Searching for Solidarity in an Atomized Society - Peter Laarman

,&.i .,iw s iw-i ,::{,J-1. +"j'{ ff.-t rr- d-il J. **,.4.$" 4 gi:; h; +"-l ",/ r:j rr' *v* t tai;*- .L .$ *-x ;' i, s_ii ,:.q,4- i .T .$ i,:{.q},r-H.} ..d: tu.r a",--fl 'c**.;s g " f$**{":r q-'t. .s" ." ?- * -" BY PTTER TAARMAN ow cAN wE coNrrNun to behave ethicallywithin a wider culture in which so many forces prod us to use others for our own satisfaction or self-advancement? essay on 'Tustice in the City" raises It's an always-vexing question that Aryeh Cohen's in a fresh way. "We desperately need to build up an ethic of accompaniment,', the author writes. "We should commit to creating a counterculture of resistance and celebration." Detail from.dnzisioning Racial Fairness (see caption on page 30 for more details). There have always been unscrupulous individuals who operate in this way, seeking out others'vulnerabilities in order to exploit them. But now we have entire industries devoted, in essence, to harvesting heretofore personal information for the sake of prompting particular consumer and political choices. We have people on the left, not just on the right, who "network" systematically with an intent that is flagrantly self-interested. enhancing one's celebrity through the occasional act ofvery public kindness. My point is the obvious one, that the wider society grows ever more oblivious to the problem of instrumental relationships: relationships based on what good I can get out ofthe I can provide to benefit the Other. For many of our contemporaries, whether we should be using other human beings to our personal advantage is not even a question-it's just the way things are. I maywell be exaggerating the degree of ethical coarsening that we have been undergoing (and I speak here only ofthe U.S. Other rather than what good situation-I cannot am exaggerating, If I address the state of play elsewhere). I trust readers will correct me. But .;i *rought CIf Lc'vingkirldri*$s ); L There is, of course, the issue of compassion fatigue in a situation of information overload, but I think an even more troubling issue is the question ofwhy and how to persist in doing good-acting out of generosity and goodwill-within a wider culture in which the old idea of doing good anonymously and as daily practice, of doing good routinely, has been supplanted by the idea of 'doing good', as a means of REv. pETER LAARMAN is executive director ofprogressive Chris_ tians Uniting, a network ofindividuals and congregations in Southern California. He previously served as senior minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York. Peter is a contributing editor at Religion Dispatches magazine and is the recipient ofyale Divinity School,s William Sloane Coffin '56 Peace and Justice Award. little genuine (i.e., disinterested) public charity taking place, let alone the kinds ofpractices that exemplify what we in our faith traditions understand to be public justice. Accordingly, I believe we are already in a new and unprecedented moment, one with extremely troubling parameters whose full measure we have yet to take. Politically, all of our democratic institutions have been draped with giant "for sale" signs. Economically, nearly all ofour major business enterprises appear to have dispensed with the quaint idea that employee well-being matters, exthese days see very I cept inasmuch as it boosts the bottom line. Religiously, most Americans continue to gravitate toward a fear-based religiosity or a success-based religiosity (or some combination: the two are obviously related), whereas the market share for an unapologetic prophetic faith continues to slide. And, as bad as they are, all ofthese other warning signs pale in relation to the ever-rising tide of social fragmentation and atomization. There is a fearsome public price for this growing alienation, as underscored in Sherry Turkle'sAlone Together. VOL 28' NO l, WINTER 2Ol3 I O 2Ol3 TIKKUN MAGAZINE I DOI: lO,l2t5 /OgA7ggg2-tgs74a6 TTKKUN 43 cultr-rre in congregants sink right back into a conrmon continues to gain the sociallY Darwinian For Neri's icleologl strength. s'ill follow If ie do nothing else for the ger.rerrrtiolls that a counterctllture of reours, we should commit to creatir-rg to pose a real sistance and celebration that is thick enougll challenge to the Social Daru'inists' an ethic of Contemporary Americas reluctance to accept squishiness accompaniment has in part to do s'itl-r Christian Cohen quotes Rabbi ]Ieir-"We obligation' ,"gu.dirrg lvhich "thical .o".".accompaniment,'_andnotesthattj-risfbrrrrrrlationis To resist the atomi zation of caPitalist society, we need to both odd and wonderful. Robinson has Christian essayist and novelist Marih'nne "The Fate of in topic some important things to say on this t ll-as a Child he n Ideas: Moses," an essay from her book il that essay Robinson excoriates the liberal I Read Books.In build a counterculture of generositY, compassion, truthtelling, and joY, the author writes. Detail from Enz;isioning Rn.cial Fairness' and offensive Christians who continue the long-estabiished the Hebrew Bible onlv to dismiss its fractice of appropriating ethical mandates as irrelevant' She s'rites: clear It to come to s'hatseems entirell' appropriate for Christians of tl-reir ou'n sacred ever terns they must with the difficulties But the Old Testament is narrative, their or'vn mythopoesis' theirs' and if the-v another nlatter'. It is not in the same sense tion, then it is r-rot theirs in any sense at all' it while consciously ethic of accompaniment. But we must do profoundly ,r.ti"rrtu.rfi.rg oorr"l',"t to be operating in a grandparents'Amercountercultural context. This is not our no shortage of rapacious capiica, where there was certainly understood talists but where rapaciousness was commonly only ofcontempt' antisocial behavior, deserving to constitute Forallofthesereasons'wedesperatelyneedtobuildupan respectful attenrefuse to grant it its terms, or to give it their part from AmeriAmerica, and lve do, it stems in significant of clt chrirtiuns'general cluelessness regarding the kind Emmanuel Levinas discourse rvith which Aryeh Cohen, and may have to struggle before him, have been engaged' Jews Ifwehar.eanaccompanimentproblemincontemporary possible elbows is socially Today, the wielding of the sharpest u"."ii"d and sometimes even celebrated' Audiences ieered Donald Trump' Frank Capra's Mr. Potter; today they cheer ;:: !': i { jta',1 withtheseissues,suchChristianswouldsay,butwearenot to our treatment bound or compelled in any way in relation of the Other. left no daylight at all Really? Try telling that to Jesus, who inheritance' For between his own teaching and the Mosaic him, the accompaniment principle was nonnegotiable' " '{. "' r- ,i /';"; l-.r:l l'l i i-: i tt. i-r i " a thick and This takes me back to the need for developing a miniappropriately countercultural means' at able to do Becoming culture of resistance' Christians won't be *i orrrr"lu"t, in our communities^of resistance' durable at its very -um, thlt without putting sabbath and jubilee principles and recognizably different culture this rh.p; recognizable acquainted' at a procenter. And this in turn means getting " generosity' modesty' compassion' truthwhose hallmarks are power of the law and the from the larger found level, rvith the liberationist telling, and joy. It means not withdrawing American Christians it to do prophets in ways that very few North ,o"i"ff but nevertheless engaging and challenging Puritans) have ever done' no easy feat by any (besides those too-easily-mocked if we have inbetter while avoiding self-righteousness: If my reading of these times is correct' and today exA few of our progressive faith communities of extreme means. entered a new and dangerous social space at certain times, but not in suf- deed countercultu,al r'iui. then we must at all "dg" " depth or at sufficient scale to change the basic frame exploitation and extreme atomization' iJ"* we must avoid treating costs a,roid responding superficially: ri u"q"itii"e individualism as the norm' even as the desir- the wounds of tttis p"opl" in an "offhand" way (Jeremiah a:tr)' our most vibrant faith able norm, for human behavior' Even We need to hunker down for "spirited con- We need to be ,ob", uttd' 'erious' in this communities-what some have taken to calling long haul. And that means hitting the books-or' with the fifty-minute problem: that is' the feast' not famine' still tt"*,"""'-contend cur", hittirrg the Books, where there is fifty minutes oftheir congregants'rapt attention ifr"] intelligence' "tul* these same for the discerning inrirrs the course of a given week' after which i^ ::: i}. f, '.} l, i i'i1;"{1"- il r. : : l' :' 1'r :l' WWW,TIKKUN.ORG I WINTER 2OI3 44 TtKKUN 'il Documents Similar To Searching for Solidarity in an Atomized Society - Peter LaarmanSkip carouselcarousel previouscarousel nextPhilia and JusticeHuman Resource Ethics - Power Point Presentation[1]exploring w01 grader eocexploring w01 grader eocIndian Model of Managementclass wrkexploring w01 grader eoc aHimanshu Virkar%28s%29 Corporate Gyanjames alarid example of word document15317_list of Antonyms and SynonymsEssay 1- Dreams of ChildrenPap 3 q2 Ethicsj snyder example of word documentexploring w01 grader eocLa Imagen Del Futuro de Fred Polakpersonal ethics and financial reportingexample of word document9.6.09The.pursuit.of.True.pleasureword graderletterofintent-jadahow to build a 1. 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