When the white man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom he destroys.
Shooting An Elephant, by George Orwell.
Amazing, isn’t it?
Intellectual tyranny. That is, the disconnect between what some profess and truly think their Reality belief is, and the real Reality they embrace by practice and behavior; the stuff that burbles and oozes up to the surface and manifests itself as character and action.
The reader must forgive my oft return to the topic of religion, but these things, these disconnects, have practical consequences.
To simply attend church and mouth a bunch of Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior phrases doesn’t amount to a hill of beans when, in subsequent breaths, one supports, encourages and perpetuates political policies that afflict and burden the weak and poor. And war? The very notion of conflating a belief in Jesus with espousing war against a nation that has neither attacked nor credibly threatened our safety and well-being is beyond comprehension, and yet the proudly Conservative (Big C) people among us do precisely that, and much more.
The historic tradition of uncomplaining sacrifice:
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Jesus taught His followers to consider themselves deeply blessed when they suffer for His sake, but in modern America … in modern, Conservative America … that concept obviously left the building along with Elvis. Jesus placed no limits, political or otherwise, on the type, degree or duration of suffering. And everybody was told the affliction was a matter of when, not if.
Dylan Nice wrote an article wherein he describes his transition from slavering fundamentalist to thinking person:
… the subtlety of Orwell’s perception, his ability to recognize contradiction, irony, absurdity, had dug in somewhere deep and given me an intellectual inferiority complex … In the span of a few thousand words over a half-century old, the world got bigger for me in a quiet way.
None of my details were the same, of course, (I had read Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 but not Shooting An Elephant), but the overall effect of my slow un-conversion was similar.
The rift that separates indoctrination from illumination is sometimes subtle in appearance, but that is a chasm both broad and deep. The former comes about through the application of sheer, uncritical weight or force, (the most extreme manifestations are propaganda, intimidation, violence, etc.), while the latter is simply one stop among many, along a quiet, contemplative and mysterious path dotted with insight and slow-brewed understanding. One side wreaks havoc upon reason and logic, while the other tucks all manner of rationality into a comfortable bed.
A person cannot be argued or inveigled into illumination, but never underestimate the persuasive power of reasoned conversation with reasonable people, or a well-written book that speaks to both the heart and mind.
And confronting our own internalized hypocrisy is never easy. For that matter, it can be a damnably painful process, often filled with tears and remorse. But that engagement with truth, when all is said and done, can lead to the restoration of peace within one’s soul.
