Being versus Believing

For one of my doctoral classes I am doing a lot of reading in sociology. The perspective is overwhelmingly liberal and although I have softened many of my views over the years, especially since leaving Christianity, I still find it difficult to subscribe to the left wing agenda en masse. Maybe it is the manner in which their message is communicated; whereas conservatives are often condescending, liberals tend to be offensively witty--a sort of enlightened sarcasm intermingled with the occasional kook that is convinced the sky is falling. And of course, the answer is always more regulation, more government control.

Honestly, I haven't thought much about my political leanings, I have always seen them as a byproduct of whatever philosophical system I ascribed to at the time. When I was a Christian, I voted Republican, when I was an anathema to the faith, I voted Democratic. But now I am neither or perhaps both--so where does that leave me politically and socially? Rev. Linda is decidedly liberal, focusing her ministry on themes of justice, peace and equality which are code words for lighter sentences, decreased military operations and increased welfare...I say in jest. But there must be a middle ground between imperialism and pacifism, between crushing the little guy and spoon-feeding him.

I think my biggest problem with the liberal perspective is that it unwittingly transfers responsibility away from the individual to the abstract communal entity. For me, all change must happen, in fact, does happen, at the individual level. If I can read about single mothers struggling to survive with starving children and become indignant yet continue to eat at overpriced restaurant that cater to the type of clientele I aspire to be, what does that tell me about myself? If I believe that by donating $10 dollars a month and writing my congressional representative is an indication of my positive devotion to the cause, I am mistaken. If I believe every statistic about poverty, hunger, homelessness and racial oppression and still continue to live the same way I did before I heard those numbers, I am worse than a hypocrite, I am a fool.

At the risk of allying myself with the infamous strategy of trickle down economics, I will say that I believe that everyone must take responsibility not only for their actions but what their actions or lack of action say about them. If my liberal zeal is only a guise for my own jealousy of the rich and does not arise out of a more admirable desire to help the oppressed, then what does that say of me?

Reports like these are necessary, even desirable but they are not nearly enough for the journey, in fact, they do not even constitute one step of that journey; they only offer another option to those who must choose how to live and what steps they will take in this life. Rev. Linda said that I was a pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps kind of guy, and although I have tried to alleviate the heavy burden of personal responsibility, I cannot. Each of us faces this world alone and without pardon from the punishment of freedom.

The painful fact is that I always have at least one other option which affords me the opportunity of choice and each choice, no matter however small or bounded, however insignificant or grandiose, resonates from inside me. It is choice, then, and not circumstance, that determines who I am and this is not meant in the socio-economic sense. I do not blame the poor for their continued poverty or the rich for their reckless extravagance but each makes their own path. Mother Teresa is a model not because she helped the poor but because she helped the poor. She took on the responsibility of being someone who acted to a certain end.