well-working judicial system, supported by good schools and watched over by excellent journalism. And we need one thing more: we need to become better people, to enact and inhabit the virtues we most wish to see in others. Intentional actions are like tools; as we dwell in them, they become the way we know the world, and, just as we hold on to them, they hold on to us.
This is what we should encourage in ourselves and in others. Not more and stronger weapons but better lives, lived nakedly and as unprotected from others as we dare. The armor we put on becomes the wall that divides us, and it becomes the lens through which we see some things, and because of which other things - like the humanity of our neighbors - becomes wholly invisible.
[1] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards: Scientific and Philosophical Writings. Wallace E. Anderson, ed., (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980) p.225
[2] Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge. 59.
[3] Walker Percy, The Moviegoer. (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1969) 232.
In one of his notebooks the Puritan Jonathan Edwards observed that “If we hold a staff in our hand we seem to feel in the staff.” [1] He was noticing that we are less aware of the wood in our hand than of the gravel on the path when it connects with the staff.
To put it differently, the things we hold become extensions of ourselves. In a way, our tools make new knowledge possible. We should remember, though, that every awareness comes at the price of other awarenesses. When you peer through a telescope you can see what is distant at the expense of seeing what is near at hand. Holding a staff means not having a free hand to touch the lamb's ear and feel its softness.
Michael Polanyi, in his book Personal Knowledge, says it like this:
“Our subsidiary awareness of tools and probes can be regarded now as the act of making them form a part of our own body. The way we use a hammer or a blind man uses his stick, shows in fact that in both cases we shift outwards the points at which we make contact with the things that we observe as objects outside ourselves. While we rely on a tool or a probe, these are not handled as external objects….We pour ourselves out into them and assimilate them as parts of our own existence. We accept them existentially by dwelling in them.” [2]They're not the only ones to notice this. I recall a passage in Walker Percy, where Binx describes his fiancée, Kate, at the wheel of her car. She practically dwells in her car, and it is as though the two have become one.
“When she drives, head ducked down, hands placed symmetrically on the wheel, the pale underflesh of her arms trembling slightly, her paraphernalia—straw seat, Kleenex dispenser, magnetic tray for cigarettes—all set in order about her, it is easy to believe that the light stiff little car has become gradually transformed by its owner until it is hers herself in its every nut and bolt.”Everyone who has a favorite tool knows this. We learn to touch-type through repetition. Practice may not make perfect, but it makes us so familiar that we find ourselves regarding our oldest tools as having personalities. Perhaps this is because we have poured ourselves into them through constant use. You don’t have to be an animist to start to think of tools as having souls.[3]
So with the police: when our tools are tools designed to give us mastery over others, we find ourselves becoming habituated to wielding that mastery, and regarding everyone who challenges that mastery as a natural slave.
In the face of this presumed mastery, the resentment of the mastered is not at all surprising.
Evan Selinger wrote insightfully about the way tools of mastery like guns affect us in an article in The Atlantic a few years ago. I was especially struck by a line he cited from Bruno Latour:
"You are different with a gun in your hand; the gun is different with you holding it. You are another subject because you hold the gun; the gun is another object because it has entered into a relationship with you."We don't enter relationships without both parties being affected; both we and the gun are altered by this holding of the gun. Guns are very strong tools; therefore it takes enormous strength of character to wield one without being deeply and powerfully affected by it. The gun mediates the relationship between the one holding it and the one at whom it is pointed. This is not something anyone can easily control.
So if you give your police armor and military weapons, it should not surprise you if they begin to regard themselves as engaging in military activity. And it similarly should not surprise the police when the unarmed, un-armored populace feels that the police is not acting "to serve and protect" but quite the opposite.
I don't mean to exonerate anyone by these words, but to try to explain why right now there appears to be a growing hostility between the police and civilians. Police have a very hard job to do. Police officers I know have described long hours of dealing with people at their very worst, day after day. I'm impressed by how many police manage to keep calm and help to defuse potentially explosive situations, and do so repeatedly, every day on the job. And as more Americans own and carry handguns, it does not surprise me that many officers now wear bulletproof vests. They never know who might fire a foolish and angry shot, and they want to return to their families at the end of the day, alive and intact. That's not hard to understand.
But all of us face a hard choice. As I've argued before, we need good laws, and we need to maintain and enforce those laws. However, enforcement should not primarily mean the use of force, but a well-working judicial system, supported by good schools and watched over by excellent journalism. And we need one thing more: we need to become better people, to enact and inhabit the virtues we most wish to see in others. Intentional actions are like tools; as we dwell in them, they become the way we know the world, and, just as we hold on to them, they hold on to us.
This is what we should encourage in ourselves and in others. Not more and stronger weapons but better lives, lived nakedly and as unprotected from others as we dare. The armor we put on becomes the wall that divides us, and it becomes the lens through which we see some things, and because of which other things - like the humanity of our neighbors - becomes wholly invisible.
[1] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards: Scientific and Philosophical Writings. Wallace E. Anderson, ed., (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1980) p.225
[2] Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge. 59.
[3] Walker Percy, The Moviegoer. (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1969) 232.
∞
"What We Need Right Now"
From my latest contribution to the "God's Politics" blog at Sojourners:
"Any right-thinking stranger on our shores must read our daily news and think our nation has gone mad. We have cultivated the ability to end lives quickly; and yet we are continually surprised when our fellow citizens use the tools we have devised for exactly the purpose for which we invented them. Come to think of it, I think we’ve gone mad, too."You can read it all here.
∞
Armed in Anxiety
My article on guns, fear, and virtue ethics, now accessible at The Chronicle of Higher Education:
What do guns do for us? Many opponents of new gun legislation argue that they make us safer. Proponents of gun control hope to promote public safety by keeping guns out of the hands of bent young men who worship projectile power and senseless death. Most of our public-policy debates about guns have focused on safety, but in my opinion, not enough has been said about whether guns make us sound.Read the rest here.
Our word "safe" has roots in the Latin word salvus, which means not just "secure from harm" but "whole, well, and thriving"—that is to say, sound. This is one of philosophy's oldest concerns, to examine and foster this kind of sound, flourishing human life. This question is at the heart of Aristotle's ethics, for example. The opening lines of his Nicomachean Ethics declare that it is possible to regard life as having a kind of excellence, a sense of human flourishing and wholeness to which all of our sciences contribute. As Aristotle puts it, failure to reflect on this will make us like people who shoot without considering their target. (Yes, he really says that.)....
∞
Bicycles, Handguns, and Cameras
Get Off My Hood!
I just read a post on Facebook about a bicyclist in my town who was struck by someone driving a pickup truck. The driver then yelled at the bicyclist to "get the f*** off my hood" and told him to ride on the sidewalk. The driver is obviously misinformed about our laws, as well as about civility.
The bicyclist managed to take a picture of the driver's face and his truck, but not his license plate, which is too bad.
Packing Heat On Two Wheels
The comments under the photo were especially interesting. I'm not sure if he was joking, but the bicyclist (whom I do not know) said that he often bikes with a .45 in his waistband, which dissuades drivers from treating him with hostility. This time he only had his camera, and he wasn't able to shoot pictures fast enough to capture all the evidence the police would need.
I understand his frustration. Last summer, while biking on an empty street five lanes wide, a motorist sped up behind me, swerved into my lane (I was biking along the shoulder) and yelled at me to "Get on the sidewalk!" then sped off. By the time I had my phone out, he was too far away to get a picture of his license plate. He sped off uphill, making it impossible for me to chase him down.
His recklessness and utter selfishness could have maimed or even killed me had I not safely dodged his oncoming car. His cowardice and lack of regard for my life made me livid.
You Better Outrun My Bullet
But I do not see how a gun would have helped me. Yes, perhaps he would have seen a gun in my waistband, but at his speed he very well might not have seen it. And what would I do with it? I'm not going to start squeezing off rounds at a fleeing motorist; to do so would make me a worse criminal than he. Besides, I was in no state to be handling a weapon: my heart was pounding, adrenaline was shooting through my veins. I was angry, and I was feeling that fright that comes when sudden and severe peril suddenly interrupts a calm day.
I don't want my world to be under constant surveillance, but I'm considering getting a GoPro or some other video camera that would run constantly when I bike on the street. I think if more of us did that, it would be a more effective deterrent than a firearm.
We're In This Together
More importantly, carrying a camera rather than a gun says something about community. The gun is about taking personal charge of one's security, and while I applaud the individual responsibility that implies, the camera insists that reckless driving is not my problem but our problem, a problem that we will deal with as a community, through the structures of law that constitute our community. If you harass bicyclists, I will film it, and I will hand the evidence over to the police.
This is what it means to live in a society that respects the rule of law. We don't live in the time of Euthyphro, who needed to enforce the law himself. We live in the age of the District Attorney; and whatever you may say about an individual D.A., the point of a state-appointed prosecutor is just this: she is the embodiment of our belief that to offend against one of us is to offend against all of us. We are in this together.
I don't want to foster hostility between motorists and cyclists; I want to foster mutual respect. The roads are wide enough to share. If we can learn to do so, we'll all wind up reaching good destinations, together.
*****
Update: Here's a link to an article by Jill Callison about the confrontation between the cyclist and the motorist in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.
*****
Further Update: Here's a link to a bit of good news: the driver has been charged with several misdemeanors. This is good news for bicyclists, and bad news for hotheaded drivers unwilling to share the road with their neighbors.
I just read a post on Facebook about a bicyclist in my town who was struck by someone driving a pickup truck. The driver then yelled at the bicyclist to "get the f*** off my hood" and told him to ride on the sidewalk. The driver is obviously misinformed about our laws, as well as about civility.
The bicyclist managed to take a picture of the driver's face and his truck, but not his license plate, which is too bad.
 |
| My speedy steed. Please do not hit me. |
Packing Heat On Two Wheels
The comments under the photo were especially interesting. I'm not sure if he was joking, but the bicyclist (whom I do not know) said that he often bikes with a .45 in his waistband, which dissuades drivers from treating him with hostility. This time he only had his camera, and he wasn't able to shoot pictures fast enough to capture all the evidence the police would need.
I understand his frustration. Last summer, while biking on an empty street five lanes wide, a motorist sped up behind me, swerved into my lane (I was biking along the shoulder) and yelled at me to "Get on the sidewalk!" then sped off. By the time I had my phone out, he was too far away to get a picture of his license plate. He sped off uphill, making it impossible for me to chase him down.
His recklessness and utter selfishness could have maimed or even killed me had I not safely dodged his oncoming car. His cowardice and lack of regard for my life made me livid.
You Better Outrun My Bullet
But I do not see how a gun would have helped me. Yes, perhaps he would have seen a gun in my waistband, but at his speed he very well might not have seen it. And what would I do with it? I'm not going to start squeezing off rounds at a fleeing motorist; to do so would make me a worse criminal than he. Besides, I was in no state to be handling a weapon: my heart was pounding, adrenaline was shooting through my veins. I was angry, and I was feeling that fright that comes when sudden and severe peril suddenly interrupts a calm day.
I don't want my world to be under constant surveillance, but I'm considering getting a GoPro or some other video camera that would run constantly when I bike on the street. I think if more of us did that, it would be a more effective deterrent than a firearm.
We're In This Together
More importantly, carrying a camera rather than a gun says something about community. The gun is about taking personal charge of one's security, and while I applaud the individual responsibility that implies, the camera insists that reckless driving is not my problem but our problem, a problem that we will deal with as a community, through the structures of law that constitute our community. If you harass bicyclists, I will film it, and I will hand the evidence over to the police.
 |
| We're in this together. Can we share the road? |
I don't want to foster hostility between motorists and cyclists; I want to foster mutual respect. The roads are wide enough to share. If we can learn to do so, we'll all wind up reaching good destinations, together.
*****
Update: Here's a link to an article by Jill Callison about the confrontation between the cyclist and the motorist in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.
*****
Further Update: Here's a link to a bit of good news: the driver has been charged with several misdemeanors. This is good news for bicyclists, and bad news for hotheaded drivers unwilling to share the road with their neighbors.
∞
Guns and Aesthetics
A number of times in the last few months the issue of aesthetics and firearms has arisen, notably in connection with the recently proposed ban on what are called assault weapons. I say "what are called assault weapons" because it's difficult to decide which weapons should be included in that category. The assault weapons ban tries to categorize them by asking whether they meet at least three out of a short list of criteria.
Many guns are semiautomatic - that is, each pull of the trigger fires a round and then loads the next round - without being assault weapons. Most of the duck hunters I know use semiautomatic shotguns, for instance. Their guns only hold three rounds (as stipulated by the law that governs the hunting of migratory waterfowl) but those three rounds can be fired in rapid succession, and most of the guns can be quickly made to hold more than three rounds - usually up to five. Some small-game guns that fire .22 caliber rounds (one of the smallest and least powerful bullets commonly available) are also semiautomatic; and I'd guess most of the handguns sold today are semiautomatic as well. But few of these guns qualify as assault weapons.
Critics of the ban point out that for this reason (among others) the criteria for assault weapons are merely aesthetic. Banning guns on the basis of aesthetics will do little or nothing to solve the problem of gun violence, they say.
I haven't looked into the statistics, but I would guess that most gun deaths in the United States involve semiautomatic handguns and not assault weapons.
Which leads me to the question of whether the aesthetics of guns matters.
My answer is not about what laws we should enact, but about whether aesthetics matters anywhere. And the answer is that every one of us knows that aesthetics always matters. It affects the kind of car we drive, the clothes we wear, the way we wear our hair. Even those who profess that they don't care about these things almost certainly do care. Everyone who studies advertising and marketing knows; songwriters and filmmakers know; everywhere we turn we find a human environment in which we have made important choices on the basis of how the visual aspect of our belongings and edifices makes us feel.
The Best View In Warsaw
When the Nazis were retreating from Warsaw they dynamited the city, block by block, leveling nearly every building in the city. After the war, the proud Poles gathered photos and paintings and rebuilt the city, brick by brick, to look just as it had before the war. No doubt this was much harder than simply rebuilding, but they knew: aesthetics matters. It is the expression of people who will not be put down. Visual culture can be used to rally a nation, to embolden hearts, to renew hope.
Years ago, when I was working in Poland, one of my students offered to take me to the top of the Palace of Science and Culture in Warsaw. The building was a "gift" from Moscow, and the building rises from a huge footprint to a soaring tower that overlooks all of Warsaw. When we reached the top and gazed out on the city, Tomek said to me "This is the best view in all of Warsaw."
"Because the tower is so tall that you can see everything?" I asked.
"No," he quickly replied. "It's because this is the only place in Warsaw where you can't see this damned tower!" The building was a "gift" but it was also a visible reminder of Russian Soviet power. Everything from the wide footprint to the dizzying height to the architectural style was an aesthetic expression of domination. The Soviets knew: aesthetics matters. Visual culture can be used to intimidate and oppress.
You Are A Sign
Regardless of what you think of the proposed ban on certain kinds of guns, this should be obvious. Go to a gun shop or a gun show sometime and ask yourself whether aesthetics matters in guns. It might not matter enough to inform our laws, but the guns we make and buy for ourselves ought to tell us something about what is in our hearts. The thing we hold in our hand, like the car we drive and the clothes we wear, is something we project to others, a word we are silently and visibly speaking. As I have written before, the gun is not a neutral element in this speech. It is a word we speak, but it can be a word that speaks us, too. Let me tell you what every polyglot knows: some words in some languages open up new thoughts that you didn't think to think in your native tongue. The technologies we deploy may be the same; as may the visible aspect of those technologies. Nothing is ever neutral; as Peirce said, everything - everything - is a sign, and we ourselves become signs as well.
This doesn't answer the question of what kind of laws we should have. I think that question is secondary to this question: what kind of people should we be?
Many guns are semiautomatic - that is, each pull of the trigger fires a round and then loads the next round - without being assault weapons. Most of the duck hunters I know use semiautomatic shotguns, for instance. Their guns only hold three rounds (as stipulated by the law that governs the hunting of migratory waterfowl) but those three rounds can be fired in rapid succession, and most of the guns can be quickly made to hold more than three rounds - usually up to five. Some small-game guns that fire .22 caliber rounds (one of the smallest and least powerful bullets commonly available) are also semiautomatic; and I'd guess most of the handguns sold today are semiautomatic as well. But few of these guns qualify as assault weapons.
 |
| Which ones are the dangerous ones? |
I haven't looked into the statistics, but I would guess that most gun deaths in the United States involve semiautomatic handguns and not assault weapons.
Which leads me to the question of whether the aesthetics of guns matters.
My answer is not about what laws we should enact, but about whether aesthetics matters anywhere. And the answer is that every one of us knows that aesthetics always matters. It affects the kind of car we drive, the clothes we wear, the way we wear our hair. Even those who profess that they don't care about these things almost certainly do care. Everyone who studies advertising and marketing knows; songwriters and filmmakers know; everywhere we turn we find a human environment in which we have made important choices on the basis of how the visual aspect of our belongings and edifices makes us feel.
 |
| They aren't just vehicles for our bodies, but for all the other things we wish to convey as well. |
The Best View In Warsaw
When the Nazis were retreating from Warsaw they dynamited the city, block by block, leveling nearly every building in the city. After the war, the proud Poles gathered photos and paintings and rebuilt the city, brick by brick, to look just as it had before the war. No doubt this was much harder than simply rebuilding, but they knew: aesthetics matters. It is the expression of people who will not be put down. Visual culture can be used to rally a nation, to embolden hearts, to renew hope.
Years ago, when I was working in Poland, one of my students offered to take me to the top of the Palace of Science and Culture in Warsaw. The building was a "gift" from Moscow, and the building rises from a huge footprint to a soaring tower that overlooks all of Warsaw. When we reached the top and gazed out on the city, Tomek said to me "This is the best view in all of Warsaw."
"Because the tower is so tall that you can see everything?" I asked.
"No," he quickly replied. "It's because this is the only place in Warsaw where you can't see this damned tower!" The building was a "gift" but it was also a visible reminder of Russian Soviet power. Everything from the wide footprint to the dizzying height to the architectural style was an aesthetic expression of domination. The Soviets knew: aesthetics matters. Visual culture can be used to intimidate and oppress.
You Are A Sign
Regardless of what you think of the proposed ban on certain kinds of guns, this should be obvious. Go to a gun shop or a gun show sometime and ask yourself whether aesthetics matters in guns. It might not matter enough to inform our laws, but the guns we make and buy for ourselves ought to tell us something about what is in our hearts. The thing we hold in our hand, like the car we drive and the clothes we wear, is something we project to others, a word we are silently and visibly speaking. As I have written before, the gun is not a neutral element in this speech. It is a word we speak, but it can be a word that speaks us, too. Let me tell you what every polyglot knows: some words in some languages open up new thoughts that you didn't think to think in your native tongue. The technologies we deploy may be the same; as may the visible aspect of those technologies. Nothing is ever neutral; as Peirce said, everything - everything - is a sign, and we ourselves become signs as well.
This doesn't answer the question of what kind of laws we should have. I think that question is secondary to this question: what kind of people should we be?
∞
An Ounce Of Prevention
An old Chinese legend tells about a man who was searching for the world's greatest physician.* He learns of a man who can heal any illness, and he assumes that this healer must be the one he is seeking. The healer denies this, saying that another physician is even greater. The greatest physician is the one who can heal any disease before it even begins.
I've lost track of how many times I've heard someone say recently that the point of the Second Amendment is, first of all, to safeguard the other rights enumerated in the Constitution, and second, that a well-regulated militia is necessary in case we ever need to overthrow a government that has turned into a tyranny.
I have a little (though not much) sympathy with the second of those positions, but the first is, I think, simply wrong. Here's why: the First Amendment is itself an extremely powerful tool, and it is fitting that it should precede the Second, because an attempt to solve problems by reasonable words should always precede the attempt to solve our problems by force. In other words, if we exercise our First Amendment rights responsibly, we will never need to invoke the Second to overthrow our government. One of the beautiful things about our Constitution is the way it provides means for us to address unjust power grabs by our government officials without starting an insurrection.
But the bigger problem is one of what fills our hearts and minds: Focusing our attention on preparing to overthrow a future tyranny is like a physician preparing to euthanize a patient who might someday become ill. Yes, it is possible to "cure" any illness by killing the patient, but it's not good medicine. We need more than just preparedness to kill a disease; we need to promote good health as well.
If you're concerned about the nation becoming a tyranny, buying more guns is a poor response. Here are some far better responses:
* Thomas Cleary tells this story in the translator's introduction to his edition of Sun Tzu's The Art Of War (Shambhala: Boston and London, 1988) p. 1.
I've lost track of how many times I've heard someone say recently that the point of the Second Amendment is, first of all, to safeguard the other rights enumerated in the Constitution, and second, that a well-regulated militia is necessary in case we ever need to overthrow a government that has turned into a tyranny.
I have a little (though not much) sympathy with the second of those positions, but the first is, I think, simply wrong. Here's why: the First Amendment is itself an extremely powerful tool, and it is fitting that it should precede the Second, because an attempt to solve problems by reasonable words should always precede the attempt to solve our problems by force. In other words, if we exercise our First Amendment rights responsibly, we will never need to invoke the Second to overthrow our government. One of the beautiful things about our Constitution is the way it provides means for us to address unjust power grabs by our government officials without starting an insurrection.
But the bigger problem is one of what fills our hearts and minds: Focusing our attention on preparing to overthrow a future tyranny is like a physician preparing to euthanize a patient who might someday become ill. Yes, it is possible to "cure" any illness by killing the patient, but it's not good medicine. We need more than just preparedness to kill a disease; we need to promote good health as well.
If you're concerned about the nation becoming a tyranny, buying more guns is a poor response. Here are some far better responses:
*****
* Thomas Cleary tells this story in the translator's introduction to his edition of Sun Tzu's The Art Of War (Shambhala: Boston and London, 1988) p. 1.
∞
Safe and Sound: Guns, Fear, and Virtue
What do guns do for us? Do guns make our lives better, or do they just make us feel
stronger and safer? I know those aren't the only two options, but I want to
distinguish between two notions of salvation: on the one hand, we may be
saved by what makes us more safe, while on the other hand, we may be
saved by what makes us more whole. I'm using a theological word, but
I'm thinking more etymologically than theologically, connecting
"salvation" with the Latin salvus, which can mean both "safe,"
and "well" or "sound." (I know word origins don't dictate meanings, but they do
help us understand how our ideas developed.)
So again, what do guns do for us? It's probably true that in many circumstances guns make us safer, or at least make us feel safer, and that's not unimportant. But I do wonder whether they make us better people. I don't think this question is easily answered. It's not hard to imagine someone developing great skill, self-control, and confidence through target-shooting, and I've known police officers who regarded their guns as tools that helped them to make their communities better places. But this passage from Kerouac offers another possibility. Kerouac's protagonist Sal Paradise (Kerouac's fictionalized autobiographical persona) describes what it was like to be alone in San Francisco, thousands of miles from home:
It's not the gun that makes him threaten strangers or that makes him want to steal; but the gun doesn't help, and it's not neutral. It's a catalyst for something else, and when Sal feels lonely the gun becomes a way of expressing his pain. It might make him safer, but it also affords an opportunity (which he seizes) to become less virtuous. His trust contracts as his pain dilates. My eyes keep pausing on the line "I had to show it to someone." Pointing it at strangers in the men's bathroom is at once a threat of violence and a plea to be known, a disclosure of a secret.
Hard times can make us wary. Another novel, Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men, comes to mind here, another novel about men drifting across America, searching for an elusive dream. When Steinbeck's iconic drifters Lennie and George show up at a farm to look for work, the man who hires them remarks on how unusual it is for men to care for one another as they do:
Maybe so. If you know the novel, you know the complicated ways guns, trust, love, and fear figure into it. If you don't, I won't spoil it for you.
We certainly need better laws; we always do. Just as importantly, we need to become better people. People who “travel around together” in difficult times, because it is better to do so than to spend our lives scared of the whole damn world.
*Jack Kerouac, On The Road. (New York: Penguin, 1991) 73.
** John Steinbeck, Of Mice And Men. (New York: Penguin, 1994) 37.
So again, what do guns do for us? It's probably true that in many circumstances guns make us safer, or at least make us feel safer, and that's not unimportant. But I do wonder whether they make us better people. I don't think this question is easily answered. It's not hard to imagine someone developing great skill, self-control, and confidence through target-shooting, and I've known police officers who regarded their guns as tools that helped them to make their communities better places. But this passage from Kerouac offers another possibility. Kerouac's protagonist Sal Paradise (Kerouac's fictionalized autobiographical persona) describes what it was like to be alone in San Francisco, thousands of miles from home:
“I tried everything in the books to make a girl. I even spent a whole night with a girl on a park bench, till dawn, without success. She was a blonde from Minnesota. There were plenty of queers. Several times I went to San Fran with my gun and when a queer approached me in a bar john I took out the gun and said “Eh? Eh” What’s that you say?” He bolted. I’ve never understood why I did that; I knew queers all over the country. It was just the loneliness of San Francisco and the fact that I had a gun. I had to show it to someone. I walked by a jewelry store and had the sudden impulse to shoot up the window, take out the finest rings and bracelets, and run to give them to Lee Ann. Then we could flee to Nevada together. The time was coming for me to leave Frisco or I’d go crazy.”*
 |
| "I had to show it to someone." |
Hard times can make us wary. Another novel, Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men, comes to mind here, another novel about men drifting across America, searching for an elusive dream. When Steinbeck's iconic drifters Lennie and George show up at a farm to look for work, the man who hires them remarks on how unusual it is for men to care for one another as they do:
"Slim looked through George and beyond him. 'Ain't many guys travel around together,' he mused. 'I don't know why. Maybe ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.'"**
Maybe so. If you know the novel, you know the complicated ways guns, trust, love, and fear figure into it. If you don't, I won't spoil it for you.
Nor will I try to sort out what our laws about guns should be. Not here, anyway, because something else is weighing on my mind even more right now. The question of laws, and of safety, is important. But so is the matter of being not just safe, but sound.
We certainly need better laws; we always do. Just as importantly, we need to become better people. People who “travel around together” in difficult times, because it is better to do so than to spend our lives scared of the whole damn world.
*****
*Jack Kerouac, On The Road. (New York: Penguin, 1991) 73.
** John Steinbeck, Of Mice And Men. (New York: Penguin, 1994) 37.
*****
I am looking for a better word than "virtue," but haven't found one yet, unless maybe "excellence" fits.
*****
A longer version of this post was published by the Chronicle of Higher Education in both print and online in the Chronicle Review under the title "Armed In Anxiety." A subscription (often available through your library) is required to see the online version.
∞
The Idolatry of Fear
Let me start with some rough definitions: by worship I mean ascribing worth to something, to the point of making it a guide for one's actions. By an idol I mean something that does not merit the worship it is given.
Now: when fear becomes the guide for our actions, we should ask whether that fear deserves to be at the center of our attention.
Because what resides at the center of our attention starts to shape us. I don't mean it remakes us completely. I mean that what we mentally caress and cherish will affect our ethical decisions. The inward life has outward consequences.
Some fear is prudent. It is prudent not to stand on mountain ridges or under trees during thunderstorms. But if we live in constant fear of lightning, something has gone wrong. Either we live in the wrong place, or lightning has taken too central a role in our minds. Lightning becomes a monster, a demigod, a perpetual danger that stunts our growth and keeps our heads down.
The same could be said when we fear our neighbors: either we live in the wrong place, or we give too much credence to potential dangers and crowd out from our consciousness the potential joys of human fellowship. So our neighbors become monsters and we become their victims, and we worship them as fearful gods whom we come to despise.
What is the antidote to the idolatry of fear? Someone once said "perfect love drives out all fear." If I can conceive of my neighbor not as a monster but as someone worth loving--even to a small degree--then I have begun to let love -- philia, agape* -- dwell at the center of my consciousness. And I can begin to lift my head, just a little.
****
* Philia can mean "love," or "friendship." The latter books of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics give a thoughtful treatment of philia. Among his insights there, Aristotle says that where there is philia, there is no need for laws. Like philia, the word agape can be translated as "love." Charles Peirce used this word to describe the kind of love that seeks the good of the beloved (you can see more here and also in the Gospel of John) and distinguishes this from eros, the love that seeks the good of the lover.
Now: when fear becomes the guide for our actions, we should ask whether that fear deserves to be at the center of our attention.
Because what resides at the center of our attention starts to shape us. I don't mean it remakes us completely. I mean that what we mentally caress and cherish will affect our ethical decisions. The inward life has outward consequences.
Some fear is prudent. It is prudent not to stand on mountain ridges or under trees during thunderstorms. But if we live in constant fear of lightning, something has gone wrong. Either we live in the wrong place, or lightning has taken too central a role in our minds. Lightning becomes a monster, a demigod, a perpetual danger that stunts our growth and keeps our heads down.
The same could be said when we fear our neighbors: either we live in the wrong place, or we give too much credence to potential dangers and crowd out from our consciousness the potential joys of human fellowship. So our neighbors become monsters and we become their victims, and we worship them as fearful gods whom we come to despise.
What is the antidote to the idolatry of fear? Someone once said "perfect love drives out all fear." If I can conceive of my neighbor not as a monster but as someone worth loving--even to a small degree--then I have begun to let love -- philia, agape* -- dwell at the center of my consciousness. And I can begin to lift my head, just a little.
****
* Philia can mean "love," or "friendship." The latter books of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics give a thoughtful treatment of philia. Among his insights there, Aristotle says that where there is philia, there is no need for laws. Like philia, the word agape can be translated as "love." Charles Peirce used this word to describe the kind of love that seeks the good of the beloved (you can see more here and also in the Gospel of John) and distinguishes this from eros, the love that seeks the good of the lover.
∞
A Poem As I Approach Gaudete Sunday
Advent
Consider the angels.
Because maybe the broken men get too much attention.
Drunk with power and impotent with the kind of blind rage
That will carelessly hurl their countrymen down to the grave,
They try, in fiery futility, to salve some inner wound
By wasting the lives of others in blind fury and then,
(Perhaps in a final moment of penitent clarity,
or in obedience to the last demonic urge)
Waste themselves,
As mothers wail.
This monotone litany of nightmares,
It’s a constant, manicured, damnable drone. The same words
We have heard again and again. I am no wise man,
I can find no meaning in them.
Cameras frame parents hunched over, clutching each other
Like living icons of passion and grief, offered so that we
might worship.
And I’m ashamed at how hard it is not to continue to stare
At this flickering, televised altar of perfect priests and
the grief they sell.
What I need now doesn’t come from gazing at monsters.
But from giving thanks for the angels:
For brave souls in badges and brims,
Who run towards the fire, not away,
Who guide the children to safety,
Who help legs paralyzed with fear find their feet and find
their home again;
For dumbstruck neighbors who stop everything,
And cry together so no one has to cry alone;
For men and women and children on the other side of the
world,
Who do not know us but mourn with us anyway,
Knowing that we are family;
For people who see the darkness of despair descending,
And resolve to be light today, and keep that resolution
tomorrow.
And for the teachers.
The teachers
Who will somehow find a way to make their feet walk back
into their schools;
Who have seen the monsters, and know they are real, and yet,
Who refuse to worship their fear.
They know it is better
To kneel on the floor, and read, and play,
Remembering for all of us,
With good will and with daily acts of intercession,
That nothing must be allowed to stop
The sacred work
Of children.
***
David L. O’Hara
12/15/2012