This is a sponsored post, a reader selected Premium/Pay Now/Option 2 and asked me to write this post. He wrote: “I am interested in a post on the traditional understanding of the purpose of divine punishment. Taking as a given that we do not understand who and why are punished in the world, I am curious what the purpose of punishment could be in the traditional mindset. None of the classical objectives of punishment apply obviously.”
First a story. I was walking around the Cleveland Circle Reservoir. Two boys, about 11-year-old, were fishing on the North side of the reservoir. One of the boys approached me holding a fish. “Do you know how to cut up a fish?” – he asked. I was surprised by the request: “Why do you want to cut the fish?” The boys were obviously urban kids, new to fishing. One of them explained that the fish completely swallowed the bait and the hook and tearing it will kill the fish cruelly. Therefore, the boys argued, it was better to cut the fish first, to take it out of the misery. As I was holding the small fish in my hands, the second boy introduced a surprising rationalization: “It’s probably not so bad to cut the fish, this fish has it coming, how stupid can you be to swallow the hook like that”. In fact I realized that there was nothing unusual in the way the fish bit off the bait and it took me just three seconds to remove the hook. We then released the fish back into the bucket and then back in the water. It was swimming like new.
It occurred to me than, that in a nutshell this was the history of the human race. Virtually every conflict follows this exact pattern. First humans misread the situation, they don’t understand or exaggerate, even imagine an impasse or a predicament. Then they follow-up with a radical lethal remedy but they don’t sop there. They also crave a story, a narrative, a myth to explain how it all makes sense, justified, “humane”, even “divine”… And it’s pretty much the same formula if you kill a small fish or a million people. It’s also the same pattern if you do something “harmless” to your neighbor, employee, brother.
There is a uniqueness about the human suffering though. With the rare exceptions (fights for a mate, etc.) animals don’t intentionality harm their own. But as the intelligence progresses, already starting with the monkeys, the animals learn to hurt and even kill each other. The mutual annihilation and slaughter is historically the main preoccupation of the human race. It seems that the “punishment” of your fellow human beings is hard-coded, the most persistent feature of a man, especially given the power. Bear this in mind, virtually all human suffering, even the epidemics, is man-made, give or take couple of earthquakes. There is an unusual progression. Animals as rule don’t hunt their own species. But with humans statistically you are more likely to be damaged or even killed by your own tribesman, your own church, even more so by your own family, all the way to the dark Freudian suspicion that the most lasting harm is between a parent and a child.
Over time the narrative to justify the suffering got institutionalized. No one can pretend to have the fundamental answer but it’s a matter of life and death, so to speak, for a religion to assert that there is an answer. For example Holocaust is a divine punishment for the assimilation. Of course a grotesque and cruel statement, but from the point of view a religion it’s a declaration of meaning supporting the core belief that there is an operator to this machinery, that He knows what He is doing, has a map and a secret plan for the universe and for us personally.
And this brings me back to the question of the “traditional mindset”. If you “set” your mind on an answer than even the answer itself hardly matters. In other words it’s not our (my) job to explain or excuse the crimes, it is the “Driver’s” job. He is welcomed to it at any moment because the explanations provided on His behalf seem lacking. Meanwhile as a practical matter I propose these simple rules:
- Be carefull with acting upon our innate misreadings.
- Avoid harming other creatures.
- Be sceptical about the fables, stories and myths that provide a cover, a historical context for the injury and slaughter humans like to inflict upon each other.
- Shun the institutionalized “divine punishment”.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
In my personal opinion, saying the Holocaust some sort of divine punishment (for whatever reason) is equivalent to Holocaust denial. Denying the historical reasons why it happened and asserting a false claim that it was the work of some vengful deity or some karmic cycle is just as irresponsible, absurd, and offensive as denying the historical facts of the occurence of the massacres themselves.
A good book to get insight into why it did happen is “The Origins of Nazi Violence” by Enzo Traverso. It was one of the books that was assigned for my senior seminar. He doesn’t go into a lot of detail like he could, but it’s pretty easy reading and explains a lot of the basic factors in play that led to the torture and murder of so many people. It’s also good at just illustrating how overdetermined events in history really are.
This is a very interesting post! … but I don’t really see the connection between the post and the question stated.
Regarding animals harming their own … this appears to be simply a matter of self-preservation, a natural basic instinct. Most animals have to constantly be on the vigil for predators, and stick with like animals for purposes of self-defense. Humans are at the top of the food chain and have no natural predators … when they are in danger (from other humans), they band together as well.