The instance of the prez and Melania contracting Covid brings up some core and crucial philosophical issues, and perhaps some “spiritual” ones. Whether or not the illness is real or a flash in the night for our president, the core issues it raises are an excellent opportunity for discussing core values.
I am not a spiritual person, at least not in the popular sense. I detest popular spirituality, actually, and find it to be largely and ironically violent (due to its lack of paradox and adherence to linear and dualistic dynamics).
I am not a spiritual person, at least not in the popular sense. I detest popular spirituality, actually, and find it to be largely and ironically violent (due to its lack of paradox and adherence to linear and dualistic dynamics).
I am into humanness, justice, and embodied living. This includes compassion, but not in a linear, fixed definition, but a sometimes paradoxical one that revolves around the pillars described below.
The issue of wishing ill upon another is something I have contemplated and sat with for years since his inauguration. His illness will likely bring out the “unconditional compassion” from the “spiritual” community as well as their discompassionate shaming of others who believe or feel differently. This is a subjective matter, and I don’t share that brand of compassion in this case, especially when ordinary channels of justice are ineffective against the monster Trump.
Someone who maims without means to be stopped needs to be stopped anyway possible. I wish ill to such monsters, whose likes have walked among us before, for too long.
A desire to wish the president well might also hinge upon spiritual bypassing beliefs—fantasies actually—such as linear compassion, that this illness will give him a change of heart, that it will cause him to “come around.” The chance for a sliver of this occurring are essentially zero. This kind of magical thinking precludes justice and a better world, which is how spiritual bypassing is violence in disguise. The chances of trump’s using this illness to gain favor, to manipulate, and to cheat are far higher.
When anyone, especially families, or even nations, experience the violent and cruel death of a loved one, or many loved ones, including their land and sense of home, justice is wished for and supported by the broader community. We rely on courts for that justice and in many cases they fail, especially more severely in other countries.
So how about a compromise and an ultimatum (hypothetical, anyway), since no one and nothing should suffer longer than needed for greater good: Change your ways, Mr. Trump, or we will wish for you to be stopped however necessary.
It might be that some views on compassion are for one’s comfort at the expense of the grater good. Linear compassion may be used as a defense against feelings of animosity and righteous anger and what it takes to deliver tough justice. In such cases, ironically, the challenge may be to suffer the untidiness of embracing reasonable malice and the discomfort of wishing one person unwell so as to truly hope for the wellbeing of the many.
In other words, unconditional, linear “compassion” may be a selfish, ideological clinging that jeopardizes compassion for the many.
So how about a compromise and an ultimatum (hypothetical, anyway), since no one and nothing should suffer longer than needed for greater good: Change your ways, Mr. Trump, or we will wish for you to be stopped however necessary.
It might be that some views on compassion are for one’s comfort at the expense of the grater good. Linear compassion may be used as a defense against feelings of animosity and righteous anger and what it takes to deliver tough justice. In such cases, ironically, the challenge may be to suffer the untidiness of embracing reasonable malice and the discomfort of wishing one person unwell so as to truly hope for the wellbeing of the many.
In other words, unconditional, linear “compassion” may be a selfish, ideological clinging that jeopardizes compassion for the many.
Can we really keep a promise of compassion when this compassion directly leads to even greater suffering? Is it truly compassionate when one mans’s wellness (who shows zero sincere promise for reform and places himself above justice) means suffering for the entire globe? We in effect wish suffering on the many via our compassion for one.
In my heart-mind, this doesn’t compute to the greatest gain for compassion. Indeed, compassion is not so tidy as we’d like and the world is far more complex than unconditional love would want us to believe. Is it more likely that a miracle will occur and trump will reform his ways, or more likely that he won’t and will continue to cause others unbearable suffering? I think this is a no-brainer.
Who speaks for the hundreds-year-old saguaro cacti and long-preserved ecosystems decimated by Trump’s pathetic wall? Who speaks for the children ripped from their parents at the border, thrown into cages, and those many still missing? Who speaks for the hundreds of thousands perished to Covid and to varying degrees by the negligence of our president?
Where is justice, and who metes it, when a person perpetually positions himself above the law so that he can continue killing and maiming everything we hold dear? Some perhaps don’t understand that this president is literally precipitating the death of our entire human community, as we teeter at the lip of full climate catastrophe, not to mention the plain menace he is to the environment generally, disadvantaged humans, and every institution of sanity.
Some mention Gandhi and his alleged saying “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Yet, I have read that Gandhi also advocated for violence when non-violent protest doesn’t work. “When there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence,” the lawyer-activist from South Africa said in 1920.
One luminary mentions that to hate disfigures us and injures our souls. But we don’t have to “hate” trump to that degree if our hearts are truly focused on compassion for the collective. We can just wish him unwell so to celebrate the liberation of so much more. Whatever anger or outrage at his actions can be adaptive, in service of greater compassion, when we grasp that stopping one man, to any degree, means liberating billions.
The result of cowardice is an inability to take bold action to mete justice, which is essentially equivalent to being unable hold a perpetrator accountable. So when one person, and/or a group of GOP bullies, willfully asserts and positions himself above the law and no imminent justice can be sought non-violently, let nature take its course: “It is what is,” as our president has said of those dead from Covid.
One luminary mentions that to hate disfigures us and injures our souls. But we don’t have to “hate” trump to that degree if our hearts are truly focused on compassion for the collective. We can just wish him unwell so to celebrate the liberation of so much more. Whatever anger or outrage at his actions can be adaptive, in service of greater compassion, when we grasp that stopping one man, to any degree, means liberating billions.
The result of cowardice is an inability to take bold action to mete justice, which is essentially equivalent to being unable hold a perpetrator accountable. So when one person, and/or a group of GOP bullies, willfully asserts and positions himself above the law and no imminent justice can be sought non-violently, let nature take its course: “It is what is,” as our president has said of those dead from Covid.
How ironic that the natural world Trump disdains and desecrates is the one that has come closest so far to any kind of justice. We don’t know what the disease means and will become for our president. We don’t even know for sure if it’s real, or just another one of his thousands of lies.
I wish for this Earth to thrive again, for people of color to be dignified, and for science, reason, and honesty to gain the upper hand. For that to happen, serial offenders with zero signs of compassion and humility must be stopped by any means possible.
All this said, if I were in front of DT on his death bed, I would have a tough time wishing him badly. Like killing an animal for necessary food, I’d rather someone else do the job, like a virus.
All this said, if I were in front of DT on his death bed, I would have a tough time wishing him badly. Like killing an animal for necessary food, I’d rather someone else do the job, like a virus.
Well said Jack. I agree with your
summary.
Our Country, and the World’s sanity, must focus on science and respect and explore our boundaries in order to survive.
Thanks, Cherie. Agreed! And it doesn’t necessarily feel good to wish ill on another, so it’s a predicament either way, and I wish for the best good.
I would not pray for Hitler or wish him well.
Well-summed. Thanks, C.
I appreciate this perspective so much. It’s the same premise behind the application of violence for self-defense: when a person’s unacceptable (to life) actions can’t be stopped any other way, then wishing harm on that person becomes necessary in order to stop them.
If we didn’t wish harm on an attacker, we would be unable (and unwilling) to effectively defend ourselves. That’s precisely why so many people find themselves unable to fight back when being assaulted or raped. Something inside of them just can’t bring themselves to harm the attacker. And is that part of them really compassionate? Maybe toward the attacker, but certainly not for themselves. In those instances, compassion for the self demands harm for the attacker.
I am a big advocate for turning the enemy into an ally, through love and empathy. That’s transformation through love, and it is definitely needed more in the world. But there are many instances when transformation through love isn’t what’s called for – when because of the situation, it simply won’t work.
Trying to empathize with a predator who is in the process of attacking you is not going to work to stop the attack. Only when your safety is ensured first can you then attempt it, without betraying yourself. Ensuring your safety first, through violence if necessary, is what is needed to have love and compassion for oneself. And abandoning that makes having love for the other a farce. It will fail to lead to transformation through love, because when we fail to love ourselves, our love for the other now becomes toxic for us – and gets used against us. (This is also what happens every time a victim chooses to stay with their abuser out of love, or every time a runaway healer martyrs themselves in the process of trying to help others.)
It’s the same when witnessing the abuse of others. As long as the abuse is still happening, having compassion for the abuser and choosing not to harm them means harming those who are being abused. There is no staying neutral and having compassion for both sides. Staying neutral in the face of injustice means supporting that injustice. Period.
It’s because the power dynamics aren’t equal. Someone being abused, in that moment, doesn’t have the same level of power in the situation as the abuser. Abuse is in itself a abuse of power. So it isn’t the same as meditating a fight between two people who are on the same level playing field. Staying neutral in the face of abuse or injustice isn’t mediation – because the playing field isn’t equal.
The President of the United States quite literally holds more power than any other person on the planet. So if he is also abusing others and committing injustice, we can’t stay neutral and also oppose that injustice. Thinking that we can is pure fantasy.
Beautifully written. Thank you for inviting me to read it.
I know in my “heart mind” that justice will be served to tRump as he takes his last breath. I think he fears dying and won’t go peacefully. I don’t have to wish him well or dead. He will be taken care of by a higher authority no matter how he goes.
Whenever I think of the hundreds of thousands he knowingly sent to their death I think of my son who was run down one evening while walking his dog. The male who did this stopped and leaned over my son who was killed instantly and walked away went back leaned over him again and walked away got in his car and left. One life or a million is too many and the only feeling I have is the deep pain within that connects me to all who suffer at the hands of the entitled who infect the hearts of those of us who have met and know to manage our own monster within. That is the reality that so many of the better than the others deny. They seek to look good while professing to do good through empty words and hiding who they know they are or live a life of blissful ignorance worshiping false idols. I don’t have it within me to hate them until I need to. I do my part for our country and am not ignorant of our history and this moment that will be history in the second to come. Thank you. I didn’t know I needed to get that out for me. It’s part of the lifetime of healing.
Refreshing. His infection is Science. His defiance and care-lessness has cost the lives of 210,000 others. Add family and loved ones to the grief and loss, and an irrational amount of humans have paid dearly for the scientific illiteracy and narcissism of one self-absorbed human. We’re seeing the power of Nature here, and I for one, accept that is greater than any mortal. Respect for Nature and understanding of disease transmission is at the basis for life itself. Defiance has its consequence. I wish Nature takes its course here, in spite of the super protections being administereed to the president already, that aren’t available to the rest of our citizenry. Privilege should NOT include the wanton disregard for all others. This is the science of disease . Thank you, Jack.