“That’s what binds people together, a shared grievance, a communal anger.”
Patrick Robinson in his novel The Shark Mutiny.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Well, we do lots of speaking against evil. What will it take to get us to act? As suggested in the novel mentioned above – a shared grievance, a communal anger. What form might that take?
Years ago, a friend and I discussed the potential for anyone to commit an evil act. We settled on the idea that given the right circumstance combined with the right opportunity, anyone is capable of anything. Imagine a very moral and virtuous man. If his children are hungry, his morality and virtue may act as a speed-bump on his urge to steal food to feed them. Once they begin to actually starve, that same man may not simply be willing to steal, but to kill to see his children fed.
I imagine the same forces of circumstance and opportunity work in the reverse, as well. At some point the circumstances provide the impetuous for an act against evil. I propose that we are long past that point. That leaves opportunity and opportunity, I submit, will only arrive when the greater community has felt enough pain. We already share the grievance (at least those of us paying attention do) and are bound together in that way. What’s needed is for Joe Sixpack – the normies – to join us. Then we still lack the anger, at least on a broad enough scale.
The opportunity will come when enough of us are bound together in shared grievance, and a spark of some nature (creating communal anger) pushes us over the edge. It may take as little as one of us acting in a way that causes us to be sacrificed while righting an obvious wrong, taking vengeance on an invader or an obviously corrupt government official, or simply speaking truth to power in a way that destroys us. It must be something that enrages the majority of the Folk. One would have guessed the Charlie Kirk assassination would have been such a spark, but there apparently wasn’t enough shared grievance in the greater community to generate the necessary anger.
Burlingame speaks of the Responsibles, the Resentfuls, and the Adoptables. The Responsibles (those who build and love the good, the true, and the beautiful) and the Resentfuls (those who destroy the good, the true, and the beautiful) vie for the allegiance of the Adoptables (that 50+% of the population that can be swayed to either side – think normies, think sheep). It has always been thus. The opportunity comes, I believe, when enough of the Adoptables recognize and awaken to the threat posed by the Resentfuls and join the Responsibles in acting.
Of course, there may come opportunities for those individuals who have the courage and are willing to sacrifice themselves well before such an eventuality. That in and of itself may produce the spark required for communal anger on a broad enough scale to push back the Resentfuls and restore the good, the true, and the beautiful; to rebuild that which has been lost.
While we wait for opportunity to show herself we need to prepare and be watchful. History teaches that she always arrives; sometimes for the good and sometimes for the evil. The coming of the Founding Fathers of America (Responsibles) for the good, the coming of the Bolsheviks in Russia (Resentfuls) for the evil. The question remains. What will it take? What will it take for the Responsibles to act and win the day?
Roth Harbard
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