The Fallacies of Friction: A Holy Week Reflection, Dr. Robert Zuber

Where there is power, there is resistance. Michel Foucault

The friction between ‘what is’ and ‘what could be’ burns you, stirs you up, propels you. Marcus Buckingham

Occasionally when people in the grip of obsessive resentment were pouring out their ire and grievances, something in them, some small trace of self-awareness, heard themselves as others might, and was surprised to find they didn’t sound quite as blameless, or even as rational, as they’d imagined themselves to be. Robert Galbraith

Every grievance you hold hides a little more of the light of the world from your eyes until the darkness becomes overwhelming. Donna Goddard

Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance. Robert Frost

When we make grievance our traveling companion, it blocks out light, it distorts our perspective, it consumes our hearts until there is nothing left. Merida Johns

Our culture is not this thing to be seen from a distance. We need to be embracing the friction of it all – that is where the energy is. — Doug Aitken

Change means movement. Movement means friction. Saul Alinsky

I have been quiet in this space but not quiet. In other formats I have been doing my small part at national level to counter the grievance which has become a form of embedded cruelty and at international level commenting on the peculiar brand of diplomatic indifference which refuses even to uphold the core principles which gave rise to the institutions which we have entrusted with peace and security in the first instance.

In these strange times, in some ways a throwback to manifestations of the human condition we foolishly thought we had consigned to history, I and many others have taken up the task of creating friction for those who believe they are above the impacts of their own bad work, those who believe that their lofty positions and distorted policies exempt them (or should) from resistance to the point where such is deemed an evil impediment to the fulfillment of their desires – a grievance and even vengeance-driven remaking of political culture in their own image.

As some of you know, I have long worried that my own country has become essentially ungovernable, full of people fleeing to the safety of bubbles where we can nurture our self-serving ideas and petty grievances without friction, without interference. We have become a nation of trolls with little taste for subtlety or even self-reflection. We “root” for people and ideas rather than examine their legitimacy and intent. Our collective arrogance blots out almost all of the inclinations we might otherwise have to humility, reflection or self-awareness, let alone to service.

What I just alluded to has been true of my country for some time. The current crisis is a symptom of a larger and more systemic problem which cuts across political and even religious affiliations. Our hearts are largely consumed by violence and greed, much more than is helpful for a society which seems to have misplaced its creeds, a society which is increasingly turning its backs on veterans, on the elderly and disabled, or on those seeking refuge from governments deemed even more cruel than our own. We have “drunk the kool aid” even when we aren’t thirsty and by so doing contributed to a society which seems comfortable with mass firings of government employees, mass dismantling of our health systems and mass deportations of non-criminal legal residents. A society where its leaders huddle to embrace a God of violence, riches and vengeance as though there had not been a subsequent message focused on forgiveness, humility and reconciliation attributed to Jesus of Nazareth. A society where what is true is reduced to what someone can convince us is true.

This society has needed and now needs even more the friction which communicates categorically “this is not OK.” This is not good enough. We will not return to a time long past when enfranchisement was for the few not the many, when a cruel but not so unusual hierarchy kept too many people in the places that they were “assigned” ostensibly by a God who ordained our lofty patterns of discrimination.

You’ve heard all this from me before, this indication that what we are now living through is a culmination of sorts, a culmination of increasingly inadequate leadership and a distracted, self-interested populace which has lost sight of all that must happen in this world – the good, the bad and the sometimes ugly – in order for us to enjoy the blessings that we too often forget we have.

In this current climate, I and others continue to resist, continue to provide a bit of friction to a government and a system that has convinced itself that its cruel judgments have some sort of divine sanction. But in this season of Ramadan (now concluded) of Passover and of the Christian Holy Week, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of resisting a false religious narrative with one of our own making.

Indeed, we must remind ourselves that resistance is not righteousness, that to overquote Reinhold Niebuhr, “the evils against which we contend are the fruits of illusions similar to our own.” Resistance is an obligation for many as it is for me, but it is not a “counter-crusade.” It is not about swapping out one perverse view of God’s favor for another.

In this Holy season, we must also remind ourselves of the costs associated with being that source of friction which not all of us provide but which all of us need. This is the friction which helps us to be better versions of ourselves, refusing to divert our gaze from cruelty and poverty to which none should be subjected, refusing to allow the chores of the present to divert our attention from the needs and aspirations of those who follow.

But the friction which people like me attempt to apply in our now-adrift society cuts in many directions. We who attempt this work, including the work of inspiring resistance in others, are not immune from the responsibilities and impacts of that resistance – to challenge what we see while trying to be better than what we see. But also to acknowledge that friction wears us down too. Friction takes a toll on us too.

And this toll is in part a function of the culture of resistance itself – seeing the glass as forever half-empty, slipping into patterns of language that ascribe things to people – including evil –that apply in full measure to only a handful of humans, failing to appreciate the spring flowers, or poetry and music, or a thrilling sports match, so that we can get in one more “cut” of friction, one more pithy response to a systemic “monster” which remains much more formidable than people like me will ever be.

Indeed the consequences of resistance, of creating friction day after day, can produce their own grievances which serve neither our own work in the world nor the interests of those to whom we seek to connect.  More than anything else, we must never lose touch with the people whose lives have been upended through policies which are anything but “people-centered.” Indeed, such loss of touch helps explain the predicament we now find ourselves in.

I’m a bit beaten up now but will spend this Holy Week recalibrating my own resistance and the effects it is having (or not having) on matters internal and external to myself, including on those whose response to the gravity of these times remains to be inspired.  For those of you already in the friction business, even part time, we need to ensure that our voices and actions have all the impact that is possible.  It’s going to be a slog for now as what “is” continues to lag well behind what could be.  Let’s commit to locating the formula that can bring more hope to the world and ensure timely and healthy responses from ourselves.

Tags: grievance, resistancre, United States