Three Events Eliciting Empathy
Why Gun Laws will Change
I have resisted believing that the Constitution
is a living document. I have thought of it as the supreme written unchanging
law of our nation until amended by Amendment or international treaty. That is a
Constitutionalist’s textbook article of faith. My unchanging constitution
perspective however is much easier to believe than the idea that any culture
can exist with so little change that the body of law which speaks to one
century of citizens can fully anticipate the need of a nation’s citizens in a
much different future context. Those who are alive, individuals or cultures,
constantly change. Only God and the dead remain unchanging.
Sometimes the collective conscience
of a culture is transformed dramatically. It is interesting that such dramatic
changes are often not so much driven by discussion of great philosophical
principles, so much as the instantaneous shifts in cultural perspective are
driven by transforming our perspective through the focal point of our sense of
empathy. A school of thought existing from Aristotle to James K. A. Smith has
recognized that our humanity exists primarily in our desires, and our
principles are generally shaped by our web of interconnected desires and the
sense we have for what is good rather than our abstract principles driving us
by our rationally conceived thought. It certainly seems that some of the most
dramatic times of cultural transformation occur not due to reasoned principles
but due to sudden changes in the focal point of our senses of empathy.
On this particular weekend, as I
write this blog we can remember that on the final weekend of March in 1965,
Martin Luther King Jr. successfully led a march demanding Negro voting rights
to be respected in Alabama. The march from Selma to Montgomery was a turning
point in the battle for Civil Rights. That turning point probably took place at
the Edmund Pettis Bridge when a nation viewed the brutality against the
peaceful marchers and the plight of the African-American in pursuit of equality
became somehow incorporated in the larger American sense of empathy towards
those who were being unfairly treated. There is a sense in which the Southern commitment
to separation lost its power at the Edmund Pettis Bridge. That is not to say we
live in a perfect society with a utopia of civil rights equality. It is to say
that the power of empathy that joined the marchers in 1965 led to a complete
rethinking of principles. Old habits die hard, but when what we feel empathy
for changes, principles and eventually conduct also often changes. That we are
desiring creatures often moved more primarily by empathy than by rational
thought would have frightened me in my youth but comforts me in my older age.
After the Edmund Pettis Bridge, empathy became an ally to the witness of Martin
Luther King Jr. regarding a need for reform in regards to civil rights.
In the Bible’s nineteenth chapter of
Judges, there is described one of literature’s most horrid stories. The story
grows out of a questionable relationship between a Levite, the religious tribe
within Israel and his concubine. Less than a wife, a concubine offers the
religious caste member benefits while reducing his responsibilities. The concubine
runs away from the relationship and the Levite pursues her. The Levite and the
concubine’s father come to an agreement, in which the concubine’s desires seem
to matter little. The Levite takes his concubine along with him and then before
reaching his home must spend a night in another Israelite village. Trouble soon
arises. After finding a host with whom to stay, community members come to the
house of hospitality. The mob outside the house demands the visitors to be
turned over to the mob for their desires. If you were to imagine the Levite to
be some sort of paragon of religious virtue, he appeases the mob by shoving his
concubine through the doorway into the grips of the mob. The door is then shut
and the Levite goes to sleep behind the likely bolted door. In the morning the
concubine is near death outside of the house where the Levite had slept through
the night. The Levite puts her over his donkey and heads for his home in another
portion of Israel. The story seems possibly vague if she is already dead when
he places her on the animal, or perhaps even more likely soon breathes her last
on the animal. In any event he takes her corpse to his home.
The Levite is finally moved by the
horrible events that have happened to the woman whom he has seldom given any
sort of respect. At this point the story changes dramatically. Is the Levite a
psychopath, or penitent, or does he become something of a prophet? It is hard
to know within the story. If he were to be regarded as a hero, he would likely
have a name. He has no name in the story. He has failed the woman who had
become dependent upon him, in every way. Instead of protecting her with his
life he thrust her to the ravenous wolves at the door. Does his conscience at
last speak to him in the aftermath? He feels that the event is more than a
simple isolated story wrapped up in one village’s sub-cultural inhospitality. He
imagines the isolated event as having widespread national implications. In a
perhaps psychopathic brutal act of ritual the Levite carves the woman’s body
into twelve pieces, sending one piece of her dismembered body to each of Israel’s
twelve tribes. The bizarre act shocks the nation. Those seeing the dismembered portions
of a human carcass of are overwhelmed with a sense of how things like this are
not supposed to happen in Israel. A collective hush takes hold of the audiences
seeing the dismembered parts of the days-old corpse on display. The thought
that what happened to the woman should not happen in Israel is followed by the
response, “What are we going to do?”
The Levite was no hero. He seems to
have been as much psychopath as priest, penitent, or prophet. He was however a
witness to a horrible event and in his witness, elicited the empathy of men and
women throughout Israel.
We seem to have witnessed another
witness of wrongdoing, and of human suffering who managed to elicit empathy on
a national scale. Emma Gonzalez is likely still dealing with the repercussions
of the trauma of hiding and hoping to escape a gunman’s attack on her school,
leaving 17 of her schoolmates dead.
Emma Gonzalez’ speech with its powerful silence was foremost a call to empathy
This weekend she spoke to thousands
with the simple story of the horrible event she experienced and survived. She
first gave the names of the seventeen. For some she gave brief remembrances of
their lives saying things like … “she would never complain about playing piano
again.” Then then names were simply uttered followed with … “never.” Another
name …“never.” With each name the realization that what took place is that a
young person with life, with fears, with struggles, and with dreams would …
never. Then as the names had been given, Emma Gonzalez stood in silence of the
persons who now as far as this life is concerned will … never. The audience
seemed unsure of what to do in response to the silence of Emma Gonzalez. Some
tried to chant slogans, but eventually her silence led to a massive silence in
the vast audience.
Those who wish to rebut the pleas of
the students who survived the shooting, and organized this weekend’s marches
like to point out the flaws of Emma Gonzalez. Do you see how she dresses? Did
you notice that the descendant of Cubans wears a Cuban flag? Do you know of her
sexual orientation? But in this situation, it seems to me that like the failed
flawed Levite of old her audience is listening to a witness of an event that
has aroused the nation’s empathy. People are continually responding to the
event to which she eloquently speaks saying, “This should not happen in
America. What can we do?”
There were people who imagined they
had won on the day that the marchers led by King at the Edmund Pettis Bridge
were forced to retreat. A village in ancient Israel imagined there would be no
serious consequences when the corrupt Levite left with the corpse of his concubine
carried by his donkey. There are those who imagine there is no reason to change
anything about our gun laws. But everything has changed now. A nation is
feeling a sense of empathy and disgust with the regularity of news of
slaughtered students. A girl, whom many have listened to might seem strange to
them, has become a witness of pain and suffering that arouses our empathy.
Empathy is a powerful pathway to
changing human perspectives. We are feeling, passionate, desire filled
creatures. Our principles and philosophies have all those human emotions
intermingled within our lofty philosophical articles of faith.
Last night, I watched Emma Gonzalez
speak. I felt the power of grief as she spoke the names of those who will never
grace her life again. It seems increasingly strange to me that my pro-life
friends can protest protestors of death caused by violence because the left
doesn’t grieve the loss of life in abortion. This is no game. The death of
these students don’t lose importance because people on the left care for them,
so we on the right cannot. It seems like a horrible thing that we have to check
out who is supporting life before we want to support the right life rather than
the wrong life. Empathy for those who are casually killed by easy access to
advanced weaponry has taken hold of me and I do not regret this.
Empathy made me think about
something new this morning. I believe that the Constitution forms the
foundation of our national legal system. But this morning I wondered if I could
really believe if Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and the founding
fathers were with us if they would unanimously agree that everyone should have
the right to have every sort of weapon available to man? I rather suspect that
if they were in our midst, one or more of them might ask “You do realize that
in our day it was the mark of a rare rifleman who could fire four rounds in a
single minute? Do you think we would casually place into every person’s hands a
weapon that can fire twenty, thirty, fifty rounds a minute with greater accuracy
and ease than our finest militiaman could fire in our day? Do you really
believe we would give no thought to the changes that took place between our
time and yours? What sort of unthinking, inhuman beings do you think we were?”
There will be changes. This weekend
assures me of this. There needs to be healthy conversations about the gun laws
that will change. There are good environmental reasons why hunting helps
preserve certain herds from becoming too large for the balance of nature. Most
I think believe persons should be able to have guns to protect their families
within their own homes. But the days of supporting weapons capable of firing
scores and more of bullets in a matter of minutes is something that will not
much longer be tolerated. The transformation of the focal point of our sense of
empathy will lead us to consider how we upgrade and update our long ago crafted
principles for this modern era.
