A Call to Community

Recently, there has been some drama in various corners of the internet where I live. One such piece of drama involved a role playing game (RPG) for the Harry Potter fandom, where the moderators called it "Kristallnacht." For those of you not familiar with the name, it is translated "Night of the Broken Glass," and was a key point in World War II history, where the Nazis harmed thousands of Jews, arrested a number of them, and looted stores and businesses. As you might imagine, the choice to name a game after such a night caused many quite a bit of anger, and when some folks expressed that anger, the creators of the game responded with comments like, "It's ancient history. Get over it." I'm sure you can guess how well that went over."

I've been following this whole kerfuffle with some interest. You see, I love history, and have ever since I was a small child. History, to me, is just as good as fantasy or sci-fi. History is a story that really happened, and like other stories, we have a chance to learn from it. I have noticed a dearth of interest in history among people of my generation, however. If it's not now, current, and affecting you (generic) personally, then it doesn't matter.

Having followed a link to a post from one of the people who was most responsible for keeping the flames of anger burning, I saw the following comment (from her, in response to someone else):

You're still thinking that I'm saying you don't have a right to be upset, which isn't it at all. But as people, we need to look out for ourselves and decide the right actions for us to take. In my journal, I am expressing where I know I fucked up and what I need to work on. I'm coping with my emotions in a manner that isn't going out and attacking people.

Then, after following a link to a story about the conditions in Auschwitz, I was struck by the similarity to this statement made by a former SS officer after being asked if he felt badly that he'd made his own life more comfortable stealing from the victims while millions died:

Oskar Gröning: "Absolutely not. Everybody is looking out for themselves. So many people died in the war, not only Jews. So many things happened, so many were shot, so many snuffed it. People burnt to death, so many were burnt, if I thought about all of that I wouldn't be able to live one minute longer."

I want to be clear that I'm not equating the actions of the two. One was a foolish girl who made inflammatory and ignorant remarks about a period of history that she has clearly not studied in depth. (Because no one could tell another person to "get over" the Holocaust if they'd studied it at all.) The other was an SS officer who was complicit in the deaths of thousands, if not millions, who died at the hands of the Nazis. It's the sense of "I am going to look out for my own interests and am responsible to no one" that gets me.

The truth, the whole truth, is that we are all responsible to one another. It's an unpopular opinion in these days of extreme individualism, but every action that you or I take will have an impact on another. A statement you make denigrating someone's religion or race will impact them negatively, which could then cause them to respond negatively to someone else down the road. For example, take Anne Coulter. She claims to be a Christian, and yet her statements cause so many to feel that all Christians are bigoted idiots, which then affects me, someone she doesn't even know. Because then, when I say that I'm a Christian, those who know of Anne Coulter and don't really know me, draw an obvious comparison.

Hundreds of years ago, John Donne said that "no man is an island." I'm sure that if he lived today, in the time of gender neutrality in writing, he would have said that "no person is an island," and that is absolutely true. We cannot only be responsible to ourselves and for ourselves, or the whole world descends into chaos. We must also be responsible to others and for others, or we lose what makes us human. The choice to look out only for ourselves, to not think about others, or future generations is what has resulted in the degradation of the environment, in the choice to look the other way while another is molested or suffers abuse.

So, consider this a call to a community perspective. Is it possible that we can reverse years of ingrained individualism and think of our neighbor? As a Christian, I am called to "love my neighbor as myself," but couldn't we all do that? And wouldn't the world be a better place as a result?

I'm not saying that we should all be "nice" all the time, and stifle our emotions. It may actually mean that we call things what they are--that we say to someone, hey, you're being rude, or abusive, or cruel. It may mean that we make some waves in calling bad behavior just that. It might mean that we take the harder road, and lose friends.

Or maybe it means that we end up being better people with bigger hearts. I could live with that.