steubenville

3/20/13 Author's Update: I am grateful for this forum where i can publicly display my personal beliefs and how the act of sharing helps to refine my voice. This post is about the recent events in Steubenville and some of the reactions to those events. My refined voice has found these words for my beliefs: I'm struck by the fact that in every moment we have the choice to see the humanity in another person or see them as something other than human. Each one of us has the capacity to cross the line as far as was crossed by everyone involved in that situation and what keeps us on one side or allows us to cross to the other is our tolerance for inhumane activity, tolerance we build by the attitudes and actions we choose to take and the example we see in the actions and attitudes of those around us. The habit we make when interacting with others sets the standard of what is acceptable.

A couple of people were recently informed of the punishment they must serve for the horrible things they did to another person. Lots of other people have lots to say about the whole situation, a lot of it about how they think society needs to change in order to insure horrible things are not enacted in the future.

A popular argument in the reactions I’ve seen begins with the thesis that the current culture, focused on educating everyone who may become a victim how to protect themselves from victimization, is antiquated, unfair and downright ineffective.

This is the start of a movement I could find myself getting swept up in.

The call to action then goes that we should instead be educating every single possible victimizer on every single possible way victimization might occur and letting them know that that behavior is absolutely unacceptable.

In my experience the opposite of a problem is rarely the answer to that problem.

This reaction, like many other reactions to this and many other tragedies, ultimately calls for predictable order in the outside world and that is ultimately never going to take place. Society might be something like an invisible structure we are all living in, but at the same time we are actively constructing it and it is through our own internal shifts that we will begin to see change.

A fact of this case that caught my attention was the report that those who were punished extended apologies and that the victim was not ready to offer forgiveness at this time, this made me think about how compassion may be shown to those who do horrible things to other people.

In this case I ultimately see two people who completely forgot another person was a human being. And that is something I do on a daily basis. When the car in front of me is going too slow, when the garbage sits in the garage on trash day, when I read something I don’t agree with on the Internet. I have the capacity to forget that behind each of these things is a person with the capacity to laugh until they are crying and hot and light headed with joy, as well as to feel alone and afraid and as unsure as an four year old spending their first night away from home.

At the very least this case has focused my attention on my thoughts and actions. As I commit to the practice of treating every person as a multi dimensional human being this treatment is extended to me and I unexpectedly find the space where I can feel safe to feel free.