Beyond Rivalry

You've probably heard about the Wal-Mart worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, who was trampled and crushed by a stampeding crowd of early-morning shoppers at a Long Island Wal-Mart on Black Friday -- shoppers who then "went on to scour the shelves for sales, even after being told a man had died." Damour died apparently of a heart attack of asphyxiation after the sliding glass doors he was holding shut shattered under the weight of the crowd of 2,000 or so who were trying to get in as the store opened at 5 a.m. for after-Thanksgiving sales. (Ludicrous comment by a Wal-Street employee in the store's electronic department: "'It was crazy. .. The deals weren't even that good.'")

Here's a bit of Damour's story, and here: "He loved to chat about movies, Japanese anime and politics. ... [H]e had a great sense of humor. ... He was the guy who was always lively." He was "an easygoing literature buff -- a fan of poetry and the late novelist Donald Goines -- who would put himself out for friends."

Just finished The Likeness by Tana French, which follows on her evocative debut of last year, In the Woods, both set in Ireland. The Likeness would be a great readlike for Donna Tartt's The Secret History, with its focus on a closely knit group of college-aged students (grad-school-aged, in this case) who have secrets.

French's writing and emotional sensitivity are both superb.

The elements that most interested me are the thread of sacrifice woven throughout the book, French's evocation of sadness, and her portrayal of the settled, harmonious, familial, habitual, insidious, dysfunctional, oppressive, romanticised and idealised relationships and lifestyle among the five friends. I think that besides sacrifice, one of the major themes of the book is home: what constitutes home, family, the places we are free, the places we are held; and how some people sacrifice everything to create home, and some feel it a threat they have to run from, and some never find it, and some luck into it for a week, a year, a decade, a lifetime.

Sacrifice

"I don't tell people this, it's nobody's business, but the job is the nearest thing I've got to a religion. The detective's god is the truth, and you don't get much higher or much more ruthless than that. The sacrifice, at least in Murder and Undercover ... is anything or everything you've got, your time, your dreams, your marriage, your sanity, your life. Those are the oldest and most capricious gods of the lot, and if they accept you into their service they take not what you want to offer but what they choose." [Cassie]

"Look at the old wars, centuries ago: the king led his men into battle. That was what the ruler was: both on a practical level and on a mystical one, he was the one who stepped forward to lead his tribe, put his life at stake for them, became the sacrifice for their safety. If he refused to do that most crucial thing at that most crucial moment, they would have ripped him apart -- and rightly so: he would have shown himself to be an impostor, with no right to the throne. ... But now ... Can you see any modern president or prime minister on the front line, leading his men into the war he's started? And once that physical and mystical link is broken, once the ruler is no longer willing to be the sacrifice for his people, he becomes not a leader but a leech, forcing others to take his risks while he sits in safety and battens on their losses. War becomes a hideous abstraction, a game for bureaucrats to play on paper; soldiers and civilians become pawns, to be sacrificed by the thousands for reasons that have no roots in any reality." [Daniel]

"Regardless of what advertising campaigns may tell us, we can't have it all. Sacrifice is not an option, or an anachronism; it's a fact of life. We all cut off our own limbs to burn on some altar. The crucial thing is to choose an altar that's worth it and a limb you can accept losing. To go consenting to the sacrifice." [Daniel]

"[J]ust like Daniel, I've always known there was a price to pay. What Daniel didn't know, or didn't mention, is what I said right at the beginning: the price is a wildfire shape-changing thing, and you're not always the one who chooses, you're not always allowed to know in advance, what it's going to be." [Cassie]

Near the end [spoiler alert], Cassie considers mercy, which you can also look at in terms of what people are willing to sacrifice, including themselves:

"There's so little mercy in this world. Lexie sliced straight through everyone who got between her and the door, people she had laughed with, worked with, lain down with. Daniel, who loved her like his blood, sat beside her and watched her die, sooner than allow a siege on his spellbound castle. Frank took me by the shoulders and steered me straight into something he knew could eat me alive. Whitethorn House let me into its secret chambers and healed my wounds, and in exchange I set my careful charges and blew it to smithereens. Rob, my partner, my shieldmate, my closest friend, ripped me out of his life and threw me away because he wanted me to sleep with him, and I did it. And when we had all finished clawing chunks off each other, Sam, who had every right to give me the finger and walk away for good, stayed because I held out my hand and asked him to."

There's also some philosophising about content and discontent, with language about 'the sacred' and 'exterminated at all costs':

Abby says:

"our entire society's based on discontent: people wanting more and more and more, being constantly dissatisfied with their homes, their bodies, their decor, their clothes, everything. Taking it for granted that that's the whole point of life, never to be satisfied. If you're perfectly happy with what you've got -- specifically if what you've got isn't even all that spectacular -- then you're dangerous. You're breaking all the rules, you're undermining the sacred economy, you're challenging every assumption that society's built on."

Daniel takes it up:

"I think you've got something there. ... Not jealousy, after all: fear. It's a fascinating state of affairs. Throughout history -- even a hundred years ago, even fifty -- it was discontent that was considered the threat to society, the defiance of natural law, that danger that had to be exterminated at all costs. Now it's contentment. What a strange reversal."

The Friends

"On weekends they worked on the house; occasionally, if the weather was good, they took a picnic somewhere. Even their free time involved stuff like Rafe playing piano and Daniel reading Dante out loud and Abby restoring an eighteenth-century embroidered footstool. They didn't own a TV, never mind a computer ....  They were like spies from another planet who had got their research wrong and wound up reading Edith Wharton and watching reruns of Little House on the Prairie."

"They were very tactile, all of them. We never touched in college, but at home, someone was always touching someone: Daniel's hand on Abby's head as he passed behind her chair, Rafe's arm on Justin's shoulder as they examined some spare-room discovery together, Abby lying back in the swing seat across my lap and Justin's, Rafe's ankles crossed over mine as we read by the fire. ... I was on full alert for any kind of sexual vibe ... and that wasn't what I was picking up. It was stranger and more powerful than that: they didn't have boundaries, not among themselves, not the way most people do. ... [A]s far as I could tell, everything, except thank God underwear, belonged to all of them. The guys pulled clothes out of the airing cupboard at random, anything that would fit; I never did figure out which tops were Lexie's and which ones were Abby's. They ripped sheets of paper out of each other's notepads, ate toast off the nearest plate, took sips out of whatever glass was handy."

This is what I am always looking for, and idealised as it is, I have sometimes lucked into it.

Sadness

"I was a wrecked thing smeared over with dark finger marks and stuck with shards of nightmare, and I had no right there anymore. I moved through my lost life like a ghost, trying not to touch anything with my bleeding hands, and dreamed of learning to sail in a warm place, Bermuda or Bondi, and telling people sweet soft lies about my past."

"We did something good. I thought that meant no damage could come of it. It's occured to me since that I may be a lot dumber than I look. ... If I learned one thing ... it's that innocence isn't enough. ... I didn't even try to explain to him what I was seeing, the fine spreading web through which we had all tugged one another to this place, the multiple innocences that make up guilt."

I. love. it.  Travellers welcomed home at the airport by 20 total strangers carrying signs, banners, balloons, and flowers.

I've been reading in recent weeks about the so-called Bali Bombers, three men -- two brothers (commonly called Amrozi and Mukhlas) and an Imam/computer technician -- who were tried and found to be instrumental in the killing of 202 people -- most of whom were foreign nationals, including 88 Australians -- -- at nightclubs in a tourist area on the Indonesian island of Bali [in green] in 2002, to protest the US-led invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. (Bali is overwhelmingly Hindu, however.) Another 209 people were injured. (More at Wikipedia)

For their roles in the crime, their execution, which may occur by this weekend has now occured, will be by ritualised firing squad on another Indonesian island, off Java, the spot (or perhaps three separate spots) in the woods already decked out with chairs and crosses, after five years of legal appeals that apparently the bombers themselves had no interest in, as they have said throughout that they are ready and happy to die as martyrs, preferrably by beheading, in the Islamic way. They admit the crime and show no remorse but have apologised for killing Indonesian Muslims during the attacks.

Meanwhile, their family and other supporters are surging towards the moment of execution, burial, funerals, and partying, using the funeral as "an occasion 'to celebrate the victory of Islam.'" Graves have already been dug for the two brothers. A goat will be slaughtered. It will be an occasion for rallying.

As usual, it's the mimesis -- the accusative gesture, the heightening drama, the religious rituals and the prohibitions, the sacrificial centre that offers meaning and a feeling of unanimity amidst grief -- that interests me, and the predictable forms it takes, particularly as death comes very near:

The bombers are hailed by supporters as, variously, victorious martyrs, victims of an unfair system, and heroes whose deaths will spin off more heroes.

• Family members have said it's unfair for the Bali Bombers to be killed before the Bali Nine heroin smugglers, who "should be executed first because their drugs could have killed more people."
• The bombers issued a statement in October: "'Principally we are ready to die but if the executions go ahead it is wrong. If we are executed there will be new Mukhlases, new Imam Samudras and new Amrozis and they will take revenge,' they said."
• They have also written "an open letter encouraging their supporters to retaliate after they are executed," naming some specific officials whom they believe should be killed.
• The brother of two of the Bali bombers supports his brothers' right to kill "half-naked people [the people in the nightclubs] ... for the perceived insult. ... 'That's what [my brothers] believe. Whatever it is, it is against Islam and must be fought, whatever the form, whatever the action.'" Their mother concurred: "'I feel that killing infidels isn't a mistake because they don't pray.'"
  

The site of the execution has become rather sacred-seeming in the media, and both speech and acts related to the deaths are shot through with religious language and appeals.

• Religion is obvious at the site(s): There are crosses there, religious officials have met with the men and will accompany the bombers to their place of execution (as will lawyers and a doctor).
• There are rituals: the setting up of the execution site(s) in a particular way, the health check-ups for those who are about to die, families delivering a last meal of favoured goodies and other gifts. All the elements are in place, including autopsy table, helicopters and body carrier baskets, and the fourteen members of the execution squad, and a 'rehearsal' of the execution is planned for today.
  
• There are mythologies and compelling stories galore, from everyone's point of view, and they all say the same thing: we are victims and someone else is to blame for the violence. We are justified. There are rumours among supporters of the bombers that the U.S. CIA was behind the most destructive of the three bombs that exploded that October night. They see the attacks as "'a conspiracy between America, Australia and the Jews.'" There are all kinds of theories concerning the nefarious meaning of the multiple delays in carrying out the executions.
  

The supporters are gearing up for a show of grief, celebration, and unanimity on behalf of religion and its martyrs.

• Jemaah Islamiyah, a local network of "mostly Afghan trained militants" that is believed to be behind the Bali bombings, will be at the funerals in force and have threatened to kill in revenge for the executions. The founder of that group, Abu Bakar Bashir, plans to attend both funerals; he says that "Muslims would be angry if the men are executed but what he is most scared of is 'if God is angry.' 'If Muslims are angry,' he said, 'it will be only words. But if God is, it will be real problem.'"
  
• The U.S. and Australian embassies in Jakarta received bomb threats by text message earlier this week. Australia has raised its terror alert and launched travel warnings in anticipation of violence after the executions are made known.
  
• Some Indonesians are donating their land for the bombers' burial ground, to create a Jihadi cemetery; a blogger living in Jakarta notes: "'It is almost comical in a sense the competition that is being generated with regards to signing up the families of the soon to be dead killers to a burial spot.'"

Not only are the supporters building momentum, so is the media. I set up a news alert for "Bali Bombers" last week. It brings about 20-25 news stories per day into my email box, more than any other news alert I've ever had. And nothing is happening -- except the pre-death rituals, anticipation and intimations, and the post-death fears, anticipation and predictions -- and the precise recording of the process of momentum-building as mimetic.

I admit to feeling fascinated, not by these three bombers and what they've done, in particular, nor by their deaths whenever they occur, but by the process as it unfolds so clearly, so ordinarily though it's writ large, so (seemingly) unconsciously through all the conscious strategising.

To quote Rick Blaine in Casablanca (1942): "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." Three people, yes, and yet, how alike we seem, how much the same the system seems to operate everywhere: how ready to grieve, to unify, to remove conflictual elements, to blame and accuse someone else, to seek revenge, to feel we are victims, to ritualise, to sacralise, to mythologise, to invoke a higher authority to support our views, to want our side to win, to join in the violence and to feel good knowing we're right.

Update 14 Nov: This article in The Age today hits most of the elements of the scapegoat mechanism: unification of splinter groups through shared anger, grief and a sense of being the victims of others -- the outsider 'others' become the enemies, displacing animosity among  warring splinter groups; the compelling story that can be told to enroll new converts; the 'sacrifice' and the glorification of the 'self-sacrificing' victims; and, the understanding in modern times that violence in the name of religion masks "economic, political and social disaffection."

Why are these accounts always so interesting, funny? (And timeless: originally published May 2003)

"I am nervous. Spending half a week passing harsh judgment on your fellow Manhattanites just seems so… well, when put like that, it sounds just like every other day."

"The judge is Irish, fast-talking, and hilarious. 'Is there anyone among you who likes crime?' he asks. I consider the question. I do like some crimes: I love jaywalking; I love watching people turnstile-jump; I enjoy committing pre-crime. I say nothing. Neither does anyone else. Thus begins my suspicion of lies beneath the black and white world of the law."

"Potential juror#1: Then when I was 10, my parents moved to a suburb of Philadelphia.
"Judge: Did they take you with them?"

"I am in the jury box. I make snap judgments. I have no opinion about the defendant, but I'm ready to send the Zionist down the row from me to the electric chair; she's wasting our precious time blathering about her good deeds for Israel while we could be happily smoking."

"I want that jury power so bad I can taste it. If I don't get picked today, I may have to re-enter therapy. I feel I must get into the box today, but even as my conviction grows, I am torn. Sending someone to prison is like, really bad."

"I immediately become gal pals with the funny gay fellow behind me. I don’t ask his name or anything else -- I'll learn it all in voir dire, the speed-dating of jury duty!"

It's been six weeks since I last blogged about mob violence. I've been away most of that time, but no matter where we go or what we're doing, collective violence continues in many forms. Below are some of the latest incidents reported as mob violence or mob justice. (And here's why I'm doing it.)

August to the present (also December 2007, and in 1999): Violence against Christians continues in Orissa, on India's east coast, since the 23 Aug. assassination of a Hindu swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his followers: "Though Maoist insurgents took credit for the killing, Hindu extremists blamed Christians. They mounted mob attacks on churches, as well as homes and villages populated by Christians.  More than 100 people reportedly have been beaten, hacked or burned to death since the mob violence began. It is estimated tens of thousands of Christians have fled their homes, many remaining in seclusion in forests and others in relief camps with police guards. ... Christians reportedly make up about 2.4 percent of the state's 36.7 million people." A BBC news report mentions the religious rivalry of the region: "Hindu groups have long accused Christian priests of bribing poor tribes and low-caste Hindus to convert to Christianity. Christians say lower-caste Hindus convert willingly to escape the Hindu caste system." More at Orissa Burning, at Legacy Matters, and in the NY Times.

12 Oct. 2008, Andhra Pradesh, India: "Even before Friday's communal fire could be doused, six members of a family, including three children, were burnt alive after their tile-roofed house was engulfed in a mysterious fire in a village near here in the strife-torn Adilabad district in the early hours of Sunday." Relatives allege "that Mahboob Khan's family members were killed and later burnt to death by pouring kerosene on them." The incident is under investigation.

Previously, 12km away in Bhainsa town, "three people were killed when a Durga idol immersion procession was passing by a mosque, where Friday prayers were being offered. Two of the three killed ... were from the minority community and they were stabbed to death. Twenty-five people had been injured too."  Andhra Pradesh home minister K Jana Reddy appealed for calm and "he urged people to stay away from rumour mongers."

8 Oct. 2008, Dhule, Mumbai, India: "The communal riots that erupted in Dhule on Sunday afternoon have claimed six lives so far. Eight others were injured in the riots which broke out after two groups clashed over the tearing of posters. ... Eighty-six were injured in mob violence." The area is about 75% Hindu and 25% Muslim. "Residents said that 10-15 houses were set ablaze near the Juna Devpur Eintbhatti area and the wall of Agna mosque was demolished by the rioters. ... 'The police became mute spectators as rioters pelted stones and put property on fire. They could not be controlled.'"

1 Oct. 2008, Kemaman, Terengganu, Malaysia: "A group of men beat to death a suspected motorcycle thief on Saturday in what appeared to be mob justice. The 30-year-old man was attacked by a group of 20 to 30 men. ... The suspected thief, from Dungun, had prior convictions and was also believed to have been a drug addict." Four men, aged between 30 and 40, are being held for murder.

30 Sept. 2008, Norwich City Centre, East Anglia, UK: "Three men have been arrested over the murder of a millionaire banker who tried to save a homeless Lithuanian man being assaulted by a mob." Frank McGarahan, 45, died from head injuries suffered when intervening to help: "[A]s Mr McGarahan shouted at the gang of ten men to stop, they turned on him. In the fracas, he suffered a serious head injury."

27 Sept. 2008, Meetiyagoda, Sri Lanka: "In a tragic incident, a six-year-old boy was burnt to death in his sleep when an angry mob set fire to a house in Meetiyagoda on Thursday night following a dispute with his parents. ... Police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekara told the Daily Mirror the parents and the victim had gone to attend a wedding in the Bataduwa area on Thursday evening. In the night the father had come home along with the child and gone back to the wedding after the child went to sleep.  He had got involved in a brawl there, reportedly after consuming liquor. The brawl had taken serious proportions forcing him to flee the area and hide in the jungle. The angry group had stormed his house and set fire to it unaware of the presence of the sleeping child. The house which was made out of wattle and daub was swiftly gutted by fire."

26 Sept. 2008, Delhi, India: "Lalit Choudhary, 47, died on Monday of head wounds after being attacked by a mob at the Graziano Transmissioni car parts factory in Delhi. He'd been attempting to resolve a long-standing dispute with workers who had demanded better pay and permanent contracts, and some of whom had been sacked for their trouble.  However, a meeting with former employees turned seriously nasty and 'the unemployed men began vandalising the machinery, turning on Choudhary when he tried to reason with them'. ...  Around 125 dismissed workers armed with iron rods barged into the factory and went on rampage. When Lalit tried to pacify them, they assaulted him with rods." More at The Register.

7 Sept. 2008, Paris, France: From the Jerusalem Post: "Three counselors from the Bnei Akiva youth movement were attacked not far from the organization's central branch in Paris on Saturday afternoon. The boys, aged between 17 and 18, had just finished the minha prayer when they were attacked by a group of Muslims. ... [T]he youths were initially approached by a group of three Muslim/African immigrants who began to throw chestnuts in their direction. When one of the counselors asked them why they were being attacked, the assailants began shouting anti-Semitic remarks. Ten to 12 attackers wearing brass knuckles joined the original three and beat the three Jews until police arrived." The victims sustained a broken nose, broken jaw, and lacerations.

6 Sept. 2008, Birmingham, England, UK: "A father died after being slashed across the face and then repeatedly stabbed on his own doorstep by a mob in front of his teenage son.  Odd job man Jeff Parry, 44, was left dying in a pool of blood after the frenzied attack. Neighbours in Bromford, Birmingham, yesterday claimed he had been a victim of mob justice -- targeted after being accused of stealing a handbag. They said he answered the door to a group of men who lashed out, cut his face and stabbed him seven times." (That's the entire article.) So far, three boys/men have been charged, one 16 years old.

28 Aug. 2008, Nabbingo, Uganda, Africa: "The Police in Nabbingo, Wakiso district, battled with residents after they pounced on two suspected chicken thieves and killed one of them. Sadala Kiwanuka, a carpenter of Kawempe, was killed, while his colleague Bulana of Bwaise was rescued by the Police from the mob and taken to Mulago Hospital. ... An eyewitness said one of the residents saw the suspects trying to load the stolen chicken on their bicycle and made an alarm, which brought residents out. ... Police commander Alison Agaba said "had the Police not got there in time, the mob would have set the suspects on fire."

25 Aug 2008, Orissa, India: In part of the ongoing Hindu-Christian violence, a 29-year-old Catholic nun was raped "by a member of a Hindu mob in Kandhamal district. ... She also alleged that she was paraded naked through the streets." Another article indicates that she was gang-raped by members of a mob of 40 men; so far 8 men have been arrested in the case. With her when she was taken was pastor Father Thomas Chellan, whom the mob beat with irons and tried to kill by dousing him with petrol. See The Hindu for more info from Chellan's pov.

25 Aug. 2008, Soweto, South Africa: "The victim of two suspected robbers, who had reportedly been terrorising the community, feels the culprits deserved to die.  She said this after the two robbers got a fatal dose of mob justice in Lenasia South at the weekend when residents accosted them. 'The men have been stealing from the community for a long time now and they finally got what they deserved,' said Amelia Miya, 53. ... 'When I got to the street there were many people assaulting the robber with sjamboks and kicking him.' ... 'The other robber was caught a few streets away and beaten to death on the scene. It turns out that he was carrying a toy gun.'"

21 Aug 2008, Subang Jaya, Malaysia: Six men, all in their 20s, are believed to have killed Mohd Farid Sarader Ali, 24, who was alleged to have snatched the handbag of a VIP's wife. He was beaten up about a week later by the VIP's son and his friends, after they tracked him through his motorcycle registration; he fell into a coma and died three days later in hospital. Mohd Farid, an oddjobs worker, "had several previous records for snatch thefts." His mother said, "'Even if he did snatch the Datin's handbag, he doesn't deserve to die.'" Another man said that he and others "'followed the VIP son's car to the place but could not do anything as some 25 men bashed him up in front of the Datin.'"

"Many who burnt heretics in the ordinary way of their business were otherwise excellent people."

-- G. M. Trevelyan, 'Bias in History'

David Foster Wallace, postmodern author who ended his life last week at the age of 46 (RIP), talks about the real value of education in his 2005 Kenyon College commencement speech.

I'm going to be away until the end of September and won't be posting, but I leave you with Foster's exceptionally honest words to college grads, which include these:

"Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe; the realist, most vivid and important person in existence.

"We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centeredness because it's so socially repulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real. ...

"As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head. ...

AN EXAMPLE: Having to shop for dinner after working 8-10 hours at a challenging, boring, stressful, daily job and dealing with crazy traffic and awful muzak and carts with bad wheels and people who get in your way and aren't nice, and so on:

"The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me. About MY hungriness and MY fatigue and MY desire to just get home, and it's going to seem for all the world like everybody else is just in my way. And who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.

 

"Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious liberal arts form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic being disgusted about all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUV's and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks, burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper-stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest [responding here to loud applause] (this is an example of how NOT to think, though) most disgustingly selfish vehicles, driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers. And I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel, and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and selfish and disgusting we all are, and how modern consumer society just sucks, and so forth and so on.

"

You get the idea."

Read the rest for something sublime.

At Overcoming Bias today, report of a study finding that "when we are reminded of when others have victimized us, we are less able to see that we victimize others."

Researchers reminded participants from the U.S. and Canada, and, separately, North American Jewish participants, of various attacks and atrocities, including, variously, the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Nazi atrocities in Poland during World War II, a deadly terrorist attack in Sri Lanka, and the genocide in Cambodia.

All the groups were less likely to perceive "the distress the [Iraq] war has caused many Iraqis, and less likely to feel collective responsibility" when they were reminded of an attack in which they felt themselves to be victims.

For U.S. participants, reminders of both the 9/11 attacks and the attack on Pearl Harbor caused participants to feel less guilt or responsibility for the distress of Iraqis than when reminded of the tragedy in Poland. The Jewish volunteers, on the other hand, felt "reduced guilt and responsibility for Israeli actions that cause suffering among Palestinians when they are first reminded about the Holocaust, compared with when they are reminded about the genocide in Cambodia." Canadians showed no difference among the scenarios, none of which affected Canadians personally.

This, I think, is why resentment is so corrosive. Resentment -- or re-sentiment -- is our internal, ongoing way of reminding ourselves of our own victimhood, of refreshing the feeling of being the victim, which apparently tends to make us more insensitive to others' victim status and less able to perceive our own role in perpetrating violence. But,  remembering times when we have felt victimised might also, perhaps, lead us to be more compassionate for victims of any sort, knowing what that experience feels like, realising that others suffer just as we do.

(Abstract of the study in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, June 2008)

Pema Chödrön talks about the trait or activity of curiosity in Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living (1994). There are lots of ways to be curious: one can be intensely curious about one subject or one person, widely curious about everything or many things, curious about new places and experiences, sexually curious, culinarily curious, curious about how machines work, and so on.

I think I am particularly curious about the way people think and behave, individually and in groups, and I'm also curious about the details of stories, the details of experiences that happen to other people, and the details of beings in the natural world  -- So I hear myself asking questions about what colour and shape things are, how many there are of each kind, exactly what it felt like, every item they wore, what they ate, what other people thought about what happened, how the factors were related, how they got from A to B, what happened in that small time period you skipped over in your narrative, and so on.

Here is some of what Pema says about curiosity:

She talks about "the burden of maintaining your own private happiness," and suggests that we can "lighten up," and one way to lighten up is to be curious: "When your aspiration is to lighten up, you begin to have a sense of humor. Things just keep popping your serious state of mind. In addition to a sense of humor, a basic support for a joyful mind is curiosity, paying attention, taking an interest in the world around you. You don't actually have to be happy. But being curious without a heavy judgmental attitude helps. If you are judgmental, you can even be curious about that."

Later she speaks of a Zen master who, asked what enlightenment was, answered" 'Lots of space, nothing holy.' Holiness harks back to the sacred, which is what sacrifice creates -- it "makes sacred."  By contrast, for me, curiosity, and taking an interest, and making friends with oneself and others -- the elements of compassion -- seems very light and spacious, something I can do, something I would love to be in the midst of others doing, and I can see how it can help relieve us from rivalry; there is no urge to be 'holier than thou' (or more profane than thou) when there is no holy. And if I see that I am envious of you, or resentful of you, or you of me, I can be curious about it, look at it, consider it, without making it so personal and burdensome that I get entangled in it.

Pema speaks of this idea of working with our experience. She says, "We may so take for granted the multitude of daily minor irritations that we don't even think of them as something to work on. To some degree they are the hardest obstacles to work with, because they don't reveal themselves. The only way to know that these are arising is that you feel righteous indignation.  Let righteous indignation be your guide that someone is holding on to themselves, and that someone is probably you. Later, she talks about the slogan, 'Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment.' She says, "instead of the resentment being an obstacle, it's a reminder. Feeling irritated, restless, afraid and hopeless is a reminder to listen more carefully. ... Resentment becomes a reminder not to feel bad about ourselves but to open further to the pain and to the awkwardness. If we really want to communicate, we have to give up knowing what to do."

She also talks about using curiosity to ward off resentment (although she doesn't put it that way). One of the (many) slogans is 'Don't expect thanks.' I love this one, because so much resentment seems to come from this specific expectation. I think it's related to our yearning to be seen as helpers, as givers, that I talked about in my last post. When we're not thanked, we lack reassurance of our identity as a giver or helper, and we feel insecure about our role. Anyway, Pema expands on it: "More than to expect thanks, it would be helpful just to expect the unexpected; then you might be curious and inquisitive about what comes in the door."

She addresses our desire to be givers and helpers by widening the often one-way street to a two-way road: "We work on ourselves in order to help others, but we also help others in order to work on ourselves. ... [The] tendency to refer back to ourselves, to try to protect ourselves, is so strong and all-pervasive. A simple way of turning it around is to develop our curiosity and our inquisitiveness about everything. This is another way of talking about helping others, but of course the process also helps us. The whole path seems to be about developing curiosity, about looking out and taking an interest in all the details of our lives and in our immediate environment."