This is written shortly after one more of what increasing seems like an epidemic of school shootings in the US.
A good friend of mine wrote on his site:
...happened to come across President Obama's Newtown address on the radio. It was a moving speech, and I was duly touched. He's a gifted speaker.
But one thing is blatantly missing from the reactions to this latest massacre of innocents: judgements and condemnations of the perpetrator.
I'm a bit astounded that my friend, who is a highly intelligent, educated, and normally kind man, will find "judgements and condemnations" to be not only acceptable, not only desirable, but necessary, and condemn their absence in a speech.
Judgements and condemnations are simply more water from the same poisoned well from which such insane violence stem.
Judgements and condemnations are exactly what's wrong with humanity. They are the very things which create the continued wars and violence which plague us, and they are the things standing in the way of the human brotherhood which could give us real civilization and a road to higher things.
Even on a practical level, I have a hard time imagining a person in the state of mind to go out and shoot children thinking: "Oh, I better not, people will judge me for it".
On the contrary, judgment begets judgement, hate begets hate, and love and forgiveness beget their like.
The first one to break the chain of hate is the first one to reap the peace which comes from that.
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1 comment:
Well - that was quite the judgement you made about how people should not judge. Who are you to judge whether people should judge or not?
So, you see the folly of saying you shouldn't judge. That statement is itself a judgement.
Better to realize that everyone MUST judge, the only question is: by what standard will you judge?
I think the 10 commandments are a pretty good standard. They are universal, and non arbritrary.
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