CDC attack and our response

Faith & Science Conversation
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I came across this on my email, and thought it was an excellent commentary on the recent CDC attack. I particularly liked the section on “To the public, What can I do?”

We can all do better at reaching out to those in pain, no matter what side they fall on. Perhaps that would help prevent further pain and suffering due to such events.

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I think that this is great; to break the cycle of violence, we also have to empathize with the other side.

It is really easy, when one is suffering (as this gunman did, either physically or mentally), to blame someone else. Often, the cause is not human; most of the time, no one is at fault. However, that does not take away the suffering. The health system I work in does well at encouraging the “guiltless apology,” to encourage empathy. Whether we’re in health care or not, we see suffering everywhere.

  1. Resist dehumanizing the “other side.”
    There’s nothing quite as dehumanizing as violence—actions that say “your life doesn’t matter.” As humans, when we’re under attack, it’s so easy to respond by treating our attackers as a two-dimensional villain. This may feel justified in the moment, but ultimately, it can continue the cycle that drives polarization and violence even more. Refusing to dehumanize our attackers (both physical and verbal) breaks the cycle. This doesn’t mean pretending things are ok, tolerating mistreatment, or not responding—but it does mean treating people with dignity in our responses, even when they aren’t affording us the same treatment. This does two things: 1. It stops escalation, and 2. It shines a brighter light on the reality of their mistreatment, because it’s contrasted with our response demanding dignity and respect for all humans.
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I didn’t listen to the full video but something struck me in the “What can we do?” section of the article: there’s no acknowledgement of the fact that our society has no outlets for such anger! We talk about caring without recognizing that caring can mean allowing someone to explode so long as others aren’t harmed, and I kept wondering what outlet could have provided this guy with a way to communicate or at least release his anger without being harmful.
Paul says to not let the sun go down on one’s anger, but he doesn’t say to suppress it, and in counseling terms sometimes anger needs expression or it just festers – and explodes later uncontrollably and irrationally. One psychologist I knew recognized this and kept a shed with boxes full of glass bottles and jars; when someone was dealing with overwhelming anger he would ask, “So do you feel like breaking things?” The answer was “Yes” often enough that his recycling bin wasn’t even a quarter large enough to hold the fragments from that shed. Then once the urge to break things had worn itself out, progress got made.
We have to find a provision when people reach the need to break things.