Why Are We Evil in Groups?


Abstract:
I had an email conversation today which reminded me of a visiting professor at Vanderbilt, Langdon Gilkey. He died about this time last year. I was fortunate enough to take part in a class he taught on Reinhold Niebuhr.

Body:
I had an email conversation today which reminded me of a visiting professor at Vanderbilt, Langdon Gilkey. He died about this time last year. I was fortunate enough to take part in a class he taught on Reinhold Niebuhr.

Professor Gilkey spent time in a Japanese internment camp in China during WW2. He tells the story of how the American Red Cross delivered too many care packages to their camp. The packages sat in the middle of the camp unopened for several days, because of a dispute about how to share the packages (1500 packages for 1400 prisoners). The Americans would not share their packages with the British - after all, it was the US Red Cross that sent them. This meant that, since there were only 200 Americans in the camp, there would be more than 7 packages per American prisoner.

When Gilkey approached one of his comrades, a lawyer, asking why he wouldn't share, he said, "Don't misunderstand me - I'm not worried about how many parcels I may get. With me it's the legal principle that counts." Another man, a missionary, also said he didn't care how many parcels he got, but "that there is no virtue in being forced to share. We Americans should be given the parcels, then each of us should be left to exercise his own moral judgment." In other words, this religious prisoner was doing intellectual acrobatics to hang on to his idea of himself as a good person while still denying food to the non-American prisoners. (This story comes from Shantung Compound, his book about his experiences, on and around page 75).

Gilkey used this story to illustrate one of Niebuhr's big points: groups give us the security of acting in reprehensible ways while deluding ourselves that we are still basically good. In Christian religious language, we'd call that sin: the penchant for well-meaning people to screw over their neighbor in spite of the fact that they know the difference between good and bad, just and unjust.

I think we see the same thing happening in American Christianity. The Christian Tribe is as willing to hoard power and wealth as the American Tribe was willing to hoard food. The powers and principalities that control (or comprise) American Christianity can be just as demonic - or moreso - than any kitschy modern occult practice. In fact, I'd say the video making the rounds on the internet of the vitriolic lady from Trading Spouses is a good argument that demon possession is real - and she was the one possessed.

Posted: Wed - November 16, 2005 at 10:56 AM           |

©