Blog: They Have Already Damned You.

He folks, welcome back! As with last week, my initial plan for THIS week was to write a travel blog about New York. Also like last week I had another topic swirling & twirling around my brain that I felt pressing to write this week. Once more, also like last week, this blog will be a serious one, if the title alone hadn’t tipped you off to that fact already. Trigger warning I suppose to those of you who are dealing with religious trauma, post election fallout, murder/killing, religious themes, & on the flip side of that coin, may be upset by the contents of this blog. Today we will be talking vertical vs. horizontal morality.

I have had, over the last week, across numerous social media platforms & conversations, the notion or idea of vertical vs horizontal morality pop up & it actually, I think, helps to explain how certain groups can vote or feel the way that they do based on belief & history. I know, for myself, I have struggled with the idea of those who claim to live under the banner of “love thy neighbor as thyself” going to the voting booth & doing the exact opposite often condemning their ‘neighbor’ to harder lives, deportation, lack of access to healthcare, higher tax rates, or downright voting to strip their rights away. Taking that “what you do unto the ‘least’ of these, you do unto me” & really just punting it through the proverbial field goal. One creator, Rachel Klinger Cain, put it simply by saying the following:

“They are never going to care about our suffering, because they are okay with our damnation.”

— Rachel Klinger Cain

This immediately struck me & got the wheels of my brain turning. She goes on to explain further stating:

“So many of us right now are sitting in the space of desperately trying to explain it to them in a way that induces the empathy. Like if we can just find the right words, if we can say it the right way, provide the right evidence, remind them that we’re human, then we can get through to them. That they’ll see what they’ve done. That they’ll see what’s coming. That they’ll be willing to stand with us when we need it, but none of that is going to work with people who have already accepted that we are going to Hell. They believe that we are going to Hell, a place of eternal conscious torment, & they don’t stand with us. They take the side of the God who would do it. They claim that they love us, but they’re fine with our eternal conscious torment & they’re fine with our tormentor.”

— Rachel Klinger Cain

Now. I know that’s a lot to digest. I’m sure for some of you reading it stirred up a lot of emotions or feelings one way or the other. I challenge you to sit in those & understand what about that paragraph makes you feel that way & why you feel that way.

I will say, to my personal extent, that paragraph feels a bit atheistic & I can’t begrudge Rachel for feeling that way. Though it doesn’t necessarily align with my personal beliefs, it does align with my personal feelings & experiences around the majority of those within the evangelical base. I know the retort to that is going to be the “a few bad apples ruin the batch” argument, but I think with most things around that sentiment, Maren Morris was correct in saying “The rot at the roots is the root of the problem” (I know she’s talking specifically about the country music industry here but I’m borrowing the analogy). The bushel isn’t being contaminated by a few bad apples, I think, for the most part, the ‘good' apples are the exception from a tree that has taught us how easy it is to condemn another human being for living a life that is different than our own.

I can just hear the people clicking out of my website from this one already. I again, challenge you to bear with me going forward & really dissect the way this is making you feel. If something challenges the narrative you believe if is often a good idea to figure out why & then figure out whether or not what is stated is factual or not & reevaluate from there.

I’d like to get into the meat of this & really discuss the “why” of all of this? Why do people who spend almost every weekend being taught a book of love statistically go out & vote for candidates who perpetuate hate, division, scapegoating, gluttony, greed, & selfishness? Because of vertical morality.

I’m going to go back to Rachel here in a second because I think the discourse happening on her page outlines the differences in the two types of morality perfectly specifically using the example of murder/killing. With vertical morality you have a system of morals not build on empathy or common understanding, but instead built on authority. This idea makes the beliefs of those who post things along the lines of “well, how will children learn morals if they aren’t taught The Bible?” make so much more sense.

You see, within the discussion on her page, she is met with a man who confronts this idea by saying “Really how can something that created everything kill & slaughter if he can just ‘uncreate’ everything.” It’s this idea of ownership, that if Almighty God decided to undo creating that He has the authority to do so simply because He created it.

Using this specific example she lays out the following:

“Under a vertical moral system murder is not wrong because it harms somebody, it is wrong because you don’t have the authority to do it, but that also means that IF you have the authority to do it, you can to it. This is the problem with a vertical moral system. This is why they become violent so quickly, because all they have to do to convince themselves it’s okay to kill someone, is to convince themself that they’ve been given the authority to do it by God. ”

— Rachel Klinger Cain

She goes on to give examples throughout history of this, of times in which Christianity or Christian Nationalism have sparked violent movements that led to countless deaths or allowed them to watch from the sidelines unbothered because of the authority of God or those whom he has ‘ordained’ as having the authority (i.e. kings, queens, presidents, popes, etc.). This also goes outside of Christianity to other theologies that implant vertical morality & even include the deification & idolization of leaders. Some examples that include, but are not limited to; the Holocaust, the Crusades, slavery, colonialism, manifest destiny, the AIDs crisis, the Manson Murders, Gaza.

On the other side of that morality system lies the horizontal. This way of belief says that murder is wrong, not because you don’t have the authority, but because it causes harm to another human being.

“It’s not about authority, it’s about harm. When you have a horizontal moral system then you are criticizing a god who would kill people, because it doesn’t matter if that god is bigger or stronger. Might does not make right. It doesn’t matter if He claims to have the authority, He’s still causing harm. But under that vertical moral system, might makes right. It’s authoritarianism. & when their religion is authoritarian then that means their moral system is authoritarian. & when their moral system is authoritarian it will trickle down into all kinds of other beliefs including their politics, including who they vote for. & if they believe that God as ordained it, if they believe that the ultimate authority figure says it’s okay, then it doesn’t matter who it harms. Appeals to empathy will not work, because they don’t get their morals from empathy, they get it from authority. They’re authoritarians.”

— Rachel Klinger Cain

Again, a bit more atheistic than I’d probably put it myself, but I think the point still stands.

Another creator, Theologian Ciarra Jones, piggybacks off of Rachel’s points to discuss a lecture that she gives every years at UC Berkley around Race, Religion, & Public Policy.

“I always tell students when working with Christian communities that the stakes are different. We’re not talking about systemic inequality & its impacts, we’re talking about heaven & Hell. Salvation & damnation. This focus on sin & punishment, salvation & damnation, actually cuts off most fundamentalist Christians from normative processes of empathy. Fundamentalist Christian communities have constructed God in a way that cosigns & corroborates the existence of systemic inequality.”

— Professor Ciarra Jones

She then lays out an excellent example around LGBTQ rights using the following:

“If I go to a fundamentalist pastor & I say “you voting on anti-LGBTQ policies harms LGBTQ people’s safety,” they would say “well queerness itself is a sin & if a queer person wasn’t living in this way, then they would experience systemic inequality.””

— Professor Ciarra Jones

I would interject here but I think the way she continues on is so eloquently stated that I’m just going to continue to quote her here!

“We have constructed God as a God that insulates power, that insulates systemic inequality & that is one the side of those who are enacting harm on marginalized communities. This makes fundamentalist Christians impervious to critiques about how their theology is related to our policy landscape.

One of the most common Bible verse I heard growing up in fundamentalist, pentecostal churches “we are called to be in the world & not of it,” means that Christians start to bifurcate themselves from non-christians. They almost cut off their humanity & empathy towards non-christian communities or towards those they believe are living in a type of sin.

This means for Christians, for example, voting on ‘pro-life’ policy, even when ‘pro-life’ policy harms particularly women of color. There isn’t any empathy towards these communities because the idea is ‘I am voting on the side of righteousness’ & in fact my ability to separate myself from humanity & vote on policies in the way that God is asking me to do is a sign of my own unique Christian divinity. It’s a sign of my commitment to God. So separating themselves from their empathy actually ends up being a sign of their commitment to God.”

— Professor Ciarra Jones

I know this week was a heavy one, I know this blog also may seem like I’m over here doing the most to shit on Christians when in reality I consider myself among them as so many of us who are begging for your empathy do. We read the book. We were taught the lessons. We took them to heart & somewhere along the line that was lost amongst what I would say, & what statistics would say, are the vast majority.

Additionally, I have seen so many postings this last week & a half around the idea of “I don’t know how to convince you to care about other people” so I wanted to weigh in with the things that I learned from these two amazing female creators. They helped me to understand why the last eight years of begging friends & family not to vote the way that they do despite the damage it does not only to me, someone they claim to love, but also other communities at large have clearly gone exorbitantly unheard. Appeals using examples & proof go unheeded & unnoticed because we lack the ultimate authority of what they have decided is moral or is not.

They are not going to stand up for a right or a community that they think or have convinced themselves is sinful, no matter the amount of harm it does to the lives of their fellow human beings because the belief is that they do not have the authority to make that call, God does, & what God says (translation mishaps & political alterations included) is the ultimate scale of law & justice to which they weigh their vote, not your lives & the ways in which it may harm you.

I hope you have a fantastic week,

Much love as always,

-C

“It cannot be denied that too often the weight of the Christian movement has been on the side of the strong & powerful & against the weak & the oppressed. This despite the gospel.”

— Jesus & The Disinherited by Howard Therman as presented by Professor Ciarra Jones

Blog: Sympathy Vs. Empathy

A few weeks ago I was part of a songwriting workshop with a few of my fellow songwriters led by Leena Regan. One of the first things she started out with on the very first day of the workshop was reiterating the importance of trust & vulnerability in the co-writing space. It is often very hard to be vulnerable with people if you don’t trust what they’ll do with the information you give them after all. We as writers, or I guess even as humans, tend to paint the broad strokes of our stories & negate the little intimate details that personalize the story to you. I think a lot of us have been taught over the years that broad strokes equal more of a mass appeal & I’d argue that’s a false belief.

Think of your favorite artists, think of your favorite songs. Are they broad or are they very specific to the story being told or the life of the artist/writer in question? I’m going to go ahead & guess that, for the most part, they’re very specific. These are the songs we should all be trying to write, those that are personal to us, those that convey emotion not only in the listener but also in the artists themselves. Ever watched an artist try to sell a song they have no attachment to? It’s painful.

So what’s my point in all this? How does this relate to all of you non-writers out there? How does this apply to your life? Leena’s next point in fostering a creative space conducive to specific art is to approach the write, the story of life you’re being told, with empathy.

I think most people assume that they’re empathetic humans, I’m not arguing that you’re not, but I would like to highlight, as Leena did with us, the importance in the differences between being sympathetic & being empathetic. I think a lot of people assume they’re synonymous. That sympathy & empathy are one in the same, but at simply is not the truth. Let’s break it down by definition first.

Dictionary.com defines sympathy as ‘feelings or impulses of compassion.’ Well then what is compassion? It is ‘a feeling of deep sympathy & sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.’ Meanwhile the definition for empathy reads ‘the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.’ Notice the difference there? Sympathy boils down to simply feeling, it does not seek to equalize, it simply exists as a separation. You feel this way & I recognize it, but I want to fix or change it. Empathy on the other hand is the equalizer. It is identifying something within yourself that can relate to the other person’s experience. It does not seek to repair or alter, it seeks to humanize & understand.

There’s an excellent video from Brené Brown that was shared along within the lesson, in it she shows that often the sympathetic seek to divert. “I lost my house.” “At least you had a house to lose.” “I failed out of college.” “Well, at least you could afford to go in the first place.” Where in the empathetic would approach “I lost my house” with something along the lines of “I’m so sorry to hear that, I’m here for you & I’ll do my best to meet you where you’re at emotionally” or “I failed out of college” with “do you want to talk about it?” It does not seek to repair or override someone else’s life experience or emotion. I’ll link Brené’s video below, she explains it a lot better than I do. It’s also a short video that I promise it’s worth the watch!

I have said quite often in blogs of the past that I feel we as humans sorely lack empathy. I think it is one of the biggest things dividing us as people. So many of us strive for empathy but stop at sympathy, we do not bring ourselves into the experience of another to the best of our ability, instead we simply seek to divert & adjust. In the writing space beautiful art is born from a space of empathy, in the corporate world employers begin to understand their employees, in the political world we begin to recognize & acknowledge those we marginalize & belittle. Empathy is the key to all of it. It takes the selfish angle out of the picture & instead strives for human understanding. We could all use a bit more empathy, we could all show a bit more love & understanding.

I write all of this from a place of love & with a desire to unify, not alienate, but I hope the next time someone comes to you with their pain or troubles that the words “at least” don’t appear in your response. Treat your peers, your family, your loved ones, your colleagues, your grocer, your gas station attendant, your etc, with empathy not just sympathy. We each deserve to be met where we are not passively rushed out of our strife.

I hope you have a great weekend & remember be loving to one another.

-C

Blog: A Year Of COVID & The Lesson Within

Well. Here we are. A year later & still, we’re here…well, at least many of us are.

I was talking with my friend Lindsay the other day & she brought up a time during the first two weeks of quarantine in which I offhandedly made a comment something to the effect of making plans for when life goes back to normal in just a couple of weeks, little did I know just how wrong I was. I guess hindsight is 20/20 but man, has it been a year.

I entered quarantine on March 12th, 2020 as many of us did, fully expecting life to be back to normal by April. I couldn’t have imagined a year later finally, just now, getting glimpses of the light at the end of this miserable, virus laced tunnel. I guess that’s a clear sign that fortune telling isn’t my calling.

Pre-quarantine I’d planned out my year right up until about midsummer. I was planning to fly to Barcelona in order to premiere “Obliterated” with Hektor Mass, I was in the studio, in the middle of recording “When He Was Me,” & had planned a post-Stagecouch radio tour for the UK in late April/Early May. Needless to say none of these things ended up happening. I’ll be honest though, I held out hope for those last two, especially in the early days, but blatant government mismanagement quickly put an end to those plans. I really didn’t mind the first two weeks of this whole mess. It felt like a little vacation, a respite that the entire world was taking together, a massive global inhale. I think things changed around the time of my 28th birthday. April 16th.

I’ve always been of a mind that we as humans should celebrate the anniversary of our own births joyously; doing the things that make us happy despite exterior input or perceived extravagance. I tell my friends often to celebrate their birthdays by doing something they’d be thrilled to do alone & if others choose to join & be a part of that, great! If not, then your day is still your own & yours to celebrate however you see fit. I was incapable of doing what I wanted for mine this last year but fortunately I am surrounded by a lot of amazing people who threw me an incredible virtual birthday despite the circumstances. At the time I was doing daily “silver-linings,” essentially little videos I’d post on my instagram story that were meant to put a little bit of hope back into a wildly uncertain world. Eventually those faded out, not out of lack of desire to create them but more out of fatigue & in my mind, lack of visible hope.

This past year hit me hard. Luckily I have been fortunate enough not to have lost anyone near & dear to me as so many have but as someone who has struggled their entire adult life with depression, things really haven’t been easy. Where a lot of people were able to continue working virtually, I had been doing supplemental work in person, a job I could no longer do. In addition to that, the job I’m passionate about, music, came to a screeching halt. All the progress & momentum I felt I had made or was making felt like it’d been thrown out the window. On top of all of that I found myself in the high risk category for COVID, having spent the last year & a half dealing with respiratory issues so my options for work were limited, further so perpetuated by the surmounting unemployment crisis we’re facing in this country.

It’s hard to find inspiration as a songwriter in a life without novelty buried in the monotony of it all. It’s hard to get up every day to the same Groundhog’s Day hellscape & try to force inspiration & drive. Coasting becomes your default, simple tasks being to feel like unscalable mountains, & your life becomes a stagnant void where you always feel like you’re just sitting around waiting on your life to begin all the while aging. Harder still is watching how truly selfish some of your peers can be. So many continued life as if nothing was happening; people played shows, went to massive get togethers, went out, all while completely ignoring CDC guidelines that could have helped return life to normal for all of us long ago. Trust me when I say, those of us who have been doing out best day to day will remember who you are.

COVID has shown a light on just how much some member of our society just don’t give a shit about others. This was further magnified in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement that happened over the summer & the divisive at best November election season. We talk a lot about how much we care for those around us or practice religions where that is one of the core tenets but when it really comes down to it we have a massive shortage of empathy & compassion. For me the last year has proven that ten fold.

We have to be better. We have to see the struggling, the hurt, the disenfranchised, those without privilege, or those at high risk of whatever (not just COVID) & put our selfishness aside to truly help out “the least of these.” This pandemic & the last year have provided ample opportunity for that & we as a society have fallen short time & time again. Even within the last week & the surmounting hate against those in our asian communities, we have fallen short. It’s disheartening, it’s frustrating, & it’s down right infuriating. I hope we will do better. I hope on the other side of COVID-19 lies a brighter world & I guess in the end that’s what I’m holding out hope for. We have to be the change we want to see, the burden doesn’t fall on others. I choose to see the message that the divine has nailed into our heads all year long & accept the challenge. Will you do the same?