Following is a journal entry I made in March, 2009.
I love history and our history as humans has been and continues to be written in blood; it is a history of continuous violence; it is a history of humans using force to bend the will of humans.
If we claim to be awake and aware do we not see that our inhumanity lurks everywhere? How often do the cries of the exploited and the suffering that is rampant in our world fall on deaf ears; how often do they actually harden our hearts. The philosopher Hobbes concluded that homo homini lupus [man is a wolf to his fellow man].
A common metaphor that we are raised with in our country is the ‘wolf and sheep’ metaphor. Do we believe that there is a minority of wolves living side-by-side with a majority of sheep? In this metaphor the wolves want to kill and the sheep want to follow. The wolves are also quite smart and so they get the sheep to kill, to murder, to destroy; the sheep comply, not because they enjoy it but because they want to follow. The wolves are clever; they invent stories about the nobility of their cause, about the need to defend against the great threat to freedom, about the need for revenge [an eye for an eye] and/or the need for justice/punishment. ‘Honor’ seduces the sheep to act like wolves and to do so guilt free [mostly] – the price is simple: compromise one’s soul and one’s integrity [once a sheep does this, the rest is easy].
I wonder how we sheep can be so easily persuaded to act like wolves, especially since it seems that it is not in our nature to do/be so. Perhaps a ‘selling point’ is that we sheep have a ‘sacred duty’ – violence is sacred not profane.
A question might guide me/us: Are we inherently good or are we inherently evil? What is in our nature? If we are inherently evil then with each act of violence our will to do good becomes weaker and weaker – Why resist the wolves? Perhaps we are all wolves and some of us wear sheep’s clothing.
I am a Christian. The Old Testament view is that man has both capacities [for good and for evil] and that we must choose between them. Even God will not interfere with our choices. God does help by sending us messages and messengers and that being done we are then left alone to decide, to choose for good or for evil. The decision is ours alone.
And here I sit still wondering why in the world we continue to choose evil; why can’t we be good?
Searcher-Seeker 