For the last few weeks, I’ve been writing about scapegoating, the practice of imputing our sins, angers, discontent, frustrations, brokenness, on another who then bears it away either by going into exile or by being sacrificed. This week I want to address a way that we often participate in scapegoating, by “monsterizing” others.
My spellcheck doesn’t recognize the word “monsterize,” so I guess I ought to stipulate a definition for it. Think of how “monsters” play in our imagination, in books, movies, and as a reference for people who we deem to be awful. Monsters represent a type of chaos that threatens our peace personally or our order collectively. In the Scriptures, the creation story in Genesis 1 shows how God brings order out of the primordial chaos, making the world a “good” place for human thriving. Various figures in the Old Testament would represent “monsters” that threaten to undo the order of creation – the serpent in the garden in Genesis 3; the “Nephilim” in Genesis 6; Behemoth and Leviathan; and so on. In the New Testament, we might think of the host of powers named variously as evil spirits, demons, unclean spirits, or devils. And, of course, throughout the Scriptures as well as subsequent Jewish and Christian tradition there are references to Satan, the Devil, Lucifer, etc., who embodies the ultimate form of an enemy intent on destruction. These “monster stories” try to account for evil that seems inhuman, but ever-present in the human story.
Monsters have a curious effect on people. Imagine the crowd of angry villagers bearing torches and pitchforks, setting aside whatever differences they might otherwise have to attack the monster with their strength in numbers. And once the monster has been eradicated there is a modicum of peace in the village. Think about that storyline when you read the story at the beginning of Mark 5, where Jesus in confronted by “a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit.” The villagers often tried to restrain him with shackles and chains, but he shattered them and spent his time in the wild howling and hurting himself.
We know that, in the end, Jesus will not shackle or shame this person but will find a way to separate him from the unclean spirits, sending them into a herd of swine and leaving the man, “sitting there, clothed and in his right mind.” Before we jump to the end of the story, however, I want to imagine the untold beginning. Think of the stories parents told their children about him, the attempts the villagers make to subdue him or get rid of him. Think of the role he played in giving those villagers a common fear, common enemy, common quest to protect themselves. Once upon a time he was someone’s son suffering an inexplicable malady. Over time, he lost his personhood and simply became the “Mad Howler of the Tombs.” That is, he was monsterized.
W e should monsterize things that are monstrous – a Nazi regime that systematically destroyed millions of lives; a Stalinist regime that murdered enemies and starved peasants; an institution of slavery and Jim Crow laws that systematically dehumanized persons for centuries. There are times that the symbol of a “monster” is precisely what we need to name the depth of evil. But the power to monsterize is often a mechanism by which ordinary people do awful things. When I was young, I was taught that a homosexual was a pervert. Period. The people who taught me that weren’t intending to be evil. It’s what they were taught. And the people who taught them were taught the same thing. So, our society ghettoized gay people into gay bars because they weren’t accepted in polite company, then we vilified them for always hanging around dens of iniquity like gay bars. This past Wednesday was the anniversary of when the US monsterized Japanese-Americans by putting them in internment camps. More recently we have monsterized homeless persons, immigrants, persons with mental illness or addictions, Arabs, and so on. When that happens, persons who otherwise try to exercise good will join in something awful because we imagine it is necessary to keep us safe. When we monsterize, we reduce our humanity by denying the humanity of others. Next week, I’ll try to tie all these essays on scapegoating and monsterizing into a way for us to enter the Lenten season that begins on Ash Wednesday, March 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment