This morning I find myself reflecting on the fate of two different teenagers. Both were shot because their assailant believed them to be a threat. One survived and spoke recently at the United Nations. The other is dead. In the case of the first teenager, her assailant is universally condemned as a terrorist. In the second case the assailant was acquitted in a court of law and is a free man. It is a confusing world full of seemingly infinite interests and presumptions colliding like particles. Fate and circumstance navigate a razor thin line.What is the difference between Malala Yousafzai and Trayvon Marton? The greatest difference is life itself. Malala has voice. Trayvon does not. I hope Malala's voice might rise on behalf of Trayvon and others for Malala advocates for education for all and it is my belief that the way out of this increasingly hostile social environment is education....the triumph over ignorance and fear and the gestation of true empathy and thoughtfulness.
But more specifics are needed. For "education" is a wide net, and surely many highly educated individuals have contributed to some of the greatest injustices in our history.
There is no perfect solution to be sure. And we are talking about something here that is so primordial, so deep within the mystery of human society that simple answers dissolve like cotton candy.
Perhaps there is a relationship, however, between the increasingly cruel and hostile environment in which we live and the corresponding decline in the humanities and liberal arts? It is widely documented that the humanities are in decline in our colleges and universities. Historically mocked for their "impracticality", degrees in philosophy, English, religion, music, theater and the like are now more than ever seen as superfluous and irrelevant.
What makes this particularly frightening is that these disciplines are the disciplines which take seriously the core realities of our current malaise. Where else in the curriculum are we to delve deeply and uncomfortably into such topics as sin and so eagerly and hopefully into topics like redemption and transcendence?
What afflicts us today is what has afflicted us through the ages: sin. And please do not think of sin as an exclusively "Christian" idea. Certainly sin is in the bible and certainly Christians speak of sin. But Christianity has no monopoly on sin. Sin is discussed centuries--millennia--before the Christian New Testament.
If we want to understand sin we cannot find it in mathematical or scientific textbooks. We must seek it in poetry, art, literature, legend, myth, art, music, and drama. Sin is identified and examined in the artistic imaginations of the seeking in every time and culture. Correspondingly, redemption is experienced in the same way, in the same places. And so it is with all of the aspects of our human condition that matter the most--those that contribute to life and justice--or death and injustice.
The recently released "official music video", "I Am Malala", is a moving expression of hope. Young girls of the world sing and celebrate Malala's message of infinite hope. Although no video yet exists (to my knowledge) there are no doubt many young black teenagers who would also cry "I am Trayvon". Figures like Malala and Trayvon become mythical in their symbolic power to represent the ongoing struggle with injustice for many people.
But what solution there may be to our downward spiral rests not only with the identification with the victim, but also the perpetrator. When King David stole Bathsheba from Uriah and summarily orchestrated Uriah's death, it was the prophet Nathan that came to David with a story. That story of injustice culminated with David's anger kindled at the perpetrator. Nathan then sprung the trap. "You are the man!" David, by identifying with the injustice in a story ostensibly not about him, became able to see his role in injustice as part of his own "story".
This is the power of story. This is the power of art. This is the power of music. This is the power of drama. The story is the vehicle by which we move into solidarity with the victim and the perpetrator, the hero and the villain. We are Oedipus who struggles heroically to save Thebes only to realize he is its fall. We are Scrooge whose reclamation must be preceded by the painful acknowledgement of loss. We are Jesus with our desire to love but we are also Pilate with our hands in the bowl. We are Malala and we are Trayvon. But we are also George and we are also the Taliban.
Without the ongoing influence of the humanities we will continue in the destructive path of the polarized either/or. Only the empathy of the both/and can save us. And that is what I mean by education. If empathy can be said to be cultivated anywhere beyond our own experience it has to be in and through our exposure to, and engagement with, the great imaginative artistic works of the human condition.
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