We live in a culture of violence – guns, drugs, vicious talk radio hosts, layoffs, evictions, school attacks, church attacks, workplace shootings, hate crimes, police killings, homelessness.
Much of the violence is literal; much of it is cultural.
“Even if we’re not at daily risk of physical injury or death,” writes author Parker Palmer in his book On The Brink Of Everything, “as so many of us are in the gun-obsessed United State, our culture relentlessly assaults our souls with noise, frenzy, consumerism, tribalism, homophobia, misogyny, racism and more.”
We normalize and rationalize these things to live our normal, which would be difficult if we took in the violence that erupts in the United States every hour of every day.
I can’t deal with it all of the time; I’d go mad.
“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence,” wrote Thomas Merton, “to which the idealist…most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are perhaps the most common form of its innate violence.
To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. More than tat, it is cooperation in violence…It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”
I’ve wondered all year why Donald Trump and the movement we call Trumpism is too frightening to some people. I think because it brings with it a new kind of disturbing violence, Palmer calls it “cultural violence.”
Violence is frightening. Generosity and kindness are not.
Trumpism is a movement of grievance and resentment. It is born out of a sometimes justified hatred of elitism and indifference. But Trump has taken it somewhere else; it is a violent movement, nihilistic and unforgiving when I think about it.
I’ve received hundreds of messages from Trump supporters this year when I began writing about politics again. All but a handful were angry, cruel, or filled with resentment. There was a kind of spiritual violence to them.
Apart from the white nationals who feel liberated and ratified by President Trump, there is political and emotional violence that Trump and his followers often practice.
A sense of never being wrong, of never admitting defeat, of never being sorry, of rejecting empathy and compassion as a kind of social robbery.
I asked a neighbor once why Americans had so much trouble with diversity; then, we have always been so diverse. “I just like being with my own kind,” he said, shocking me a bit.
I think Trump followers revel in finally being able to say things they felt they were not permitted to say. And many of those things – carrying guns, giant flags, threatening people – are violent in every sense of the word.
Trump has made himself the leader of this anger and resentment at the other, enabling the people who think any charity or empathy comes at their expensive.
Trumpism is violent throughout – in its contempt for people who are different, in its thirst for vengeance, in its rejection of sacred traditions and practices. This is just as violent in its own way as shooting on the street or a robber.
And it frightens and upsets people. 2020 taught me how to live with it.
Congress has been refusing to pass or even consider a coronavirus relief belief even though political leaders and economists say it is urgently needed. Republican leaders insist that local communities and state governments would be wasteful and spend on foolish entitlement programs by fuzzy-headed Democrats.
I see the suffering of people almost daily in the Mansion and Bishop Maginn High School. Their deprivation and suffering is a kind of violence; it is corrosive and wounding.
This posture of Trumpism is violent – millions of people are being evicted, losing their jobs, unable to feed their families, dying of a viral pandemic, fighting to keep an election from being stolen.
That is just as violent to suffering people as a gun war or robbery. But it is a kind of cultural violence. It is hostile and frightening to anyone who needs help.
It celebrates anger and rigidity, and denial. Its voice is angry and hostile.
I don’t buy the idea that our democracy has been ravaged and permanently destroyed by Donald Trump. I think he has revived our democracy by forcing so many people, even many in his own party, to defend it.
More and more, I see that we are weary and damaged by violence, physical, spiritual, and cultural. Think of the terrifying violence we are inflicting on our Sister, the Earth, even as she bleeds in front of us every day.
Destroying the planet is perhaps the most violent act possible in our world.
Merton says one of our deepest needs is to protect and nurture “the root of inner wisdom,” which makes work and life fruitful.
I don’t believe I have to flee from the world or exploit it. I can love and accept the world with all of its flaws, aspiring again and again to the best of the human possibility.
But I can live that way and cope with the violence that sometimes overwhelms me and harms so many if only if I know when and where and how to seek sanctuary, reclaiming my rattled soul to love the world.
People have different ways of dealing with cultural violence. Some turn to ingrown and world rejecting religious or political beliefs. Others jump into the Corporate Nation, seeking wealth or power or fame, adding to the world’s violence as they go.
Still, others try to summon our violent culture back to sanity and make the world a kindler, gentler place. I know I need sanctuary if I want to cope with the violence raging all around me.
I find it in meditation, in walking and talking with Maria, in being with my dogs, in communing with donkeys, in sitting in solitude, and praying in my own individualistic way.
Trump will leave us sooner, his fearsome power is being wrested from him against his will. This is more violence – to our system and peace of mind – and perhaps his greatest legacy.
I don’t need a church to find sanctuary. I need silence, some love, a song, and a prayer.
I am also a fan of Parker Palmer’s books.
Re the neighbor wanting to be with his own (bloodline?), see*The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics * 2nd Edition, by Dan T. Carter (Author) on this narrow mindedness and Nixon’s tricky Southern Strategy to capture the votes of these fearful and conspiracy loving Southerners , now spread thruout the USA.
The big question is how and why things got to this unfortunate point. Most of the cultural violence mentioned have been there over a long period of time. It was the wrong cocktail waiting to explode at some point and Trump harnessed this to another level. How much of these violent attributes were given the nod or accepted as a way of life? One does not have to be labelled ‘far left’ to highlight these shortcomings but the bottom line is corporate America and lobbyist are controlling the narrative. The gun lobby and the pharmaceutical buddies are just two of the main culprits. Now the social media giants are contributing to this cultural violence with their profit-oriented policies. Unfortunately, most politicians and legislators are in their pockets. Campaign contributions are not free and the strings attached cannot be undone. The ultimate price is human lives.
Jon For me, it really is about kindness to others be they immigrants, LGBT, African countries, African American’s, many more and Trump so failed that test. He seems to feel that he/the country could use power to do what they want no matter how unfair or unkind it is ok and it is not. He is the exact opposite of Christ…what do you call that?
The phrase “ shoot you an email” drives me nuts. Schools use it and I always want to say it is “ send”, let me “ send” you an email. I hate the phrase using shoot… everybody at work( school) used it…
One of the first things I noticed when I moved to NyNy, the use of cowboy metaphors. Before bankers and corporate law partners started wearing Levis and farmer chambray shirts.
“Apart from the white nationals who feel liberated and ratified by President Trump, there is political and emotional violence that Trump and his followers often practice. A sense of never being wrong, of never admitting defeat, of never being sorry, of rejecting empathy and compassion as a kind of social robbery.” This so deeply spoke to me. We run a small coffee shop in Kansas, one of the states that has recently been in the news for the highest infection rates. It is amazing the “sense of never being wrong” with some of those entering through our doors. Masks are such a controversial thing here and, even when “masks required” is clearly marked before entering our shop, we have those that enter anyway and yell horrible names and are physical imposing towards staff politely asking that they wear a mask. They never believe that they should not have the right to enter and say those things. Such hatred and anger is now acceptable and also a badge of courage. My grandmother would have been appalled.
I’ve enjoyed your return to political writing. Along with all the examples in this blog post, I often feel violence in things not superficially recognized as such. All the new technology, intended to make life easier, becomes a form of violence to my serenity in the endless parade of password changes, walls we run into trying to do things that were once easily accomplished with a checkbook, changing a phone carrier, trying to learn how to use a smart phone or the upgrade to the smart phone and so on. The amount of time and confusion spent on these things wreaks havoc on my peace of mind and affects me as if it were violence. Anyway, enjoyed your writing.
What a good point…the cultural violence of computer and software use and the endless wearying password conundrums.