{"id":412,"date":"2014-01-26T23:42:41","date_gmt":"2014-01-26T23:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=412"},"modified":"2014-08-12T23:13:19","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T23:13:19","slug":"capturing-collateral-damage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/capturing-collateral-damage\/","title":{"rendered":"Capturing Collateral Damage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three words describe my learning and capture my response to Zygmunt Bauman\u2019s work in Collateral Damage<\/em>: sobering, overwhelmed and pondering. \u00a0The dominant word, the one with the greatest weight, the one that is \u201csitting\u201d on my chest is sobering.\u00a0 This one word reflects both a deepening awareness and reveals my response to Bauman\u2019s light on society and our actions. \u00a0My understanding of what collateral damage means immediately reveals our country\u2019s military.\u00a0 Collateral damage has become much too familiar in recent years.\u00a0 Fallout happens.\u00a0 Despite military precision bombs detonate taking out the intended target and probably more often than I want to know, innocent victims.\u00a0\u00a0 Buildings are destroyed impacting local economies.\u00a0 What does it matter?\u00a0 Does it matter?\u00a0 Isolated at home, I am removed from the proximity and resulting disruptions of lives.\u00a0 I see individuals on television carrying a casket above their heads through the crowd and I watch emotionless.<\/p>\n

Bauman applies a bit of his own shock and awe when he asserts that the structure at risk is not the military but society itself.\u00a0 Last summer a bridge on I-5 north of Seattle collapsed after one of the support beams was struck by a semi-truck & trailer, Bauman\u2019s words, \u201cit is the weakest of the spans that decides the fate of the whole bridge\u201d[1]<\/a> proved true.\u00a0 How is society the one at risk?\u00a0 The mirror Bauman uses is inequality.\u00a0 When I look in the mirror I see myself, in describing our understanding of inequality he helped me see the contributing factors.\u00a0 Ones that are present but have been clouded because we understand inequality as a financial problem associated with well-being. Just recalling the most recent Presidential elections reminds me that well-being is <\/em>associated with average income or average wealth.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Bauman pushes us to consider that our society is a class society.\u00a0 To recognize it as such means we have to look anew at our understanding of inequality and class.\u00a0 \u201cSociety is a class<\/em> society in the sense of being a totality in which individuals are included through their class membership, and are expected to join in performing the function which their class has been assigned to perform in and for the \u2018social system\u2019 as a whole.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Those that are most vulnerable are those most at risk.\u00a0 We have come to expect that our vulnerability and security will be mitigated and minimized. We listen to the news and hear of random killings, hit and run drivers, scams sucking in unexpected victims, and vulnerability when we learn of account compromises. \u00a0\u201cFate frightens us precisely for being unpredictable an unpreventable.\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 It leaves us without an anchor, seeking stability and assurance.\u00a0 If fate dominates our existence then it makes sense that we seek security and distrust those outside.<\/p>\n

Security and strangers present an interesting contrast.\u00a0 Bauman sees that throughout history strangers are a constant feature in cities.[5]<\/a>\u00a0 I recall seven months living in Melbourne, Australia.\u00a0 It took several weeks for the area near our apartment to become familiar. Even when it did I saw no familiar faces on my daily walks or runs.\u00a0 People on their bicycles or on the trams to work came from places I did not know.\u00a0 I lacked history with this place.\u00a0 I felt this when I returned back home to Gig Harbor.\u00a0 I still could go to the grocery store and not see anyone I knew by name, yet I was still \u201chome.\u201d\u00a0 I felt secure in knowing this place.\u00a0 But what do I do about strangers?\u00a0 Are strangers only in the city?\u00a0 Bauman defines a stranger as \u201can agent moved by intentions which can at best be guessed \u2013 but of which we can never be sure.\u201d[6]<\/a> Such a definition is an invitation to recognize that I see someone as a stranger when I am suspicious.\u00a0 Is it the stranger or is it me?\u00a0 Even suburban neighborhoods we can remain strangers to one another.\u00a0 I have isolated myself from others, not because I viewed others as socially inferior, but because I felt socially inferior.[7]<\/a>\u00a0 However the perception of others may mean exactly the opposite.\u00a0 When I think about moving into the city I run headlong into my desire to be part of our church\u2019s locale, which in turn presents risk and confronts my desire for safety.\u00a0 I would have to learn to live with different awareness.\u00a0 I would have to be intentional to move from stranger to friend.<\/p>\n

If we are a class society the stranger all too often becomes the underclass, the one \u201cfalling outside any meaningful, that is function and position oriented, classification.\u201d[8]<\/a>\u00a0 We do not really see the stranger, nor do we really engage with them, look them in the eye or speak to them.\u00a0 In the past (I hope less so now) I have determined who is<\/em> the stranger based on appearance or location.\u00a0 Bauman reveals that the sole attribute shared by people who are underclass is estrangement; they are the excluded ones.[9]<\/a>\u00a0 I realize that someone who fits in the underclass is a stranger.<\/p>\n

This also holds hope for me. I \u201cget\u201d what he is saying when he remarks, \u201cThe underclass is not merely an absence of community; it is the sheer impossibility of community.<\/em>\u201d[10]<\/a>\u00a0 We do find \u201cour\u201d place in association with others through networks (communities), the pain of exclusion and the subsequent barriers are formidable.\u00a0 Will we find common ground by recognizing and acknowledging our own exclusion?\u00a0 Is this a leveling step where we might begin to see ourselves as being in need of the other?<\/p>\n

There seems to be no aspect of society beyond the scope of collateral damage.\u00a0 I am left pondering and wondering where are the wisdom seekers, where are those that can discern the times and know what to do?\u00a0 It seems, that in the Church, we must consider what collateral damage have we caused in our pursuit of fulfilling God\u2019s mission, whether that was understood as evangelism (those accepting Christ as savior) or becoming missional.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [1] Zygmunt Bauman, Collateral Damage<\/em> (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2011), 2.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[2] Ibid., 3.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[3] Ibid.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [4] Ibid., 153.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [5] Ibid., 60.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n

[6] Ibid. \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [7] Ibid., 61.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[8] Ibid., 3. \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [9] Ibid., 152. \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 [10] Ibid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three words describe my learning and capture my response to Zygmunt Bauman\u2019s work in Collateral Damage: sobering, overwhelmed and pondering. \u00a0The dominant word, the one with the greatest weight, the one that is \u201csitting\u201d on my chest is sobering.\u00a0 This one word reflects both a deepening awareness and reveals my response to Bauman\u2019s light on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[172],"class_list":["post-412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp-lgp4-bauman","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1736,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions\/1736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}