Right to Choose (4.9.25)
Nothing's right, I'm torn. - Natalie Imbruglia, 1997.
In Sophie’s Choice (1982), Meryl Streep plays Zofia, a Jewish woman forced at the gates of Auschwitz to choose which of her two children would be admitted to live in the camp, and which to send to the gas chamber.
It is a heartbreaking scene which I cannot bring myself to re-watch, even decades later. But I’ll come back to this later.
Last week (“The Outsiders”) I explored what it would be like to have a world that promoted human flourishing – to have the perfect conditions for individual thriving and well-being. The problem is, maintaining a perfect world would demand excluding anyone whose behavior tainted that perfection.
The reality is that most of us wouldn’t qualify to live in such a world because we carry enough anger, resentment, bitterness, pettiness, jealousy, or selfishness to un-perfect that world pretty quickly. We may say that we want a world that has more of the good, and less of the bad, but our behavior doesn’t always bear that out. On the contrary, we excel in rationalizing our behavior when we are bad, and are adept at feeling self-righteous when we are good.
It’s tempting to label this hypocrisy, but that’s uncharitable. Rather, it is a universal, practical, dilemma of the human condition: we know what we should do, but we also know we can’t do it all the time. How do we respond? The same way as any person who has tried over and over and consistently failed at something: we become discouraged. When that discouragement persists long enough, in the spirit of “you did your best, that’s all anyone can ask”, we might fall back on something along the lines of “I try to be a good person”.
But is that enough?
Let’s put ourselves in charge of the world for a day. Assume you are selfless and moral, desiring a world that abounds in justice, fairness, joy, peace, fulfillment and enrichment.
Well, your majesty, it’s court day.
Assembled to your left are the petitioners: in pain, suffering, distress or misery of one kind of another. On the right side are the people who caused that pain. They don’t look evil. In fact, they look rather ordinary, like you or me. Maybe they had ample food, and did not share with the hungry. Or they didn’t think that false rumor would go that far, or that comment would cut so deep. Perhaps a white lie took away an opportunity from someone on the other side.
You speak to each of the hurt. Hearing their stories, your heart is moved. Being good and kind, you feel their pain. These people have the short end of the stick. You then turn to the other side. But instead of becoming angry at them, you become sad, because your empathy extends to them as well. They were not necessarily vengeful or hateful. They were just trying to get ahead, to provide for their loved ones, or responding to some pain they themselves had inside. The hurt plead with you for justice: “It’s not fair!. The wrongdoers cry in defense: “We tried to be good! We really did!”.
What does a just but merciful leader do?
How does Zofia choose? More next week.
J