Blaming All for One and One for All

"Italian Catholic Priest claims: "Arrogant, self-sufficient, provocative women incite domestic violence." was the headline that I read this morning. Wow. That won't win over any new friends for the Catholic Church. In fact, I rather suspect that it will only increase the level of suspicion and enmity towards, not just the Catholic Church, but her people, and all Christians for that matter.

All of this got me to thinking about how people (we) often blame an entire demographic for the actions or words of one or two or a few people.



Why do we tend to vilify a whole people based on the actions of a minority? We do it with Muslims (Islamic extremist/terrorists make all Muslims violent and evil), we do it with political parties (All Democrats/Republicans are X,Y, or Z because of the comments of Senator/Congressman, Presidential Candidate Tom, Dick, or Harry), and people do it to Christians because of things like the WBC and the statement above. Here's a familiar one; "All cops are fascist pigs." Why, because one gave you a ticket for doing something wrong.

It seems absurd to me that we Americans (who seem to be the worst about it, but I admit that my scope is somewhat limited), as a supposedly culturally enlightened people, continue with this sort of behavior. And it also seems, to my observation, that "Good Christians" tend to be the worst offenders.

As individuals, we do it out of our innate need to be "right". Everybody must be right. It is a survival instinct, built into the very core of our being. It is why we have difficulty admitting when we are wrong in an argument with our spouses/significant others. It is why we have difficulty being gracious losers in a game. It is why people get fired from their jobs for doing the right thing, even if it goes against what the boss told them to do. (Oh, sorry. Personal note there.) It is why, we as Christians, have such a hard time letting go of our ego, our "I", and giving ourselves over to God's divine providence.

As groups, we are prone to fall victim to media & mob mentality.  If you hear something repeated over and over again by your groups opinion leaders, then it MUST be true, whether YOU believe it in your heart to be true or not. And even if the FACTS don't support it. And as groups, we also MUST be right, for to be wrong, or even mistaken, threatens the integrity and the survival of the group, and therefore us as individuals, because we tend to define ourselves by our groups.

So what? This is how the world works! Yes, unfortunately it is. But I do not believe that it is the way God intended us to live. See, by this ingrained struggle to "Be Right", we have to, by default, make others "Wrong." Sometimes it is so that we can SEE right in the world, from our personal perspective, in the face of an atrocity.

Here's how it works: A person, who is a member of a group, does something that we find morally reprehensible. If we cannot face that person directly, if we cannot reconcile our anger about that action with THAT person, then we begin to transfer our anger onto other persons of the same group or demographic. What happens is that the line between individuals, actions, and groups starts to get blurred. Everyone starts to equal everyone starts to equal every-thing within that group or demographic. The consequence here is mass divisiveness among people, as groups and as individuals. The consequence is prejudice, bigotry,and hatred, on a huge scale, because we are blaming all people for the actions of SOME people.

So what is the solution to this problem. It is radical, and it is difficult. It will require us to be able to "Be Wrong" if only for a moment. We must set aside our egos, we must let go of all of our media driven preconceptions of the world and it's people, and we must develop a love and compassion for others that operated on an individual basis first, then spreads out to an entire demographic. If you meet one evil man, then you dust your shoes off of him and move on. If you meet one good man, your take him and you find another good man, and so on.

But it is hard! It is hard not to become embittered to/against the world. No one said this was going to be easy. No one said that you could do this without getting hurt. But if you put Love first, then the hurts become less, and heal faster. If you put Love first, you might just find that the world really is a much better place, populated by much better people, that we have been giving it credit for. God may actually really know that He is doing.

+BLESSINGS+