Facing the Truth, and not passively

Those of you familiar with what Hannah Arendt termed “the banality of evil” will have a considered view of how readily people avoid full acknowledgement of harsh realities and morally challenging circumstances; the normalization of evil in every day living. Facing the truth requires courage, the primary struggle of which comes in choosing not to take flight, not simply to keep busy and preoccupied, but remain focused on one’s circumstance and what one’s reaction to it will mean for their individual definition as a human being, as an intelligent morally responsible creature. What, indeed, is one choosing to become in what one now chooses to do about it?

For Arendt, evil is banal because rather than stopping and thinking when life is sorely burdened by heartache and confusion, human beings are oft inclined to mindlessly continue to act, just for the sake of acting and keeping busy. As we can all appreciate, stopping and thinking requires great courage because it demands that we face our own culpability in bringing these circumstances about and how we now–and may continue to–enable them in their destructive course. Stopping and thinking will morally convict us to make a course correction, to realize what present circumstance means for the future and consider taking a higher road; not rushing through to some means of escape.

Two famous playwrights well illustrate this point, not only in their professional work but through the expression of their own failings and life regrets. In his memoir of last year, Peeling the Onion, Günter Grass tells of his little slice of evil. And likewise, this piece by Vanity Fair writer, Suzanna Andrews, tells how Arthur Miller, of Death of a Salesman acclaim, deleted his son with Down-syndrome from his life:

It would be easy to judge Arthur Miller harshly, and some do. For them, he was a hypocrite, a weak and narcissistic man who used the press and the power of his celebrity to perpetuate a cruel lie. But Miller’s behavior also raises more complicated questions about the relationship between his life and his art. A writer, used to being in control of narratives, Miller excised a central character who didn’t fit the plot of his life as he wanted it to be. Whether he was motivated by shame, selfishness, or fear—or, more likely, all three—Miller’s failure to tackle the truth created a hole in the heart of his story. What that cost him as a writer is hard to say now, but he never wrote anything approaching greatness after Daniel’s birth. One wonders if, in his relationship with Daniel, Miller was sitting on his greatest unwritten play. …

Some wonder why Arthur Miller, with all his wealth, waited until death to share it with his son. Had he done so sooner, Daniel could have afforded private care and a good education. But those who know Daniel say that this is not how he would feel. “He doesn’t have a bitter bone in his body,” says Bowen. The important part of the story, she says, is that Danny transcended his father’s failures: “He’s made a life for himself; he is deeply valued and very, very loved. What a loss for Arthur Miller that he couldn’t see how extraordinary his son is.” It was a loss that Arthur Miller may have understood better than he let on. “A character,” he wrote in Timebends, “is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse.”

Conversely, Mark Steyn’s early reaction to September 11, 2001 is a good illustration of the importance of acknowledging moral outrage and avoiding the urge to “move on.” As Steyn writes:

Here is my worry: At one end of the national spectrum are the anti-American elite, the Edward Saids and John Lahrs secure in their redoubts. At the other end are the great full-throated “These colors don’t run” patriots. But in between is a big wobbly blurry mass trembling on the brink of making this just another wallow in victimization-the “dominant discourse” (as Said would say) of the day. Five years ago, Bob Dole wondered, “Where’s the outrage?” Three years ago, Bill Bennett wrote a book called The Death of Outrage. In Europe, the ferociously anti-American Left is plenty outraged — it is raw, visceral, passionate, and none the worse for that. If we can’t get outraged-not sad, not weepy, not candle-in-the-windy, but outraged — over thousands of people killed for no other reason than that they went to work, then we’re really in trouble. If cultural passivity — love the world, be non-judgmental, everybody does it — co-opts even this awesome event, then the sleeping giant isn’t sleeping so much as comatose.

This is war. Save the love-in for later.