Chris Hedges’ Essay about Radical Jesuit Priest, Daniel Berrigan — Encourages Us to Take to the Streets in Accord with Spiritual Teachings — even before We Attain the Personal Equanimity that Some Think Should Be a Higher Priority

© 2012 Peter Free

 

11 June 2012

 

 

Two substantive and an incidental point about Mr. Hedge’s coverage of Daniel Berrigan

 

These are:

 

(1) People who lament the lack of heroic moral action in the secular world are, understandably, looking in the wrong places.  The world’s most important leaders are found serving among the rabble, the group that comprises most of us.

 

(2) Effectively taken, “real world” ethical actions almost always precede the attainment of anything close to personal spiritual maturity by the protagonist.

 

(3) Hedge’s essay’s meaning-filled focus, in its rarity, represents how far American culture falls from dealing realistically with anything especially important.

 

 

Citation — to Chris Hedges’ essay

 

Chris Hedges, America’s Street Priest, Truthdig (10 June 2012) (regarding Jesuit priest, Daniel Berrigan)

 

 

First point — heroic action is around us, but cultural complacence and media imbecility conceal it

 

Witness Jesuit priest, Daniel Berrigan, who at age 92 is still seeking to right the moral wrongs that organized (and disorganized) society inflicts on the majority of the world’s inhabitants:

 

“This is the only way to bring faith to the public and the public to the faith,” Berrigan said softly as we spoke before the demonstration in the park that was once the epicenter of Occupy Wall Street.

 

“If faith does not touch the lives of others it has no point.

 

“Faith always starts with oneself. It means an overriding sense of responsibility for the universe, making sure that universe is left in good hands and the belief that things will finally turn out right if we remain faithful.

 

“It is up to us to take the initiative and hope the churches catch up.”

 

© 2012 Chris Hedges, America’s Street Priest, Truthdig (10 June 2012) (paragraph split)

 

Berrigan is apparently destined to go to jail (again) for participating in New York City’s Occupy protest.  Living the faith.

 

Hedges makes this point succinctly:

 

There is one place, Berrigan says, where those who care about justice need to be—in the streets.

 

The folly of electoral politics, the colossal waste of energy invested in the charade of the Wisconsin recall, which once again funneled hopes and passion back into a dead political system and a bankrupt Democratic Party, the failure by large numbers of citizens to carry out mass acts of civil disobedience, will only ensure that we remain hostages to corporate power.

 

Berrigan believes, as did Martin Luther King, that “the evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and the evils of racism.”

 

And he has dedicated his life to fighting these evils.

 

It is a life worth emulating.

 

© 2012 Chris Hedges, America’s Street Priest, Truthdig (10 June 2012) (paragraph split)

 

What Hedges writes in the paragraphs that follow the above extract is insightful in a way that spirit-guided people will immediately recognize as true.  Living the Gospel means embracing its guidance in action on the street.

 

Hedges sees merit in Daniel Berrigan’s Christian anarchism.  He thinks that, “persistent alienation and hostility to all forms of power is the most effective form of resistance.”

 

 

Is this sort of anarchical action a good idea? —Phrased this way, the question misses the point

 

Quasi-conservatives (like me) see little merit in anarchy.

 

On the other hand, the power of the State and, especially, the State’s unidirectional support of the Empowered One Percent’s self-interest(s) need to be countered.

 

When we see Christian anarchy as one of many players in the ecological context, it belongs.  Just as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. advocated.

 

 

Second point — according to Berrigan, we must act before we feel spiritually centered enough to do so meritoriously

 

Hedges quotes the Jesuit:

 

“The notion that one has to achieve peace of mind before stretching out one’s hand to one’s neighbor is a distortion of our human experience, and ultimately a dodge of our responsibility.

 

“Life is a rollercoaster, and one had better buckle one’s belt and take the trip.

 

“This focus on equanimity is actually a narrow-minded, selfish approach to reality dressed up within the language of spirituality.”

 

© 2012 Chris Hedges, America’s Street Priest, Truthdig (10 June 2012) (paragraph split)

 

Berrigan’s statement implicitly attacks the prioritization of equanimity that is as important element of Buddhist thinking.

 

 

Is Berrigan correct about de-prioritizing equanimity on the spiritual action spectrum?

 

I am not convinced that outward-directed action, taken on the basis of a lack of self-control or a mistaken understanding, is going to be a constructive one.

 

The Reverend Father’s intellectual position appears to imply that the world is so egregiously screwed up that efforts to correct it — even if somewhat mistaken themselves — cannot help but improve it.

 

That might be true, at least from a statistical perspective.  Provided that the “fixers” are spiritually developed enough to foresee most of the ways in which they might, inadvertently, add harm.

 

However, Berrigan’s abbreviated quotation appears to unfairly deemphasize the power of developed equanimity’s calming example on frenetically milling people and their misbegotten actions.

 

In Berrigan’s favor, equanimity (taken to its logical extreme) means the calm acceptance of unfortunate or even evil circumstances.  Such would be in virtually no one’s best interest.

 

Thich Nhat Hahn, the deservedly admired proponent of “engaged Buddhism,” would almost certainly agree with his Jesuit companion-in-spirit.  As I do.

 

 

Third point (the incidental one) — why does the popular media so frequently avoid printing or televising anything that actually provokes meaningful thought?

 

Chris Hedges’ essay on Daniel Berrigan showed up in Truthdig, a deliberately positioned voice for the counter-culture.

 

You don’t often see essays of such thought-provoking quality in the prevailing media.

 

Their absence makes it that much more difficult to convert ourselves from being consumerist sheep into something more admirable.

 

 

The moral? — Engaged spiritual action is arguably necessary, if we are to emerge from the anti-democratic doldrums into which the United States is sinking

 

The most motivating Berrigan quote in Hedges article is this one:

 

“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal,” he said to me, quoting Emma Goldman.

 

© 2012 Chris Hedges, America’s Street Priest, Truthdig (10 June 2012)

 

Note

 

Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was a prominent anarchist and women’s advocate.

 

We see the truth of her statement about voting concretized with every election.

 

And there is no hope for 2012, either.  The presidential race pits two essentially identical supporters of “the powers that be” against each other.  Having coopted America’s in-name-only (or “in lame only”) democratic system, the One Percent Establishment is not going to lose.

 

This is Berrigan’s reason for rousing spiritual somnolence into action.  The system will not change, until we step enough outside it to escape the institutionalized leverage that its abusers have stolen.