Forgotten Beatitudes

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to be more present in my life.  Part of that is being more present in areas that are of interest to me.  From volunteering to various blogs on the Internet.  Over the past couple of days, a lengthy discussion thread has developed at Joe.My.God (whom I’ve ragged on before, time and again, perhaps unjustly as I wasn’t actually taking part in the discussions, just criticizing them) regarding this tragedy.

While many commentors are shocked and appalled at the rush to judgment, and harsh judgment at that, the ones who are doing the judging seem to be operating as some sort of private detectives, feeling that they are asking pertanent questions and perfectly satisfied with the answers delivered from those who are removed from the specifics of the Travolta situation.  It’s all very well to say that neighbors, family friends (and I’m not sure who is being referred to here as I’m not aware of any family friends making any statements regarding Jett Travolta), and observers with autistic children are satisfied that, not only was Jett Travolta autistic, but was also affected with a seizure disorder that he was not getting any medication for.  However, I maintain that making such in absentia diagnosises on the basis of highly edited videotape, hearsay and personal anecdote is shaky at best.  Time may prove them correct, but here and now, it is impossible to unequivocably state anything about Jett Travolta other than he was clearly deeply and humanly loved by his parents and suffered a tragic accident.

It is always sad when a child perishes, particularly when that death is unexpected.  Of course, the world’s not supposed to work like that and when something so deeply offends our sensibilities, even if they are subconscious, then we need to explain it somehow, find some outside agency to blame.  It can’t just be cruel chance and the random finger of fate.  Someone must have done something wrong somewhere that could have prevented this.

The danger is rushing to conclusion.   That seems to be exactly what’s happening under the guise of “reasonable questioning”.

Our notion of justice is violated by the death of a child.  In the U.S., our notion of justice is also based on the principle of “guilty until proven innocent”.   At least, it was.   While that principle hopefully still holds sway in actual legal circles, certainly in the cour of public opinion it has undergone a polar reversal.

For example, in the case of the governor of Chicago, a man who’s last name is far too long and convoluted to type out.  While they may be very true, all of the allegations against him, the fact was people’s first response wasn’t, “Hmmm, I wonder what the investigation will find,” but rather, “Well, we all knew he was guilty.”

Really?

If it was so obvious then why has he achieved his position of power?  Seriously, if his corruption was so wide-spread and visible, then how was he allowed to climb this far?  I suppose one can write this off as a general cynical attitude towards politicans, but I think it goes deeper.

We don’t want to believe people anymore.  More pointedly, we don’t want to believe good things about people.

Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor wrote an interesting opinion piece in the Jan 3rd, 2009, Guardian entitled “Love thy neighbour: Why  have we become so suspicious of kindness?” as a blurb for their book, On Kindness.  They argue that kindness is inherent in the human soul, but we have divorced our selves from “the pleasure of kindness” for many and varied reasons.  While I don’t necessarily agree with their suppositions (although I haven’t read the book, so perhaps I’m missing something), I do think they make a very salient point by saying: “To live well, we must be able to identify imaginatively with other people, and allow them to identify with us. Unkindness involves a failure of the imagination so acute that it threatens not just our happiness but our sanity…Modern western society resists this fundamental truth, valuing independence above all things. Needing others is perceived as a weakness.”

Yes, I know, another, “The world was Eden before Western Society” argument.  But I think there may be some truth to this one.  Certainly it invokes the American Dilemma that the movie “The Searchers” so eloquently lays out in its tale of a lone gunman searching for a young girl kidnapped by Indians in the American West.  We, as Americans, struggle against with ideallistically fierce individualism in conflict with the very human need for companionship and peer groups.  Biologically, we need to belong even as, philosophically, we realize that sometimes progress requires solitude.

This can lead to cruelty, unkindness, lack of empathy and a whole host of other disorders.  Or, it can just lead to a desperate desire to control and mitigate by any amount.

If we can just define something that offends as “other”, then we can safely say that we are not it.  We do not share its faults.  We are better than it.

On the basis of the testimony of an FBI agent, a testimony which wasn’t administered in a court of law and which has subsequently been shown to be somewhat questionable, we immediately assumed Blagovovoovvovovovich was guilty of…something.  No one’s quite sure what, exactly.  Selling influence, generally, but nothing really concrete.  So, without even an official charge, he’s not only guilty, but he must be punished, both legally and in society at large.  He’s guilty until proven innocent.

Is he guilty?  Perhaps, but any factual proof of it has taken an extreme backseat to the judgment itself, which has already been rendered.  Because of that judgment, Chicago and Illinois’ entire government is grinding to a halt while those serving on the impeachment committee try and figure out exactly what it is they’re charging him with.  Certainly he’s doing himself no favors by loudly proclaiming that he has truth to speak that will clear him of all charges…and then not actually speaking said truth, but should someone be compelled to testify in the court of public opinion before they actually testify in a court of law?  Indeed, should the court of public opinion predetermine the findings of the court of law and, should those findings eventually not be in alignment with the public’s notion, be assumed to be false, manipulated or untrustworthy?

Which brings us back to the sad case of Jett Travolta.   At this, what can only be thought of as the most heartrendingly sad moment of John Travolta and Kelley Preston’s life, instead of being allowed a space for grief, they’re seemingly being accused, tried and condemned.  What’s worse, is it’s being done with only the most circumstancial of evidence.  What’s even worse than that, while they’re certainly on trial themselves as there is a contingent of folk angry that Travolta hasn’t ever acknowledged his alleged homosexuality (and we just won’t get into that nautilus shell of nonsense) and they’re using this incident as a bludgeon to advance their own questionable agendas, what they’re really on trial for is being Scientologists.

I’m no fan of Scientology.  I’m all for the personalized spiritual journey, but I grow immediately suspicious when any faith tradition claims you can buy your way into heaven/nirvana/non-thetan-infested life.  Tithing is one thing, but purchasing salvation reeks of papal indulgences and we all know where that led.  That’s right.  Popes dying of syphallus.

Still, one of Scientology’s big issues is its insularity.   History is littered with examples of insular faith cultures becoming the source of mistrust and derision.  Primitive Christianity is a key example, as is Judaism.  Scientology perhaps takes it to a whole new level in our modern society of individualism, but the fundamental issue is the same:  They jealously guard their mysteries so we who are not initiated in them are mistrustful of them and define them as “other”.

Tom Cruise has famously illustrated Scientology’s lack of faith in modern psychiatric drugs and medications, while at the same time perhaps providing the best, and most ironic, argument for their use. However, I have to say, I’m uncertain exactly what this ban or dissuading specifically entails.  I’ve tried to look up exactly what Scientology’s stance is, but the most information anyone seems to posses is that they don’t like/use them.  No one has any specifics.

I would wager that Scientologists are not Christian Scientists, though, so such a broad answer is unsatisfactory.  Particularly given the nature of the claims made about Travolta.  “Oh, he’s a Scientologist, so he didn’t have Jett on the medication he so obviously and so desperately needed.”  My question  has to be, how do you know that for a fact and how do you know it has anything to do with Scientology?

The only logical conclusion permissable at this point, in the complete and utter absence of any hard evidence, has to be that we don’t know.  We don’t know what Jett Travolta had or didn’t have, what the familiy did or didn’t do to mitigate any possible symptoms or, most basically, what happened in that bathroom.   Certainly, one must ask questions to clear up these uncertainties, but the questions being asked (when they’re questions at all and not just outright charges) have the taint of a foregone conclusion about them.

We, the court of the public, have charged, tried and convicted John Travolta and Kelley Preston of…something.  Of not doing something.  Of believing in something too much.  Of living a life we don’t approve of.  Of being “other”.

It’s human, to be sure, but it’s also extremely dangerous.

I would like to think people just want an explanation, but amid the clamor for the head of Travolta on a silver platter, it’s hard to see it just as polite inquiry.  Instead, it reeks of the other, the more insideous desire to single out Travolta, Preston and Scientology as “other” so that their pain, their fate, can’t be our own as we control it.  It feels like, by retracting the kindness of space to grieve, we are dehumanizing them and making it acceptable to amplify their pain to alleviate our own fear.

The facts of the case will emerge.  It will be impossible to keep them from doing so.  Then, armed with those facts, would be the time for a more wide-spread and public inquiry.  Sadly, those facts will not be used in the carving of the stone ediface of public opinion.

I, therefore, must indulge in a little of the same behavior as those who are braying for Travolta’s head are exhibiting and say I can see our society afflicted with…something.  We’re not doing something, not feeling something.  We’re sick somehow and I don’t know what it is, but Jett Travolta’s death is yet another symptomatic manifestation of our illness and I am worried that, because of our beliefs, we will not seek the medication and treatment we so obviously need.