What We Owe Our Enemy: A Look at Justice and Bullying

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Here’s to the last paper I wrote in my undergraduate career! This one is for my Classical Political Philosophy class and is on justice according the Plato’s Republic versus the Bible…

Justice and Bullying

Book One of Plato’s Republic addresses an important question: what is justice? And, specifically, it discusses what we owe the other—both our enemy and our friend. Though in theory much of what is discussed seems rational based on Just War Theory and the idea of ought and owing, these principles don’t line up with Biblical teachings. Jesus had a very different concept of justice and treatment of enemies than Polemarchus and Socrates did, and I think it is important for us as Christians to consider this when deciding what we ought to do.

The first thing I think of when I consider the idea of justice and what we owe our enemies is the topic of bullying.

Bullying is becoming a major problem in our society today: we see it in middle schools, high schools, friendships, relationships at work, and even within the context of unhealthy relationships. The reaction I witness the most towards the bullies in these stories (who we view as “enemies”) is one of hatred. After the Amanda Todd tragedy, the internet was swarming with people shouting out “justice”, which in this context took the form of lashing out at the bullies, pointing out what detestable human beings they are, and expressing the need for something to be done to them. Not about them, but to them—there is a difference.

The first definition we get in The Republic of justice comes from Cephalus. To him, justice is all about property and the rights surrounding it. To him, being “just” means possessing money, not cheating or lying, and paying back what you owe. Sure, doing these things is “just” and right (apart from the money part), but there is so much more to justice then just that. Paying back your debt and not being dishonest are, in my opinion, really just the results of living a just life and not the foundational elements of it. So I don’t have much else to say about little old Cephalus.

According to Polemarchus and his ideas of Just War Theory, we owe our friends goodness, and our enemies evil.

The standard responses to the Amanda Todd situation and bullying in general exemplify this perfectly. The bullied are our friends and the bullies are our enemies; therefore, the victims deserve goodness and the bullies deserve evil—plain and simple revenge.

Polemarchus was a war guy, and within the context of battle, this does make sense. You owe your fellow soldiers a commitment to do right by one another, to have each other’s backs, and to treat each other well. And those fighting against you? Well, you don’t exactly owe them peace or loyalty, you are at war with them—so technically you “owe” them evil. But outside of the context of war, this idea of justice doesn’t necessarily make for a peaceful society. And if you think of it, if we all spent time loving each other—friends and enemies alike—is it possible we wouldn’t need a separate principle for “just war” at all, because war would cease to exist?

Maybe I’m a bit idealistic in this regard…

Socrates doesn’t give much of a definition of justice because he’s Socrates, and he doesn’t really define anything—to do so would be to claim he has knowledge outside of his knowledge of his ignorance. However, Socrates does view justice as a compilation of oughts, shoulds, and shalls. He also speaks of the Noble Lie. The Noble Lie, according to Socrates, is a lie told to a friend to prevent him from carrying out injustice (so I suppose Socrates does define this). Socrates believes it is unjust to allow a friend to do injustice to another, and so you owe him what he calls a “noble lie” to prevent him from carrying out the injustice. The concept of the noble lie doesn’t apply directly to cases of bullying. However, Socrates would say we owe our friend a “noble lie” if it will prevent them from carrying out an injustice like bullying towards someone else. However, this doesn’t say what we owe the enemy, so is helpful only in understanding the treatment of friends.

The Biblical view is something else entirely.

To decide what we owe our friends and enemies, first we must look at who our friends and enemies are. In discussing the treatment of others, the Bible speaks of three main categories: friends, enemies, and “neighbours.” One could easily decide “neighbours” is meant to refer to = our friends; however, because the term “friend” is used elsewhere, I believe there is meant to be a distinction between the two. The treatment of others is not addressed from the standpoint of enemies versus friends/neighbours; instead, I believe the Bible tells us how to treat our enemies, how to treat are friends, and how to treat our neighbours.

Based on this, both our enemies and our friends fall under the category of “neighbours” because “neighbours” refers to those we coexist with—whether on good terms or bad.

It is important to realize this because when we read “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:31 ESV), we know Jesus is not talking about only our friends; we are to love our neighbours—to love all people—as we love ourselves.

Aside from the treatment of neighbours, the Bible distinctly discusses how we are meant to treat our enemies. Proverbs 24:17 states, “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your hearts be glad when he stumbles.” Rejoicing in your enemy’s misfortune is no different than inflicting injustice on him yourself. If you take pleasure in seeing someone else get mocked, is that much different than you mocking him yourself?

Yet time and time again we see people filled with pleasure and amusement when we see bullies come crumbling to their defeat. We want them to lose. We want them to suffer. We want them to be inflicted with the same torture they inflicted on others. But this is not love. And this is not just. Not according to the Bible, anyways.

Proverbs 25:21 says, “If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.” I believe this goes beyond mere physiological needs. I think bread and water are used as an example because they are basics, but I believe what is being said is if your enemy is in need of something, you offer it to him, in the way you would offer the same to your friend. This is what you owe him. The passage continues on to say, “For you will heap burning coals on his head” (Proverbs 25:22) and although this sounds harsh, I believe this is what is meant by “turning the other cheek”—you are taking his hatred and repaying it with love, which points a mirror at him, showcasing his own faults. This is not meant as a way to harm or to mock him, but rather to help him see what he has done.

If you fight back a bully’s hate with more hate, are you showing him there is any other way to live? What kind of example are you setting by using the same methods he does?

However, when we respond to a bully with love, which is something often lacking in their lives, we show them an alternative. We lead by example.

Leading by example is an important theme throughout the Bible. In Matthew 5:43-47 Jesus speaks specifically about living a life “set apart” from the average in our relationships with others, especially our enemies:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others?

In addition, Jesus also says in Luke 6:27-31:

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”

This is how we are called to live. This is what we owe the other—both our friend and, possibly even more so, our enemy.

When a seventeen year-old bullies a fellow classmate, it is our instinct to label him/her an enemy, and this is alright—we don’t have to view them as “friends”—but we do owe it to them, and to society as a whole, to treat them in a way that is just. And not a way that is “Just War Theory” just, but a way that is biblically just.

We need to respond with love, not anger. We need to extend mercy, grace, and forgiveness, not hate and retaliation. Jesus has extended these gifts to us, what gives us the right to decide someone else is undeserving of them?

We are not called to judge. We are not called to pay back in kind. We are called to be different, to assess a situation and fill in the gaps. In this bullying epidemic we are facing, what’s missing is forgiveness. What’s missing is love.

Yes, in these situations the victims need love, but the bullies need it just the same. We must remember people don’t often become bullies “just for kicks”; they become bullies because someone else bullied them—it’s a vicious cycle. And if we retaliate with anything other than love, we are merely allowing the cycle to continue.

The passing down of anger and violence needs to end; the hand-me-downs must stop with us, and it only will if we change the way we respond to it.

Movements such as Love is Louder, are working hard to bring about this very type of change. I only hope the church will follow in these footsteps.

Polemarchus would say bullies are the enemy, and we owe them harm, we owe them evil and revenge. It is a war: us versus them, and in fighting the battle using retaliation and harm, we will come out victorious and justice will be served. But this is not justice—not the type of justice that will bring about change, anyways.

Jesus brings forth a new form of justice; not “an eye for an eye” but rather “turning the other cheek” and paying back hate with kindness. With grace and forgiveness.

When we fight back with love we are saying that we are rising above the set standard, that we not only strive for something more but we believe in it—we believe in the power of good over evil, of love over hate.

That is the only hope in our battle against bullying (note: not against bullies, but against bullying). Responding with hate will not bring us any closer to peace; it will instead only take us further from it. Responding with love, however, changes the rules. It reverses the system.

To fight back hate with hate is hypocritical and gets us nowhere, but to fight back hate with love? Well that changes everything. And who knows, the world may even become a better place.

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

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Twitter: @lauren_b_sag

Waiting on Your Rainbow

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Once again I had the opportunity of being published on my church’s blog JesusBigger.ca. This time I chose to write on hope, and how we are all promised a rainbow, and sometime we just need to be patient…

The past month has been trying to say the least. It felt as though it was just one thing after another, wave after wave of attacks both in my personal life and at work. I had people coming at me, criticism thrown at my work, and a To Do list that kept my mind racing to a million places at once. And then with one final blow, I was defeated.
waiting on your rainbow
It’s difficult to know what to do in these moments when life seems to come crashing down all at once and you don’t even have the chance to come up for air. I did what any person would do; I came home in the middle of the afternoon, grabbed a box of Kleenex, and crawled into bed, waiting for the day to end or Jesus to return.

Yes, it would appear my world was flooding.

At times like these I allow myself to let go of the one thing that can actually work as my life raft: hope. Even when we know God has a master plan, we still get to the place where hope seems to have drifted away. Yes, we are Tom Hanks screaming out after poor Wilson as we watch our volleyball of hope bob up and down, floating off to sea, with an ironic smile on its face (for those who haven’t seen Castaway, this must seem like an odd metaphor). And all we can do is watch.

But the truth is hope doesn’t drift away unless we let it. Hope is a gift; it is real, and it is always there. Always. No matter how stormy things may get.

Back to my story. So it was just me, my box of Kleenex, and a good 18 hours before I could call it a New Day, get up, and give it another shot…KEEP READING

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Twitter: @lauren_b_sag

Three Years Ago on St. Patrick’s Day I Went to Bed With a Butcher Knife on My Nightstand

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(a follow-up to this post)

Three years ago on St. Patrick’s Day I went to bed with a butcher knife on my nightstand… 

St patricks dayWell actually it was on my coffee table because I was sleeping on the couch (it had been a rough night).

If you’ve ever been in this place, you know what I’m talking about. It’s that place where all the joy in your life seems to come crashing down around you, leaving nothing but a pile of shattered porcelain remains of what once was your world. Usually this doesn’t happen out of nowhere; usually it’s been building up and then one night, in one moment, that straw that broke the camel’s back? Well it ends up breaking yours, too.

I won’t go into detail of what happened on that particular night – though given that it was St. Patrick’s Day, I’m sure you already assumed that alcohol and impaired judgement were involved – this post is not about that; this post is about what happened after.

I came home defeated. Whatever had been keeping me together was gone, and for the first time life didn’t seem like the greatest option.

(note: if you are ever in this place, please call a friend or helpline immediately)

I did what I normally did when I have a rough night: I came home, left my clothes in a pile on the floor, threw on my giant Nike hoodie, and curled up on the couch. Only this time I made a stop at the kitchen first. I went in the drawer, pulled out a butcher knife, and placed it on the coffee table next to the couch. Just in case.

This way I knew if I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t handle the pain, I wouldn’t have to anymore. (again, if you are ever in this head space, call a friend or helpline).

I am not telling you this because I think it’s an entertaining or captivating story; I want you to know I approach this story with the highest level of seriousness. I am telling you this so you can understand exactly where I was, because without fully understanding where I was, you won’t be able to witness the miraculous contrast between that and where I am now.

This is what happened after…

I woke up the next morning (praise God I woke up!), pulled myself out of bed, and got myself out of the house. I knew it wasn’t safe to be alone (again, this is really important if you are in this frame of mind). I knew I had to talk about this with my professor (who is also one of my mentors) but it was still too early in the morning and he wasn’t in his office yet. So I just sat outside in a central, public area, and waited.

I watched as people walked by – alive and well – and I felt dead in comparison. It was an eerie feeling to say the least.

I went to my professor’s office and waited for him to show up. As soon as he walked in I could see on his face he knew something was terribly wrong. I told him of the previous night’s events. And I told him about the butcher knife.

There is a defining point in everyone’s life, the point when you are standing at a crossroad and you have a choice to make: To Be or not to be.

After talking it out with him, I made my choice: I wanted to live (I wrote more in depth about this here). It is my belief each of us will face this decision in our life and I also believe once you make the choice to live, you never go back on that choice. You may want to at times, but you never really go back.

Once I’d come to the conclusion that I did in fact want to live, I had one final decision to make: how to clean up my life so I could start living it.

This is when I entered into recovery (for those who don’t know, I was battling an eating disorder at the time).

And now…

Now it is St. Patrick’s Day, three years later and not only am I alive, I am living.

I want you to know life didn’t suddenly become easy just because I chose to live it. Like I said, I had to make some changes, and I had to work at it, and life still isn’t “easy” – I don’t think it is meant to be.

But life is beautiful. I can promise you that. You just have to give it a chance and be willing to seek out the beauty.

I know what it’s like to be in that place where you don’t want to go on. But I am here to tell you to go on anyways, because something beautiful will come of it.

Now you may be thinking “Sure, you had something to live for, but I don’t.” Which is why I want to point something out to you: When I went to bed with the butcher knife, I didn’t know how my life was going to turn out. There was no such thing as “Libero Network,” most of the friends I have today I hadn’t even met yet, and I had no clue where I was going with my life. I didn’t have a church, I didn’t have a healthy group of friends, and I didn’t have any sense of self-worth. But even amidst all of that, I found a reason to choose life, anyways.

I believe we can all find a reason to be.

Your reason may be different than mine, but the foundational reason is this: your story isn’t over yet. It’s not. No story is meant to end because the protagonist says it is. That’s not how it works. You are the hero of this story and you don’t have the right to choose when you die. (Don’t like that statement? Well blame Socrates, because he said it first.)

When I took that leap of faith and decided to carry on through the pain and begin building a better life for myself I had no idea how that was going to turn out; there were no guarantees. What I did know was it was going to be better – because it couldn’t get much worse, and, more importantly, because I was choosing to let it be better.

Looking back, yes, it’s been a bumpy three years, but that is life. But the trials and the struggles – those are just as much part of living as the moments of beauty and joy.

My story wasn’t over yet, and had I ended it, I never would have experienced what I consider my greatest sources of joy today. I wouldn’t have even gotten a taste of them. Instead, I would be nothing more than a pile of dirt and a slab of concrete with some vague quote carved in it: “A daughter, a sister, a friend, whose story ended too soon.” NO! I didn’t want that for myself. And deep down I know you don’t want that for yourself either.

Three years ago today I nearly chose not to be; the next day, I chose “To Be” instead – and I’ve never regretted it.

Your story isn’t over yet. So choose life. And then once you’ve done that, start living it.

St. Patrick’s Day is not a pretty day for me – there aren’t any good memories there – but the day after St. Patrick’s Day…well that day is beautiful.

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Twitter: @lauren_b_sag

Love is Blind.

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“You have the gift of being able to see people for who they could be; just don’t mistake that for who they are.”

I knew he was right when he said it, and I also knew I was already making that mistake.

My history with love is not one with a happy ending – though “endings” I have had quite a few of. My track record with choosing relationships is not great…and by “not great” I mean it’s pretty horrific. In both myself and my friends I’ve seen a range of relationships that go from good to mediocre to straight-up abusive.

See, not all relationships need to be abusive to be “bad” sometimes it’s just not the right person or it’s just not the right time. And yet people still want to rush things, and, more importantly, people still want to stay.Love is blind

When I talk to people about why we stay in bad and even abusive relationships, at some point the conversation inevitably leads to: “Love is blind.” I used to believe this to be true. But recently I’ve had some problems with it. See, if love is blind, that would mean I would have seen these guys for what they were in the beginning, and then, once falling in “love” with them, love would have assumingly made me “blind,” which would explain why I stuck around for all the abuse.

However, if I’d seen them for who they really were from the start – before being “blinded by love” – why would I have stayed? Would it not be assumed that, had I been in a position of being fully aware and had not yet put on the “rose-tinted glasses,” I would have pegged these guys as aggressive/distant/insensitive/dangerous and would have run as fast as I could in the other direction? But I didn’t run. Instead, I stayed. And it’s not that I knew who they were but stayed anyways; I didn’t know at all. I didn’t see it. In fact, from the moment of meeting them I really only saw what I was hoping to see and didn’t acknowledge any of the negative, which in hindsight is really quite obvious now. It would appear I was blinded all along. And this is what led me to a new conclusion:

It is not love that makes us blind, but our desire to have love that blinds us.

I always was the type who didn’t like being alone; I always wanted to have someone. And I think, deep down, we all have a natural desire for a partner, someone to share life with, someone to make us feel loved, protected, and, most importantly, wanted. I know I do. And in some of us (especially when we are in a vulnerable place) this desire becomes a need, and when we need something, we will do anything to get it, and our mind may even begin to play tricks on us. It’s like the cartoon character trudging through the desert feeling thirsty and hopeless until on the horizon he sees beautiful palm trees and a hammock next to a crystal clear pool of fresh water, but as we all know, this vision isn’t real; it is imagined – it is his thirst that makes him susceptible to such a mirage, his desire. Unfortunately for us, by the time we realize our oasis is nothing but a pile of sand, we are usually already in too deep.

And even if we somehow are awakened and our eyes are opened to the truth, and we even get the strength to leave, that doesn’t mean we suddenly are “healed” from our blindness, because as long as we don’t deal with the actual issue (which is never actually about the guy or girl), we will still possess that need to be wanted, and we will still chase after it blindly. Why do you think so many people return to the same bad relationships? Or bounce from one bad relationship to another? (and I am speaking from experience, here) It’s because they never dealt with the real issue, they never dealt with their need to be in love.

If you don’t address your need to have someone, then you will remain blind – not by love, but for love.

I know because this is what happened to me. I never dealt with the underlying issues that made me feel incomplete without someone to attach myself to, and so I remained blind and I didn’t see things that were glaringly obvious to onlookers: the emotional roller coasters, the exploitation, the verbal abuse. And, instead, I saw only what would keep me hanging around, the things that would justify in my own mind why this was someone worth falling for.

We blind ourselves to many things, not all of them as serious as abuse, yet still things that shouldn’t be ignored. We blind ourselves to the reality that maybe the other person just isn’t quite ready for a relationship, or maybe we aren’t, for that matter. We blind ourselves to the face that he/she really hasn’t changed and is still repeating old patters of behaviour. We blind ourselves to the fact we disagree with the other person on things that are of great significance – spiritual beliefs, feelings about marital counseling, or core values. And we even blind ourselves to the compatibility of the relationship itself, pretending that everything is just great, meanwhile you have no mutual interests, you think his taste in movies sucks, and you can’t relate on any deep level – this is when we tend to make the other person’s interests our own, attempting to morph our own identity with his/hers.

And it is all done subconsciously because instinctively we will do whatever it takes to acquire that which our body or our mind believes it needs to survive.

And our mind is telling us we need to be in love.

I told my friend I understand why people stay in really bad relationships (“We accept the love we think we deserve, Charlie” *) and I obviously understand why people stay in really good relationships, but what I don’t understand is why people settle for mediocre. But I think now I do: We settle because we don’t even realize we are settling. We settle because we are blind. And we are not blind because we are in love, we are in love because we are blind. There is a difference.

*The Perks of Being a Wallflower

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Twitter: @lauren_b_sag