A few of my friends recently posted this Venn diagram. I
really appreciate it as a reasonable response to the issues again raised after
the murder of George Floyd. I took some time to think about this diagram and
realized I do not know anyone who is not in the middle triangle. I have friends
who joined the protests in DC. They support “good police officers” and they do
not “condone looting and rioting.” I have friends who declare “blue lives matter”
who are also grieved by the murder of Mr. Floyd. While the diagram is a good representation
of where most people stand, we must be careful to not use it as though everyone
else is outside of the middle giving us a sense of superiority. How do I want
others to judge me? I should probably judge them with the same understanding.
As long as I assume “I get it right and “they” are all wrong” I will not listen
to “them.” If I do not listen to “them”, I will not work with “them.”
Cynicism asserts that everyone is motivated by the desire
for power and money. The Christian version of this confuses utter depravity (man
is as bad as he could be) with total depravity (all of man is tainted by sin).
It also fails to account for the power of regeneration that makes the Christian
dead to sin (Romans 6:1-4). The great blind spot of cynicism is that it only
applies to “them” and never to “us.” “They” are bad, while “we” are good. However,
if everyone is motivated by power and greed, then so is the cynic. It could be
fairly argued that the cynic is using cynicism because it allows him to gain
the upper hand over others. In fact, it inherently claims a superior knowledge
which allow the cynic to see the motivations of others. With a cynical paradigm
in our minds, the above mentioned Venn diagram seems to indicate that “they”—those
who are protesting—don’t “support good police officers” and/or
they do “condone looting and rioting.” On the other side, those who support the
police are not “outraged by George Floyd’s death.” Neither of these is actually
true of the vast majority of Americans.
No comments:
Post a Comment