The Covington chronicles: on hating the face of a teenage boy
One of the most chilling aspects of the hatred fanned by the duplicitous reporting on the videotaped incident regarding the Covington students and the 60-something Native American has been the venomous rage directed against the face of one of the students, as well as the conclusions drawn about the expression on the face and what it might signify about the person.
I’ve talked about Orwell before in connection with all of this, and I’m going to bring him up again, because the anger unleashed resembles Orwell’s Two Minutes Hate (although this hasn’t been limited to two minutes at a time). In Nineteen Eighty-Four Orwell wrote of the feeling stirred up in the audience—interestingly enough, by a propaganda film designed for the purpose:
A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.
The image that provoked a truly hideous rage in an enormous number of people on the left and some on the right was of a teenaged boy named Nicholas Sandmann, whose statement can be found here along with the video screenshot that seems to have sparked the most outrage:
“Bullying” doesn’t even begin to describe what has been done to Sandmann by supposedly responsible and thoughtful adults. Even if the original story of what occurred had been true—and it was most definitely not—the depth of the rage would be way out of line.
Here’s just one example:
That smug, entitled smile is instantly recognizable. https://t.co/rOs0ybXDD5
— Slate (@Slate) January 21, 2019
From the article by Ruth Graham, which shows us what the author is fantasizing based on the manipulated story and video:
I think the real reason the clip has spread is simpler: It’s the kid’s face. The face of self-satisfaction and certitude, of edginess expressed as cruelty. The face remains almost completely still as his peers hoot in awed delight at his bravado. The face is both punchable and untouchable. Many observers recognized it right away.
What is it they “recognized”? A face that is now permissible to hate, apparently; they’re not shy about writing about their hate and signing their names to it. That face is white, male, and supposedly “privileged” (whether they know a single thing about that person’s actual life circumstances or not). I have come to think of it in a kind of shorthand as hatred towards the “frat boy” in their minds. And it’s not new, although I’ve never before seen a national eruption of this hatred expressed towards someone who is not yet an adult
This hatred is bigoted and prejudiced, pure and simple. The hatred’s origins lie not just in the work the media had undertaken to shape its audience towards feeling this hatred—although that is most definitely part of it—but it also is an opportunity for the viewer to draw in all sorts of historical references to other white men and/or boys they have grown to hate, and to make often-absurd parallels.
Graham obliges by telling us who those other white men she hates might be, the ones Sandmann supposedly resembles and conjures up in her fevered brain [emphasis mine]:
The face is in this photo of a clutch of white young men crowding around a single black man at a lunch counter sit-in in Virginia in the 1960s, and in many other images of jeering white men from that era. The face is the rows of Wisconsin high school boys flashing Nazi salutes in a prom picture last year. The face is Brett Kavanaugh—then a student at an all-boys Catholic prep school—“drunkenly laughing” as he allegedly held down Christine Blasey Ford. Anyone who knew the popular white boys in high school recognized it: the confident gaze, the eyes twinkling with menace, the smirk. The face of a boy who is not as smart as he thinks he is, but is exactly as powerful. The face that sneers, “What? I’m just standing here,” if you flinch or cry or lash out. The face knows that no matter how you react, it wins.
There are hints there of what’s going on in the minds of the haters. A reversal in which the white Sandmann—who actually had been “crowded” by the Native American, Phillips, and was also the object of bigoted racial taunts towards whites from the Black Israelites—becomes falsely identified by Graham with bigoted white aggressors from the past, solely on the basis of their races. Blacks and Native Americans are victims, whites are victimizers, because of the way they look.
The Kavanaugh reference is obvious, and shows the damage done by that entire brouhaha—the stirring up of this same rage against the supposed predations of the “laughing” preppie. Before that, we had the “Jackie” lies in Rolling Stone and the demonization of a fraternity as a result. And prior to that, of course, the Duke lacrosse team falsely accused.
Graham also alludes to more personal origins of this feeling, which for some people at least comes from high school experiences in which some white jock or frat boy was mean to them. That has become a stereotype, reinforced by countless teen flicks and TV shows where this is a stock character. The person is seen as entitled, self-centered, rich, powerful. And hated, well into adulthood.
It’s a pernicious, dangerous game being played here. People such as Graham are now perpetrators who see themselves as the righteous ones. This hatred is growing thanks to the awfulness of Twitter, although it was around long before Twitter ever came to exist. One of the most memorable examples comes from 2003, when TNR’s Jonathan Chait wrote a piece that begins “I hate George Bush” and goes on to say [emphasis mine]:
There, I said it. I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I’m tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too. I hate the inequitable way he has come to his economic and political achievements and his utter lack of humility (disguised behind transparently false modesty) at having done so. His favorite answer to the question of nepotism—”I inherited half my father’s friends and all his enemies”—conveys the laughable implication that his birth bestowed more disadvantage than advantage. He reminds me of a certain type I knew in high school—the kid who was given a fancy sports car for his sixteenth birthday and believed that he had somehow earned it. I hate the way he walks—shoulders flexed, elbows splayed out from his sides like a teenage boy feigning machismo. I hate the way he talks—blustery self-assurance masked by a pseudopopulist twang. I even hate the things that everybody seems to like about him. I hate his lame nickname-bestowing—a way to establish one’s social superiority beneath a veneer of chumminess (does anybody give their boss a nickname without his consent?). And, while most people who meet Bush claim to like him, I suspect that, if I got to know him personally, I would hate him even more.
There seem to be quite a few of us Bush haters. I have friends who have a viscerally hostile reaction to the sound of his voice or describe his existence as a constant oppressive force in their daily psyche. Nor is this phenomenon limited to my personal experience: Pollster Geoff Garin, speaking to The New York Times, called Bush hatred “as strong as anything I’ve experienced in 25 years now of polling.” Columnist Robert Novak described it as a “hatred … that I have never seen in 44 years of campaign watching.”
Bush, at least, was a grown man and a public figure who had put himself in the limelight. Sandmann is not. And yet the root of the rage appears to be the same.
The people hating on Sandmann ought to be ashamed of themselves, but there is no indication of even a flicker of that feeling. Nor are they likely to damp down their hatred based on the evidence of Sandmann’s innocence.
They know that face, you see, and it’s the face of their enemy.
[ADDENDUM: Some people on the left have been deleting their most rabid tweets, apparently. I would bet a large sum of money that this is because they are afraid of lawsuits. These boys were not public figures, so Sullivan would not apply even for the newspeople.]
and this does affect more than just those boys – I noticed that the school’s website is down; no doubt from too much traffic.
This story is the perfect storm of everything going on in our culture right now.
Trump (MAGA hats)
Identity politics
Social media overreaction
Media malfeasance
About the only issue not touched was immigration.
As for Kavanaugh I have been reading that Schiff is thinking about investigating him. Will the nonsense ever stop? No, don’t think so. Next 2 yr will be a real hate fest. Even if Trump loses and a Dem is President, the hatred will not stop. As one has said “This will not end well”.
The young man is EVERYTHING the left hates.
Male – check
Christian – check
Conservative
(MAGA hat optional) – check
add your own from here…but certainly he fits (as Neo rightly notes) the common mythic entitled bogeyman.
But never forget…this attack as well as that on the Pences is battlespace prep for the Coney-Barrett nomination. Narrative theme: “Christians bad. Roman Catholics worse. Drive them out.”
This will end badly for the left AND for the phonies on the right who dove into the feeding frenzy.
John Guilfoyle,
Just what exactly are you threatening against “the left”? What is going to happen to them that is so much less traumatizing than a kid on Youtube being mocked?
That’s what happens on the internet. You’re doing it now. See how it works?
Libel suit against fake news publishers is warranted.
This stuff is very dangerous. Reminds me of the Cultural Revolution in China.
Going after Mrs. Pence for teaching art in a Christian school is similar. She is a private citizen and free to work anywhere she wishes.
How can we make this stop? It starts with reining in the media, but how?
Just did a little looking around and that National Review editor guy has nothing about his now taken down post on their site. And I see on twitter yesterday he was still somehow defending his earlier post and it’s theme. Unbelievable.
Cowardly behavior.
This country is in a very very bad way, and it’s getting worse. The unhinged Left is doing everything it can think of to light the powder keg.
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Reminds me of the Cultural Revolution in China.
Oh yes. Absolutely. Remember, the Red Guards were suppressed violently when Mao decided they had served their purpose.
Tony,
John Guilfoyle made no threat. He made a prediction. That’s what happens on the internet. You’re doing it now. See how it works?
Just what exactly are you threatening against “the left”? What is going to happen to them that is so much less traumatizing than a kid on Youtube being mocked?
You might notice that Melania Trump is $2.9 million richer and the Daily Mail $2.9 million poorer. These kids are not public figures and there are more of them. $2.9 million apiece would be a nice outcome for them.
John Guilfoyle made no threat. He made a prediction. That’s what happens on the internet. You’re doing it now. See how it works?
Bill M: That’s how I read JG’s comment too.
Tony appears to not remember what has happened to members of congress (representatives, senators), and members of the press that has gone beyond mocking on the internet: attempted murder, assault, harassment. He seems to have forgotten about Antifa in Portland OR, Berkeley CA, and other “righteous actions for Social Justice” aka the actions of a mob.
Tony doesn’t seem to understand DOXing and SWATing in which lives have been disrupted, destroyed, and lost.
But hey Tony it’s all good, just some internet jousting.
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Hi y’all
Thanks for the assist…and I appreciate you understanding what Tony does not…
But let me put it more clearly…I’m a dad. Kids in the age range of young Mr Sandmann. He was engaged in a legally protected behaviour…Tony…you have heard of the 1st Amendment, right? And he was the victim & intended target of a counter-protest aimed at abridging HIS RIGHTS.
Media piranhas do to my kids what they did to young Mr Sandmann…I pity the fool. When it comes to protecting my kids…gloves off no rules…you go down or I die trying. Lawsuits would be a first step…and I’d be asking for millions all of which I’d gladly donate to the March for Life. Failing that…
Well…even the French have caught on and are literally fighting back against the progressive boot to their neck. So please…the Maddows & Stelters & Kristols of this world will fold up like a cheap tent in a strong wind WHEN the blowback starts. And as I noted on the first thread…it’ll be something ridiculous like this that gets the simply “sick & tired” “mad as hell” and it will be blood in the streets and it won’t be young Mr Sandmann bleeding…it’ll be the leftist mob that started the fight.
I remember the visceral Bush-hating. I never understood it. Today’s public hate outbreaks are similar. There are no reasons that make any sense. Neither this young man nor Justice Kavanaugh deserved this ugliness.
I have a teenage son. I have dealt with the Black racists that were shouting obscenities and garbage at these kids. They dress in leather and spikes strictly to intimidate. The look on that suburban teenager’s face? It was the look of a kid amongst his peers in a hostile environment he has never encountered, where he is assailed by an adult inches from his face, and puts on a nervous smile, a self conscious smile where he is in over his head and knows in this group dynamic that he needs to stand tall. That is the “smirk.”. These same creatures on the left with their fainting rooms and safe spaces, these same creatures on the left that fear the loss of control of all bodily fluids if they see ‘Trump ” in chalk on the sidewalk think this is just Jake. They purport to care about social justice but spare not a pixel to comment on the scumbags spewing racial hatred in the background. It is all a lie. As Neo so convincingly and succinctly ( jealous) makes the case this is about an ugly stereotype that the left has gone to time and time again. The fools on the left that think they aren’t talking about their husbands and sons are just that-fools. My bile, my truth as the clowns say, is focused at the right. For God’s sake pause one second. Ask yourself who is on those busses. I was the cool kid on the bus. That is a very low bar. These are the nerds, these are the kids that aren’t triagulating to see if going on the bus will lower their chances of getting some on a subsequent Friday night. FFS these are the good kids. Those on the right, unfortunately like NRO, so desperate to show they aren’t a part of the vast right wing of bigotry and hate, that they reflexing belive this are the ones I fault the most. They should know better. Excuse the length. They got my Kavanaugh up with this one. have to go home, get drunk and beat up the wife and gardener now.
Just did a little looking around and that National Review editor guy has nothing about his now taken down post on their site. And I see on twitter yesterday he was still somehow defending his earlier post and it’s theme. Unbelievable.
Cowardly behavior.
Griffin: I’m pretty disappointed in NRO myself. I read the Frankovich article yesterday and sadly didn’t save it to Evernote.
It didn’t smell right. Even if the boys’ behavior was as disrespectful as advertised, they were still boys and it didn’t rate on my scale for “spitting on the cross.”
Reddit has a post containing piquant article quotes from Frankovich:
It appears that most of the teenagers in this video are from a Catholic high school near Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. They mock a serious, frail-looking older man and gloat in their momentary role as Roman soldiers to his Christ. “Bullying” is a worn-out word and doesn’t convey the full extent of the evil on display here.
….
For some of us, the gospel stories of Jesus’s passion and death are so familiar we no longer hear them. The evangelists are terse in their descriptions of the humiliations heaped on Jesus in the final hours before his crucifixion, the consummate humiliation. Read the accounts again or, if you’d rather not, watch the video. The human capacity for sadism is too great.
….
In any case, keeping in mind the parable of the proper priests and the Good Samaritan, whose religious practice Jesus’s listeners thought was wrong, listen to Phillips reflect on his experience on the Mall. Decide for yourself who is more pleasing to Christ, Phillips or his mockers. As for the putatively Catholic students from Covington, they might as well have just spit on the cross and got it over with.
Frankovich did spit on the cross of journalistic integrity and so far he lacks the integrity to apologize for such a rush to judgment. From his article listings he appears to be a serious Catholic. I hope he reconsiders this behavior over Lent.
I couldn’t get the above comment through the spam filter when I included the Reddit link. It came from a gaming section called KotakuInAction, whatever that might mean or indicate.
That could have been my son. 15 year old, Catholic high school student. Polite, generous, obliging, friendly, and moral. I am outraged at the knee jerk reactions of the school (originally), and the diocese without even asking the teacher/chaperones for their take or interviewing the students. All set up by a pathological liar, and instigator. He is no Marine, especially a Recon Ranger, because that doesn’t even exist. He wasn’t even in Vietnam. He is a fabulist much like the leftwing media and their libelous reporting.
Trump is right, Fake News, is the enemy of the people.
From Marina’s link in the previous topic:
“I’m a veteran,” says Phillips, “a Marine Corps infantryman in the ’70s, and I’m a patriot, and those soldiers need remembering.”
Phillips says he was removed from his mother’s care at age 5 and raised by a white family until 17, when he joined the Marines. As a result of his upbringing, he explains bitterly, he has lost much of his Omaha culture. When he begins his prayer of mourning with a ceremonial pipe on Thursday, he’ll begin in his native tongue. But his prayer will end in English.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2000/11/21/a-mourning-wake-up-call/c9fd1ab8-dfdc-42fd-a5b7-c9e8d3b3512e/?utm_term=.0895bfb165c9
Fortunately, the kids’ families have been in contact with a lawyer and a couple of guys, CJ Pearson and Ali Alexander*, have been collecting and archiving the vile tweets, which will be turned over to the lawyer and hand-delivered to Jack Dorsey (if possible). Even if the families take no action, I imagine that trove of tweets from accounts that have not yet been suspended (which is unbelievable) would come in handy for anyone who’s been suspended for far less. IIRC, both Pearson and Alexander have both been temporarily suspended by Twitter in the recent past. More here:
https://twitter.com/thecjpearson
This online lynch mob activity was ugly and unprecedented. People wanting to have a kid punched, killed for a “smirk.” Encouraged by supposed media and entertainment professionals, no less! Unreal.
These tweeting haters remind me of the Milgram experiment. They aren’t usually anonymous, but they know they’re safe from any sort of retribution. They’re awful people, the lot of them, and they are cowards.
Among the many problems with Twitter is it’s extremely dehumanizing. To these people that wasn’t a real 17 year old kid it was just a picture on their phone to be used to get the bad guys.
Back in the Occupy days I argued online with some supporters about Occupy’s bankruptcy as a political movement. One commenter came back at me with a self-righteous story about how Occupiers were pepper-sprayed. My response:
Don’t tell me about pepper spray.
Been there, done that, bought the books, tracts, and bumper stickers. I know how the game works. As I understand the pepper spray incident, the Occupy protesters surrounded the policeman, linked arms, and started closing in on him.
Anyone with any sense knows you don’t treat police like that, unless you are trying to provoke them. But that’s the game. From the start Occupy has been behaving in an intentionally passive-aggressive provocative manner. It’s all calculated to get a reaction, get media attention and jam the culture.
Again, Occupy is just the usual revolutionary leftist street politics. Occupiers are not victims. If you don’t like what I say, rebut my charge with facts or change Occupy.
huxley,
That famous pepper spray incident led to one of the best internet memes or whatever it’s called. Caption above girl said ‘wants more government’ then above the pepper spraying cop said ‘more government’. Brilliantly displayed the lack of thought of some people.
I hope lots of very successful libel lawsuits come out of this. I am having trouble thinking of any other way to stop this kind of frenzied slander.
It’s all projection. The left imagines what they would do when confronted by someone of the right (Proud Boys, First amendment folks, etc.) and how they would be hating, bigly, on the “evil racist sexist scum” who are in THEIR face. They project their vile hatred (some of which derives from their self-hatred as the pathetic cowards they actually are) onto the boys face (“IT”S A SMIRK”) and proceed from there.
Phillips definitely slandered the boys with his maliciously dishonest characterizations and claims. That reaches the higher “actual malice” standard necessary for a public figure to sue for slander, and because it was Phillips who accosted the boys (and harassed the one boy by beating a drum in his face) they did nothing to make themselves public figures so a slander suit against Phillips should be a double slam dunk.
For the press the other prong of the slander/libel test for public figures is met: “reckless disregard for the truth.” None of the racist-harassment accusers did the least due diligence and the highest profile offenders (WAPO and NYT) still haven’t retracted, so again, since the boys are not even public figures, suit for slander/libel is a double slam-dunk.
Evil garbage Bezos should be crippled. Wreck his Maoist-fascist empire of lies.
neo correctly stated; “It’s a pernicious, dangerous game being played here. People such as Graham are now perpetrators who see themselves as the righteous ones. This hatred is growing…”
John Guilfoyle at 3:40 pm correctly predicts the result;
“it will be blood in the streets and it won’t be young Mr Sandmann bleeding…it’ll be the leftist mob that started the fight.”
The prescient George Orwell explained why those on the left fail to foresee what they are busily creating; “So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot…”
In some outstandingly penetrative analysis Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Angelo Codevilla lays out where we are headed;
“Our Revolution’s Logic”
I’ve never heard of Frankovich before. Apparently he was a contributor to First Things at one time (missed that) and has worked at NR for about six years. I see also that he’s past 50. The man hasn’t many excuses to offer. And there’s nothing on his Twitter feed to indicate he’s reconsidered, nor has he done so at NRO itself. Lowry took down the man’s post and issued the retraction under his own byline.
Someone will find out the background of Phillips and his agitator history.
Here is some more on him and he seems to be a nut living on the streets of DC.
For years, Phillips and Konstant lived out of a run-down house in Washington frequented by itinerant hippies. More recently, they moved into an unfinished basement rented out by a storeowner in Washington’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood.
This month, they’re moving into a better place, Phillips said, with a reliable landlord, a lease and a roof that doesn’t leak.
They sound like borderline homeless. I wonderer about the Marine Corps history.
There are people looking in to it right now.
According to the Vietnam War Marine Corps Official History Volumes, the last marines did indeed leave Vietnam in April, 1971
That would make him probably 16.
Ruth Graham is a graduate of Wheaton College (the Illinois Wheaton) who used to work for the defunct New York Sun. She had at one time an association with a lawyer in Texas named Daniel Jauchen, who is a graduate of Baylor University. IOW, it’s a reasonable inference she’s from an evangelical background (I see she admits to that in some of her posts. Slate apparently assigns her to cover the Christian beat). She’s worked in writing and editing for 15 years, but doesn’t appear to have had any association with the leftoid media until about 7 years ago. This woman doesn’t have many excuses either. Seeing these youths as depersonalized objects of contempt is learned behavior, and almost certainly something she didn’t learn as a youngster.
“This month, they’re moving into a better place, Phillips said, with a reliable landlord, a lease and a roof that doesn’t leak.”
No doubt a Soros ‘affiliate’ is providing the compassionate funds.
Nicholas Frankovich has apologized in National Review:
…I was preachy and rhetorically excessive, and I regret it. The overheated post I wrote has been taken down. Let this apology stand in its stead, both here on the Corner and in the memory of readers who justifiably objected to my high-handedness.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/an-apology/
Ehh. Not much of an apology, but better than nothing. I rather think he owes a few words to the boys he smeared as “spitting on the cross,” while they were trying to do their best while attacked by crazy adults on two sides and being filmed.
If anyone causes one of these little ones–those who believe in me–to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
–Matthew 18:6
At the same time I’ve reached the point where I’m sick of apology theater. I’d just soon never hear any more demands for apologies or the apologies themselves.
huxley, sincere and complete apologies should be issued by all concerned. The Frankovich apology doesn’t strike me as enough. Young men and their schoolmates are having their lives threatened and their futures placed in question. Saying it was “preachy” and “overheated” doesn’t come near to saying that he falsely accused these kids. Bearing false witness is something people who accept the Ten Commandments aren’t supposed to do.
huxley:
Actually, that “apology” from Frankovich is worse than nothing, IMHO. No apology would at least be sincere.
That is one of the most inadequate, hypocritical, fake apologies I’ve ever read. It doesn’t go to the heart of his offensive writing at all. No, it was not merely that he was “preachy” or “overheated” or “rhetorically excessive,” it’s that he got the story wrong 180 degrees and has not acknowledged that, and his writing wasn’t just “preachy” it was disgusting, wrapping his accusations in the cloak of religiosity and holier-than-thou accusations that were extremely serious as well as being misplaced and incorrect.
He wants to get credit for an apology? Then he should issue a real one that addresses what he did wrong, not a fake, pretend one.
His is a display of fake ‘umbleness, like Uriah Heep. Disgusting.
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I posted this on another thread, but I think it should be here as well — ‘The damage is incalculable’: Patricia Heaton delivers stinging rebuke of media’s Covington carelessness
Part of what she says is this:
“It seems to me that an apology without some kind of accompanying action which speaks to the seriousness of their transgression – a suspension from work, some loss of pay – renders any apology empty.” And that “Some kind of compensatory action would go a long way in signaling their recognition of the seriousness of their transgression and help to restore what’s left of the public’s very fragile trust in their reputations as trustworthy journalists.”
Kate, neo, Ann: You convinced me!
Not sure where I got this link, so it might have been from somebody hereabouts. Anyhow, I think this is an interesting piece. It quotes Mr. Phillips, for one thing.
I don’t vouch for the accuracy of the report, but it’s pretty interesting. Maybe by now Old News to everybody….
http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=59696&fbclid=IwAR1Zxob-hee8huH4aHWHRzr7_2LJz5tpyTtzIGybxvJpypMccu9g9C-dsvg
I’ll be curious about Nicholas Frankovich’s subsequent career as a political commentator.
Phillips strikes me as a sad case. He’s made Native American activism the meaning of his life and now he’s got a reputation as a lying provocateur.
I suspect the Black Hebrew Israelites are OK, as everyone knows they are nuts.
Ruth “The MAGA Teenager Who Harassed a Native American Veteran Is Still Unnamed, but We’ve Seen His Face Before” Graham at Slate has taken her well-deserved share of slings and arrows, but has doubled down with a sort of “fake but accurate” defense:
The MAGA Teens Aren’t Innocent Victims:
The incident at the Lincoln Memorial was more complicated than it initially seemed, but new footage doesn’t exonerate the kids in the red caps.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/01/nick-sandmann-nathan-phillips-maga-video.html
There’s a Hasidic tale about a man who was constantly going around the village spreading hateful tales about the rabbi. Finally, just before Yom Kippur, when you are supposed to ask forgiveness from all those you have offended, he realized how wrong he had been and went to the rabbi.
“Rabbi,” he said, “I beg your forgiveness for all the horrible things I’ve said about you. How can I make it right?”
The rabbi said, “Go get a feather pillow, cut it open, and shake all the feathers out into the wind. Then come back tomorrow.”
So the man did what the rabbi told him, got the feather pillow, cut it open and shook out all the feathers into the wind. Then he went back to the rabbi. “Rabbi,” he said, “can you forgive me now? Have I made atonement?”
The rabbi said, “Not yet. Go get another feather pillow, cut it open, and shake all the feathers out into the wind. Then come back tomorrow.”
Again the man did what the rabbi told him, got the feather pillow, cut it open and shook out all the feathers into the wind. Then he went back to the rabbi. “Rabbi,” he said, “can you forgive me now? Have I made atonement?”
The rabbi said, “Not quite yet. Go get one more feather pillow, cut it open, and shake all the feathers out into the wind. Then come back tomorrow.”
For the third time, the man did what the rabbi told him, got the feather pillow, cut it open and shook out all the feathers into the wind. Then he went back to the rabbi. “Rabbi,” he said, “can you forgive me now? Have I made sufficient atonement?”
The rabbi answered him, “Yes, you will have atoned when you complete one more task.”
“What is the final task?” the man asked.
The rabbi answered, “Collect all the feathers.”
I’ve long been struck by the difference between Judaic and Christian forgiveness.
Christians, by and large, believe they are to forgive unilaterally and unconditionally. Jews are willing to forgive but it’s a two-way transaction with the forgivee.
I wouldn’t want to say one approach is better than the other. I aspire to Christian forgiveness, but it’s damn hard, near inhumanly hard. I appreciate the realism of Jewish forgiveness.
huxley:
Please read this post and thread on Jewish and Christian forgiveness.
neo: Great stuff! I often have the feeling we went to different schools together.
Ann Lamott, the left-wing-nutty Christian tells a story on herself. Not long after her conversion people would ask her how she managed to forgive people who had been really mean to her.
She would answer, Not all Christians do that.
Her companion would ask, But what about you?
She would reply, Oh, I’m one of the other Christians, then smile darkly.
Later she decided that forgiveness was about her most important spiritual work. Happily, she could explain forgiveness while trashing the Tea Party at the same time.
Anne Lamott: “Look at the Tea Party: Some of the angriest, most hateful people on earth, and they’re backed by what they think is Scripture.”
“Earth is forgiveness school. I believe that’s why they brought us here, then left us without any owner’s manual”
https://www.facebook.com/AnneLamott/posts/593723490757298
I’m passingly aware of Frankovich as a writer for NR and occasional comments on Facebook (friend of a friend connection). I’ve had a favorable opinion of him, to the extent that I have one. But I agree with Neo’s appraisal of the apology. It’s hardly an apology at all. The problem was not one of tone but of fact. I wonder what’s going on at NR right now, as they have published a scathing rebuke of Phillips and his media mob today.
Richard, that’s an excellent story. I haven’t heard it before. It surely does make the point! Thanks.
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Neo, I’ve read about halfway through your posting on forgiveness; thanks very much for the link. To be honest, I’ve never in 7 1/2 decades on the planet figured out what the word is supposed to mean. Your posting itself, in particular, I found extremely interesting. I believe it will be helpful.
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As to the present issue, I can only say that the whole thing is appalling. And absolutely of a piece with the treatment of Brett Kavanaugh. Not the incident itself, which would surely amount to something like a quarter-day’s wonder, but the vitriol, the self-righteous outpouring of evil from the mouths and the keyboards of these people!
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Frankly, I too thought Phillips came off as a half-loony old guy with an obsession.
It also bothers me somewhat — and this is really O/T — that some people referred to the high-schoolers as “children.” In this context, I think it is to be hoped that they would behave with some self-restraint and maturity.
And I think they did.
Their conduct was anything but childish. Young, yes; childish, far from it.
And I have no problem with the MAGA hats. Telling them not to wear those is not the same as telling a comely young woman not to go into certain areas late at night (or, in fact, at all). And it is certainly not the same as having the common sense to tell your local Party Headquarters not to have posters of effing Che hanging on the wall! Or telling your kid not to go to school (or anywhere else except the loo) wearing a Mao T-shirt. Not that either of these actions would cause the deranged and unhinged leftish sorts the slightest upset.
Julie near Chicago, I was once saved by a Julie. Shortly after Tailhook hunting for scalps was how to get promoted. Now, she was drunk. It was a party.And I did walk her back to her room and pour her a glass of water anWhad give her an aspirin. But I didn’t do what the elements of the command accused me of. Rape.
What happened was some guy who had the hots for her somehow got into her room. And my executive officer caught him. They were threatening her with conduct unbecoming and a court martial. But she refused to fold. I will love her to the end of of time.
She was not a weak woman. Had she been a weaker woman I would still be in prison.
It’s lucky for that guy I never met him again in the Fleet.
I bet!
I saw a report this morning (Tuesday) that the Covington school is closed today due to this mess.
Thanks for the link to the post on forgiveness, Neo. Repentance by the transgressor is always part of the commandment to forgive someone. “Repentance” includes not only feeling sorry about the transgression, but a turning of the heart and correction of behavior and consequences to the extent possible. How do I forgive someone who isn’t sorry? I can let it go emotionally, so that my anger doesn’t destroy me, but right relations cannot be restored with someone who has deliberately caused harm unless that person repents.
When did it become a crime against humanity to laugh in the face of a burned out old hippie?
I am still VERY angry at the treatment of the young boys at the pro-life rally. They were totally innocent as the various videos showed, and yet the left and the media were and are vicious in their treatment of this event.
This is beginning to remind me of the Cultural Revolution in China. If you need to refresh your memory of that, please do.
Our caving in with regard to political correctness has empowered this.
We have failed to push back on all this. If we don’t begin to push back now, we are going to get terrible results in the future.
That story really isn’t about forgiveness. It’s about “Lashon haRa,” evil speech. Once it’s out there, it’s impossible to call it back. I doubt whether those boys, or that school, will ever get their reputations back. Has anybody ever followed up on the Duke Lacrosse team or Mattress Girl’s ex-boyfriend to see how they are doing?