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I was married in 1981 and was a successful youth pastor at a large church with 300 kids in my youth group.\u00a0 My wife was a teacher at the adjoining Christian school.\u00a0 We were the perfect Christian couple.\u00a0 But within a month we began to argue about our differences.\u00a0 Perhaps this is somewhat normal with first-year marriages, but for me it became a time of great confusion.\u00a0 I was beginning to repeat the behaviors I had seen in my home as a child.\u00a0 I began to become abusive.\u00a0 I put my wife down mentally and emotionally.\u00a0 I was causing her pain.\u00a0 I had to be right; I always had to win.\u00a0 Our home was not peaceful place.\u00a0 It was at our lowest point that a close friend of ours gave us a gift, three counseling sessions with a \u201cgrowth psychologist\u201d named Dr. Frank Freed.\u00a0 I will never forget Frank.\u00a0 He was a WWII veteran who had had his arm and ear blown off in a mortar attack in Germany.\u00a0 During our first visit, Dr. Freed put his good arm around us and said, \u201cFifty percent of your problem is already resolved because you admit you have a problem.\u00a0 Whatever you are going through, I will help you get through it.\u00a0 I give you my word.\u201d\u00a0 It took a year of individual and group therapy, but I finally wrestled through my dysfunction.\u00a0 That was 33 years ago, and I have unashamedly been in personal therapy to remain emotionally healthy \u2013 for the past 33 years.\u00a0 Although it has not been a perfect road, my wife and I have a completely different relationship now than we had in 1981; I love and cherish her.\u00a0 We have chosen to change; we have chosen to grow \u2013 but may I never forget that it could have turned out much differently.<\/p>\n
In reading our text for this week, The Great Transformation<\/em>,[1]<\/a> I could not get the thoughts in the Collateral Damage[2]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> text out of my mind concerning the evil potential of humankind.\u00a0 Of what is humankind capable?\u00a0 Given the right circumstances, everyone is capable of inconceivable evil.\u00a0 This is a hard pill to swallow, but it is, I believe, a reality for each of us to consider carefully.\u00a0 Can we change this tendency, or are we doomed to this fate as individuals and as societies?\u00a0 Can we grow out of our tendencies toward greed, power hunger, oppression of others, selfishness, and sins of omission?\u00a0 Perhaps \u2013 perhaps not.<\/p>\n \u201cThe nineteenth century produced a phenomenon unheard of in the annuls of Western Civilization, namely, a hundred years\u2019 peace \u2013 1815-1914.\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 This sounds so amazing.\u00a0 A hundred years\u2019 peace!\u00a0 But peace for whom?\u00a0 Just because there were no large-scale wars during this time period, could we assume that mankind was truly at peace?\u00a0 John Locke\u2019s vision for \u201cinternational peace and trade\u201d among nations had a ring of hope and optimism within it.\u00a0 But who would benefit from this peace and trade?\u00a0 Nation-states were a fairly recent phenomenon in Europe.\u00a0 In fact, according to many historical commentators, the first modern state was not even fully fashioned until the sixteenth century.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 And to be successful, newly formed states, by necessity, had to field standing armies to ensure their sovereignty.\u00a0 And these armies were indeed used, not merely for defensive purposes but for countless offensive and imperial pursuits.\u00a0 The Continental carnage was beyond belief in the centuries leading to Polanyi\u2019s \u201chundred years\u2019 peace.\u201d\u00a0 So what accounted for this change?<\/p>\n Finance, trade, commerce \u2013 these terms have not been a part of my personal history, and this is likely why Polanyi\u2019s text was such a tough read for me.\u00a0 But I learned from our reading that global economic issues were at the heart of the time of peace in the Western world during the 19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 However, not everyone experienced peace in these times.\u00a0 In Britain and elsewhere in Europe the working classes were suffering under government policies.\u00a0 Perhaps one of the most influential minds of the times was Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) who thrust his theory of Utilitarianism into 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> century political and economic history.\u00a0 In his powerful book, Justice: What\u2019s the Right Thing to Do<\/em>, Michael Sandel says of Bentham:<\/p>\n He heaped scorn on the idea of natural rights, calling them \u201cnonsense upon stilts.\u201d\u00a0 The philosophy he launched has had an influential career.\u00a0 In fact, it exerts a powerful hold on the thinking of policy-makers, economists, business executives, and ordinary citizens to this day.<\/p>\n Bentham, an English moral philosopher and legal reformer, founded the doctrine of utilitarianism.\u00a0 Its main idea is simply stated and intuitively appealing:\u00a0 The highest principle of morality is to maximize happiness, the overall balance of pleasure over pain.\u00a0 According to Bentham, the right thing to do is whatever will maximize utility.\u00a0 By \u201cutility,\u201d he means whatever produces pleasure or happiness, and whatever prevents pain and suffering.<\/p>\n Bentham arrives at his principle by the following line of reasoning:\u00a0 We are all governed by the feelings of pain and pleasure.\u00a0 They are our \u201csovereign masters.\u201d\u00a0 They govern us in everything we do and also determine what we ought to do.\u00a0 The standard of right and wrong is \u201cfastened in their throne.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n My questions for Bentham are many.\u00a0 How can you so easily rule out human rights?\u00a0 For whom are you maximizing happiness and pleasure?\u00a0 For whom are you preventing pain and suffering?\u00a0 Polanyi writes of Bentham:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026Jeremy Bentham, the most prolific of all social projectors, formed the plan of using paupers on a large scale to run machinery devised by his even more inventive brother, Samuel, for the working of wood and metal.\u00a0 \u201cBentham,\u201d says Sir Leslie Stephen, \u201chad joined his brother and they were looking for a steam engine.\u00a0 It had now occurred to them to employ convicts instead of steam.\u201d\u00a0 This was in 1794; Jeremy Bentham\u2019s Panopticon plan with the help of which jails could be designed so as to be cheaply and effectively supervised had been in existence for a couple of years, and he now decided to apply it to his convict-run factory; the place of the convicts was to be taken by the poor. Presently, the Bentham brothers\u2019 business venture merged into a general scheme of solving the social problem as a whole.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This was the tip of the iceberg for Bentham\u2019s theories.\u00a0 The rich have always afflicted the poor in almost every society.\u00a0 The struggle between the \u201chaves and the have-nots\u201d has been a societal evil throughout history.\u00a0 But now, with the inception of a self-sustaining market world, the stakes grew higher and the abuse more intense.\u00a0 The desire for personal pleasure and happiness for the few had dire consequences on the masses.<\/p>\n In the United States during the same time period of which Polanyi writes, entire nations of indigenous peoples were being driven from their lands and murdered, all under the excuses of utilitarianism and the \u201cprogress\u201d of civilization.\u00a0 I call these events the \u201chidden wars,\u201d which causes me to disagree with our text regarding the absence of war and the abundance of peace during the 19th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 This echoes back to Bauman\u2019s assertion that humankind is capable of indescribable evil.[7]<\/a>\u00a0 As I write, I find myself mourning the loss the pain of real humans who were dehumanized in this time period.\u00a0 God help us to remember.\u00a0 God help us to care.\u00a0 God help us to change.\u00a0 God help us to grow.<\/p>\n In the past few weeks a close family member left her husband.\u00a0 Both are Christians.\u00a0 Why did she leave?\u00a0 Abuse.\u00a0 Personal utilitarianism.\u00a0 She has been continually put down and afflicted mentally and emotionally for years.\u00a0 My wife and I saw this coming, but did not know the extent of the damage and pain until recently.\u00a0 It is a disheartening situation, one that did not need to happen.\u00a0 The husband has refused to change.\u00a0 He must always be right.\u00a0 He must always win.\u00a0 He has also refused to listen to the needs of his wife, needs that are real.\u00a0 He has refused to grow, to receive counsel, to acknowledge his selfish behaviors.\u00a0 He has staunchly refused to change, but change has come \u2013 in ways he didn\u2019t expect.\u00a0 Change is inevitable; growth is optional.<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time <\/em>(Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [2]<\/a> Zygmunt Bauman, Collateral Damage: Social Inequalities in a Global Age<\/em> (Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2011)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [3]<\/a> Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation<\/em>, 5.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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