Oppose Harm

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The admonition to Oppose Harm seems, at first blush, to be embarrassingly simplistic.  A decade ago it would have triggered a "Well, duh!" from anyone a few years either side of 20.  Today an "eye roll," that must eventually do real damage to the optic nerve, would not be a surprising reaction. Yet it is an "obvious" tenet to which we give more lip service than actual support.  Bullying remains a social cancer in America's schools.  Globally, entire cohorts defined by race or gender, belief or sexual orientation, are singled out for state-sponsored bullying, imprisonment or worse.

It is far from being an "eye-rolling, no big deal." If we don't commit to Opposing Harm, bullies will run the world. Genghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin, and Idi Amin are but four of history's many bullies who came to terrorize and murder millions because, as cultures, nations and individuals, we failed to Oppose Harm. So, we should go kick some "bully butt!" Send in the drones, right?

Well, certainly sometimes; but not always. When you stop and think about it for a moment - or even longer - the charge to Oppose Harm is really not that simple.  Rather, on further consideration, Oppose Harm swiftly reveals itself to be half of the most complex dynamic within Distilled Harmony.

Remember, the first - and preeminent - tenet of Distilled Harmony is Foster Harmony.  When Distilled Harmony requires us to both Foster Harmony and Oppose Harm there seems an obvious tension, an unavoidable discord. Opposition is, by definition, discordant and hence cannot Foster Harmony.  No argument. But, when a single situation pits Foster Harmony against Oppose Harm, the objective is to find the harmonic resolution resulting in the greater good.

Defining a "greater good" is always a daunting task, but we can approach it more successfully if we, as the tenet Distill Complexity suggests, avoid getting mired in fruitless complexities.  Albert Einstein asserted that seemingly complex truths about the universe could be distilled to concise explanations because "God does not play dice" with the universe.  Einstein was also a pacifist who would have whole-heartedly supported Isaac Asimov's assertion in Foundation, that "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

But Einstein was no ordinary pacifist; he was a radical pacifist who was also the most famous man of his era. His public statements drew immediate and worldwide attention; and those statements made it clear that he believed that there was no legitimate justification for war; that the only way to put an end to war was to refuse to participate in warfare in any way. To express Einstein's belief system in Distilled Harmony terms, Foster Harmony, with its inclination to pacifism, clearly trumped the warfare common in extreme examples of Oppose Harm.

Einstein, however, shared the world stage with a man quickly growing as infamous as Einstein was famous: Adolf Hitler. The swiftly evolving technology of modern warfare allowed Hitler to spread a wave of pathological murder and hatred across Europe and Northern Africa with unparalleled speed. And as it struck at Einstein's own family and colleagues, Einstein's moral fulcrum shifted.

Einstein, who also said "make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler" realized that radical pacifism's plain tautology of "war is always bad" over-simplified life in the real world. Hitler became the mandatory exception to Einstein's radical pacifism, and it became necessary - in Einstein's mind - to violently Oppose this unique Harm. So Einstein, much to the chagrin of the radical pacifism movement, withdrew his universal opposition to war and fled to America where his indirect participation in America's war plans hastened Hitler's fall.  In Distilled Harmony terms, the need to Oppose the Harm of Hitler's virulent pathologies trumped the compromise seemingly advocated in Foster Harmony's support of radical pacifism.

And that dynamic points out an important concept in the natural tension between Foster Harmony and Oppose Harm.  Foster Harmony does advocate fair and compassionate compromise. It does not, as a complete understanding of Oppose Harm reveals, advocate acquiescence to bullies.

Therein lies a balancing act of some sophistication.  You see, a common error is that in our righteous opposition to the harm perpetrated by bullies, we become bullies ourselves, taking arms against the "bad guys."  I am always mystified when I read about wars in which I would think it would be hard to identify the enemy.  Given the lack of uniforms among the civilians, I wonder how during "the Irish troubles" the combatants were able to distinguish a Catholic from a Protestant? On the smoke-filled battlefields of our Civil War, how, at a crucial moment, did you tell a Yank from Johnny Reb? In Vietnam, if there were no uniformed regulars around, how did the locals tell friend from foe?

Those who fought in those conflicts would probably be amazed at my naiveté.  But the point is this - the difference between the bully and the bullied is often simply power, pure naked power. And when that power shifts, often the bullied swiftly seize upon the roll of bully. The desire to carry "opposition" to your adversary to account for previous "harm" overwhelms the mandate to Foster Harmony.

And therein lies the most challenging aspect of this tension between Foster Harmony and Oppose Harm. Robert Burns wrote - translated to the contemporary vernacular - "Would some power the gift give us, to see ourselves as others see us."  We often wonder, from a personal, social or political perspective, how others can so misunderstand us.  I didn't say that!  I didn't mean that! That isn't me!

The tenets of Distilled Harmony don’t require us to accept the negative attributes heaped upon us by aggrieved others.   Certainly, as Americans, where each election seems - if you believe the media - to pit The Devil against Evil Incarnate, we realize that perceptions can be easily manipulated and distorted.  But a first step in the first tenet - Foster Harmony - is to try to "see ourselves as others see us," and in turn to re-examine how we have come to see the other. Such an examination may well reveal a path to Fostering Harmony that allows us to avoid this ticklish business of Opposing Harm.
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