What Am I Doing?
I spent some time asking this question during my daily prayer time this morning. As, I’m sure was the case for many of you, I was alarmed and saddened at the news and pictures from the U.S. Capitol last evening (January 6, 2021). A large group of rioters and insurrectionists forced their way into this revered symbol of American Democracy and disrupted the constitutionally mandated work of our elected representatives.
Though the media persist in calling the perpetrators “conservatives,” they were anything but. They sought to destroy rather than conserve. This event was an attempt to tear down America’s most revered traditions related to elections and the rule of law, and to supplant them with mob-rule or an authoritarian state. How could this happen?
The criminal entry into the Capitol happened at the same time a number of our official leaders from both houses of Congress were also trying to overturn the will of the people and to disenfranchise millions of voters, particularly in communities of color. Though dressed up in the language of duty and high ideals, these senators and representatives were clearly taking a jackhammer to the foundations of government of the people, by the people and for the people. Their objection? Their candidate had lost! And, I might add, the supremacy of the white race had taken a hit.
Many supporters of Donald Trump sought to distance the two events. Representatives who objected to recognizing the vote of the electoral college insisted that the rioters were acting on their own and are the only ones to be held to account. However, is anyone surprised that followers follow leaders? Isn’t that the very definition of leadership? So when the leaders seek to subvert elections, why should we be surprised when followers do as well?
Without a doubt, both the rioters and their leaders in Congress and the White House should be held to account for what happened yesterday. But are they the only ones? Clearly there are many in the right-wing news organizations and on social media who are also complicit. The fires have been stoked for months now by so many. It’s hard to know where all to lay blame.
But then that takes me back to my original question. What am I doing?
The fact of the matter is that I may also be guilty of fomenting revolution and insurrection. How? Not really through apathy. I have certainly not been apathetic over the past four or five years with respect to what has been happening to our constitutional government and even to truth. It has agitated me and occasionally interrupted my sleep. I’ve studied the issues, agonized as my friends were sucked into alternative realities, and I even predicted the shameful events of yesterday or something like them.
No, apathy is not my problem. Rather, I’m guilty simply because I do little to intervene.
My issue of inaction is a soup with many ingredients. One ingredient I can easily identify is my dislike of conflict. I want people to like me and conflict always runs the risk of making enemies, not friends. So I tend not to bring up topics that might lead to conflict.
Another ingredient involves laziness. Trying to address problems requires hard work and long effort. I’d rather do things I enjoy and leave the hard work to others.
And then there is cowardice. I don’t know a kind word for it. I’m not really sure I like the potential negative consequences of taking unpopular stands. I don’t really like being on the front-lines where the fighting is fiercest.
All that to say, I like politics and the support of our democratic traditions as a spectator sport. While others play the game, I watch. I justify myself by thinking I’m only one person and I have no great talents to offer. But the 18th century Englishman, Edmund Burke, has some important things to say to people like me. My excuse of being only one does not hold up when it is the concerted effort of the community that is required to combat evil. Everyone who stands on the sidelines is one less to help in the fray.
Whilst men are linked together, they easily and speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design. They are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. Where men are not acquainted with each other’s principles, nor experienced in each other’s talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. In a connection, the most inconsiderable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. No man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours, are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
–Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents 82-83 (1770) in: Select Works of Edmund Burke, vol. 1, p. 146 (Liberty Fund ed. 1999).
Sometimes this quote is summarized as “the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
While it may be true that the rioters, and their abettors in the White House and the Congress should be and will be held to account for their actions either in this life or the one to come, there is also room in front of the judgement seat for people like me. The prophet Ezekiel implies that I am to be a “watchman.” If I see some evil coming and do my best to warn others, irrespective of their actions, I am held guiltless. But if I don’t perform my duty, I’m just as guilty as the actual actors in the insurrection.
Yesterday left me much to ponder. How about you?