A Theory of Social Justice: Compassion, Not Guilt

by Reverend Kenneth Collier

May 14, 2000

So. Ever heard something like this? "There's so much pain out there. I suppose someone's got to address it, but why should I have to do it? I mean, I've got my hands full right now, what with working 60 hours a week and my family and all. Besides, I've worked hard to get what I have. Why shouldn't be able to enjoy it?" That's what might be called the "I've Got Mine" theory of social justice: I've got mine; let someone else take care of these problems. Not much of a social justice theory, but you do hear it—cleverly disguised, of course, but "I've got mine" nonetheless.

How about this one as an alternative? "Yes, I know. The world is full of injustice and all. It needs to be corrected, but that will take a better person than I. It will take a Martin Luther King, Jr., a Gandhi, a Mother Theresa. Maybe all three rolled into one. I can't do that; I'm just an ordinary sort of person" That's the Great Healer Theory of social justice: It takes a few great people, and since I'm not a great person, I'll wait for one to come along and follow that one. In the meantime, there's not much I can do. Again, not much of a social justice theory. But I've heard it.

A variation on this theory is this: "There's so much to do I wouldn't know where to begin. I need someone to tell me. In the meantime, all I can do is wring my hands." That one at least has the merit that it does not pretend to be anything but an excuse for not getting involved. Still, it has precious little to do with social justice. And it won't heal any of the pain in the world. Quite the contrary. All three of these "theories" actually perpetuate the brokenness of the world, because they amount to nothing but excuses. There has to be something better, something that really will motivate people to get involved and touch the world with love.

The classical thing is an appeal to guilt. "How can you possibly just stand there and do nothing? The world is falling to pieces all round you, from famine to racism. And if you don't do anything about it, you are complicit. You are as guilty as those who perpetuate the pain, because your inaction allows the pain to continue and grow. Edmund Burke was right: 'All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good [people] do nothing.'"

I know you've all heard some version of this. In fact, I suspect that many of you have subscribed to it. I know I have, and I've even preached it on occasion. It has the great virtue of getting a fair amount of social justice work started. Guilt really can motivate people. There is a problem, though: this is guilt misplaced.

Guilt is a wonderful emotion. We all feel guilt from time to time. Like all emotions, guilt has evolved in the human psyche for a very good reason. There are times when we should feel guilty, namely, when we really have done something wrong, something for which we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. Seen this way, guilt is one of those emotional and moral compasses that guide us to atonement, to healing the breach we have opened with another. Guilt, properly felt, is about things we have done that we ought not to have done, or things we have failed to do that we ought to have done. It is about our own actual behavior.

There is nothing about the drought in Ethiopia for which I ought to feel guilt. And there is nothing about a hurricane in Central America for which I ought to feel guilt. And there is nothing about the Taliban for which I ought to feel guilt. And so on. There is not even anything about the racist actions of my own ancestors for which I ought to feel guilt. Good guilt cannot motivate me to act when action is called for, but only when I have been involved in creating the pain in the first place. Beyond that, something more even primal than guilt is needed. And there is something more primal: there is compassion. And there is love.

Compassionate love. Perhaps a good translation of the Greek word "Agape," which is used in the New Testament to talk about the holy, god-like love that Jesus calls us to. It is also what The Buddha meant when he said that the surest fruit of enlightenment is an all-embracing love. And it is also what our own Universalist spiritual forebears meant when they extolled the healing love of God and insisted that this love, expressed in human action and interaction, is what saves us. Salvation by compassionate love. Salvation by a love that moves us and motivates us to bring healing into a pain-filled world. Yes. That is more primal than guilt.

Let me be specific. I just said that I ought not feel guilt for the racist actions of my own ancestors. And that is true. I have never owned any slaves. Even though my ancestors did, I am not guilty of that particular moral crime. I am not responsible for their actions.

And yet. My ancestors shattered a portion of the interdependent web, and in doing so, they created a brokenness that was so vicious that its echoes continue down past their world and into ours. What would compassionate love have me do? What would the understanding that this brokenness exists have me do? Am I not called to a compassionate love for the continuing victims of that vicious brokenness? Am I not responsible to work somehow for the healing of the interdependence of all beings? I think so.

Or again. I have never molested a child. There is no reason for me to feel guilt for child abuse. And yet. I know that child abuse happens in every community in the United States, including Palo Alto. In fact, if you look at the list of violent crimes in the Palo Alto Weekly, the two that seem to me to appear the most often are child abuse and domestic violence. And every church I have ever served has had victims of both of these crimes among its members and friends. Guilt will not motivate me to do anything about this, for I am not guilty. But what would compassionate love have me do? Does it not call me to work for the healing of the terrible suffering that abuse brings into the world? Does it not call me to work to knit back together the shredded web? I think so.

The word "reconciliation" springs to my mind. It comes from Latin, meaning, "to rejoin." And the word "religion" also comes from Latin meaning "to bind together." There are no accidents in language, but there is great wisdom. Compassionate love calls me to bind back together, to rejoin, that which has been shattered, driven apart, estranged and alienated by human action, whether what is shattered is an environment desecrated by human greed and short-sighted exploitation, or a culture torn apart by racism and arrogance, or a relationship destroyed by someone's inability to understand the enormity of pain. Compassionate love calls me touch the world with tenderness that hunger may be satisfied, nakedness clothed, the homeless sheltered, the ill healed, and those whose spirit has been broken can discover worth and dignity, even in their own lives. Compassionate love calls me to the religious work of reconciliation.

To return to the excuses listed at the beginning. "But there is so much to be done. I wouldn't know where to start. And I cannot do it all." So, maybe it doesn't matter so much where I start, so long as I start. To use a minor parallel, I used to avoid cleaning my desk, saying that I didn't know where to begin. So I didn't begin anywhere. And you can guess what happened. Nothing happened. It just got worse. (Now I don't offer any excuses. I just don't clean it!) If no one starts to bring justice into the world, justice will not enter the world. If no one acts to heal the shredded web, it will never be re-woven. It will only get worse. So it doesn't matter whether you start with child abuse or environmental action or anti-racism, or whatever else. What matters is that you feel compassionate love, and act.

And of course, you can't do it all. Most of these problems took generations and millions of people acting badly to create. One person cannot solve any of them acting alone and for only a lifetime.

But from the fact that you can't do it all, it does not follow that you can't do anything. You can hold one weeping person in the circle of your love. And that will change the world.

"I'm nothing special, not the great leader that is needed. I don't know what to do." I may not be a Martin Luther King, Jr. But all that means is that I am not called to lead a movement. It does not mean that I am not called to love compassionately. When your love becomes truly compassionate, then you begin to understand what to do. It's not that knowledge magically appears in your brain. It is rather that you begin to see what is happening, who is already working, what they are doing. You begin to see what people really need, and you begin to have the courage to make that thing happen. You begin to trust what you feel to guide you to the healing of what you see. And that begins to change the world, even if it is only a small part of the world.

"Yes. Something ought to be done. But why do I have to do it? I've got my hands full with my own life, my own problems." So what else is new? Of course, I have my hands full. But a peculiar thing happens when we begin to love compassionately. In the very process of bringing justice into the world out there, we also begin to bring justice into the world in here, in our own hearts. Here is a truth that I have discovered: everyone's heart is broken somehow. And in order to bind up my own heart, I need to work to bind up the hearts of others. Why? Because part of my broken heart is precisely the brokenness of the world.

Part of the ugliness of my heart is ugliness of the clear-cut forest. Part of the fear in my heart is the fear in the heart of the ghetto. Part of the anger in my heart is the anger in the heart of the abused child. The ignorance and sloth and greed in the world are reflected in my heart. And how shall I heal, how shall I overcome these things in my heart if I do not work to overcome them in the world? How shall I approach the gods if I turn from their appearance in the world, even in the person of the least of these, my brothers and sisters all around me?

The Buddha said it 2500 years ago:

See yourself in others.

Then whom can you hurt?

What harm can you do?

Those who seek happiness

By hurting those who seek happiness

Will never find happiness.

The others are like you

They want to be happy.

Never harm them.

This is the way of compassionate love. Overcome the sorrow of the world, and find the true happiness of reconciliation, of becoming at one again.

Author's Permission requested. Original article and others can be found at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto website