Procedural Criminal Justice Issue: A Communitarian Solution

Here, I offer a brief communitarian solution to tackling the problem of police brutality. I speak partly from experience. Although I am a Korean immigrant, I had the unique opportunity to live in a neighborhood nicknamed as "Gang Land" before moving to a middle-class home not too long ago. When I came to Baylor, I remember there being a shooting near the campus. The following morning, there was a school-wide email begging caution and many students felt frightened. Where I came from, when there is a gunshot during the night, many simply shrug it off like it's nothing. But despite the neighborhood I was in, by some strange chance, my school zone was cut to include all economic classes. Across the street from where I was, the school zone was cut to include only the lower class. Some neighborhoods had houses that cost $2 million and some neighborhoods had two bedroom apartments you can rent for $600. Yes, the apartments were that crappy, despite their well-managed outward looks. Due to my situation, I have known friends from different economic and, racial backgrounds. By consequence I observed how different their family dynamics were (if any) and how differently each of them thought. I have further spent hours checking criminal records and noticed the flaws in the system. With that said, I can confidently claim that I have a good insight as to where each side of the debate is coming from.

     The discourse on police brutality has increasingly been on the minds of the public. Many argue that the procedural injustice is not a problem in America. Many argue in opposition that the whole system is rigged against minorities, specifically African Americans. I have stated extremes of each sides, but either way, we see clearly biased arguments on both sides. We have plain deniers of police brutality despite clear video examples on one side, and those insultingly call African Americans who take a more laid-back and conservative approach to fixing the problem as "Uncle Tom" (used derogatorily). I even have heard one person say that Booker T. Washington encouraged Black people to "sit down and do nothing." I question that (white) person's interpretation of history. In the midst of the bias fueled by emotional zeal, many solutions offered are structurally infeasible and legally short-sighted, and often miss the crucial element that should be taken into account: human nature. Communitarianism is built upon assumptions of human nature, thus being more sensible and practical for this imperfect world.

     The relevant communitarian assumptions of human nature are (1) human beings are political animals that congregate into communities, (2) human beings thrive both physically and psychologically in well-functioning communities, and (3) human vices are mitigated in close-knit communities. Modern understanding of psychology has proven these ancient principles; a wealth of happiness studies emphasize the importance of communities (if in doubt, simply Google).

     I will now discuss the issue of procedural injustice and its contributing factors with these principles in mind.

(1) The American political system is prudently constructed to allow local residents to elect local representatives. Yet the number of engaged voters at a local level is insignificant. Oftentimes the topic of how the police should handle the problem are not on the ballot. As political animals (in the Aristotelian sense), we would do well to engage politically more often for to be political is to be communaly engaged. Activists and local Black Churches are able to mobilize politically against perceived systemic injustice locally if they choose to do so. However, many of these groups are largely disengaged from local politics.

     Activists in particular have failed on this aspect. The prevailing rhetoric claims that "the system" is rigged. I have heard the following phrase all too often: "The whole damn system is fucked." The substance of this rhetoric is a grave mistake. As implied in the previous paragraph, American governance is divided into systems. Plural. Not all counties criminal lawyers are overworked, not all counties face accusations of procedural injustice, and not all counties have to deal with the complex structural and sociological issues giving rise to procedural injustice.

(2) Human psychology is wired to act in accordance with primal instincts. In this case, the relevant primal instinct I am talking about is overreaction to perceived threat. When a person is in perceived state of life-threatening danger, the person does not shoot once or strike once; the person will most likely overreact. When one perceives that one's life is in danger, it takes no small amount of willpower to resist. Knowing this fact, prejudiced shootings and violence will always happen regardless of how much progress we make unless we can replace the police force with robots. Knowing further the difficulty of conditioning the human mind, we can conclude that putting the burden of improvement solely on the police force is unrealistic and idealistic at best.

      The burden of improvement should thus be shared by the police force and the American community as a whole. There is very little contention that the modern psyche is not healthy, especially among African American youth. President Obama himself said that African American youths are becoming increasingly without fathers, and that those without fathers are five times more likely to fall into poverty and commit crime. In the absence of  a proper father figure, young African Americans look to the violent and misogynistic wisdom of Gangsta rappers and the likes. All the shootings and pimping glorified in those songs are deemed as "cool" by the youth.

     I remember back in high school how a group black guys talked of girls. One guy asked, after hearing of a fight between a couple, "What happened with you and your bitch?" The other answered, "I smacked that bitch right on her bitch ass face." The group of guys laughed and high-fived the guy that hit his girlfriend. To them, this sort of behavior was acceptable to a point where it deserved a praise. What's more is that these guys were middle-class African Americans whose parents had more stable income than my family did at the time. They had all they needed to live their lives comfortably, but a life of crime appealed to them more.  The experience I have revealed is but a small portion of what is going on. I also know a guy who imprudently posted on Facebook with a ski mask on captioned "time to work." I never saw him post on Facebook since, but this shows how a life of Tupac is glorified over Elon Musk. Indeed, African American males are much more likely to commit crimes than other individuals of different race nationwide. This harsh sociological fact is where some police officers' prejudice lies. Each violent encounter with a particular racial group would further strengthen the prejudice in return.

     Of course, I am not saying that we should not hold minorities who grew up in harsh conditions and officers who formed their prejudice upon violent encounters morally culpable of their faulty actions. I know of youths grew up in a gangland ending up praying the rosary every day and police officers with PTSD never batching up a car search, proofs of how we make the decisions we make regardless of our conditions. What I am suggesting is that the family structure of  African American communities must be strengthened so that the youth will turn out to be more disposed toward making moral decisions. Where there is no family structure, those other than the children's immediate family must become a family for them. Black churches that counteract "thug-life" culture have been found by research to reduce crime, and we have many out there. Yet more can be done by activists, religious or otherwise. Instead of wasting time with outpouring of emotional zeal over unclear low-res videos, perhaps they should set up after-school programs to keep children out of the streets and provide legitimate parental figures.

(3) It is common knowledge that, if we know a person well, we are more likely to act favorably toward that person. I myself have experienced that those who do not know me tend to show anger while discussing a difficult topic while those who know me well treated me with kindness despite our differences. However intemperate one may be, that same intemperance can be tempered while being with individuals one favors; human vices are mitigated in close-knit communities.

     This train of thought can be said for the police force. If a police officer is from a community he is patrolling and is well-acquainted with its members, he will more likely to know a suspect from that particular area and be more lenient toward the suspect even if the suspect has committed a violent crime in the past. This form of policing, community policing, was what we had in the past, and is still loosely used in other countries. I still remember how I knew well the two police officers that patrolled my street when I lived in Korea. The modern form of policing is traced back to 1829 when London founded its Metropolitan Police Services.

     But this theory of communal police force, however attractive it may sound, cannot be done in urban ganglands; it is a vision achieved only in small rural towns and stable upper-middle class suburbs. If an African American man from a crime-heavy African American neighborhood gets recruited, the gang controlling the area will most likely harass the recruit's family to a point of leaving, or, in the worst, outright murder the recruit while he's sleeping in his own home. It seems that a communal police force can only work within a relatively stable community. The solution to this element, then, must be traced back to the solution for the second element.

     In conclusion, while pushing for reforms in the justice systems, minority communities, black communities more so, must push toward improving the culture their communities promote. The systems can only do so much; if there are more crimes committed by minorities, a system, however well-structured it may be, will inevitably convict minorities at a more frequent rate. Proponents of justice must, and I repeat must recognize that stable individuals make up a stable society. If individuals are morally uneducated and characteristically unbridled, no law will fix the instability that comes with it. Thus the restoration of family is crucial to solving any sociological problem for the family is where moral education starts. In a family, moral education is taught not out of philosophy books and nonsensical soundbites, but in observing the charity that can exist between human beings and how to practice that most precious disposition. The family ought to be the building block of any civil society. This fact has been understood by ancient philosophers long before modern psychology was formed; it is deplorable how little attention we give to the family nowadays.
   

Kaepernick and the Politically Correct Culture

On a daily basis, we are met with people saying one thing but acting in a contrary manner. It is a part of human imperfection, I suppose, to act at times without thinking of core principles by which one should act. One among such acts is Kaepernick's actions regarding the national anthem being paraded by the Progressive Left, adherents of the Politically Correct (PC) Culture in particular, as a display of virtue. I mean to expose the inconsistency behind the culture through the topic hotly debated in our society. My motivation is grounded for it is this same culture that is paving the niche wherein individuals like Trump can thrive.

     Let us first begin by explaining what the PC Culture is (rather than what it aims to be). Proponents of the culture give differing opinions as to what the culture is and how it is lived out, but the uniting principle is the same. One of the principal aspect of the PC Culture is to actively inject social taboos into methods of expression, most commonly targeted being words or phrases. The tabooing of words such as the N-word and the PC Culture is different in that the taboo against the N-word came about in isolation, meaning the taboo did not come to be instituted as a part of a larger culture. The PC Culture, on the other hand, is a recent movement which actively seeks out vocabulary that the culture deems inadequate. For this reason we see college campuses debating as to which words or phrases are PC, ranging from "Are you deaf?" to "politically correct." The effect of the culture, the tabooing of methods of expression, is tantamount to censorship, an act of intentional suppression of contents, lacking only the assistance of governmental coercion (something is up when even a liberal POTUS comments against this culture... but I digress).

     Another principal aspect of the PC Culture is that it seeks to taboo methods of expression that may be offensive to people. A biased view from a proponent would say that the culture seeks to taboo methods of expression that are offensive to people. But let's set this conflict aside for a moment and assume the culture's choice to use "are." 

     This aspect is where the discrepancy springs forth when the proponents of the culture gives support to Kaepernick's case. Standing down during the anthem is offensive. Many people have found Kaepernick's actions to be offensive, so it is offensive. Why ought not this method of expression labelled politically incorrect? To ground the PC Culture's validity upon mere offensiveness of methods thus runs into a problem. It becomes apparent, then, as to why "may" is a more accurate description. Words are offensive insofar as they are construed as offensive; offensiveness of a topic depends entirely upon interpretation. For example, if someone cracks a stereotypical Asian joke, it is entirely up to me to find offense or to laugh with others. 

     To avoid this discrepancy, a proponent would focus down the scope of the qualification of validity. To do so, one would focus the culture down to tabooing of methods of expressions offensive to the disadvantaged (the disabled, the poor, the historically oppressed minorities, etc). To justify this new grounding, a proponent would then have to characterize tabooing methods of expression that offends the disadvantaged as a display of virtue of kindness and respecting others.

     First, focusing down the grounding still does not overcome the objection that offensiveness of methods of expression depends entirely upon personal interpretation. It is still entirely up to the disadvantaged to interpret something as offensive. I digress here to mention a point relevant to the topic of being offended: Someone who has grown up in a poor, crime-heavy neighborhood or been in a support group for disabled people would quickly find that the disadvantaged the PC Culture attempts to embrace have learned to not be offended; through their experiences, they learn not to take the imperfections of the world too seriously lest they fall to constant anger and unhappiness. One will also find that the vast majority of the proponents of the culture come from a advantaged (or privileged) background. 

     Second, I object that virtue ethics shows no partiality. Rich or poor, White or colored, disadvantaged or advantaged, all human beings are bound to ethics. Being kind to someone should have no bearing whether someone is disadvantaged or advantaged. In showing zero partiality, the society should put the burden of kindness on both sides of a dialogue rather than treating the disadvantaged in a special manner. In embracing the epistemic limits of the human mind, one would quickly notice that it is impossible to count for every methods of expression that could be offensive to someone. To combat this, one would find that it is far easier - and far less utopian - to learn cognitive skills to interpret someone else's expressions without offense, insofar as those expressions made could be reasonably perceived as arising from ignorance (burning of the flag would be an expression that cannot be reasonably perceived as arising from ignorance due to the global acknowledgement of the act as inherently aggressive). 

     From what has been said, the contradictions within the PC Culture can be seen. 

Anatomy of a Fruitless Social Media Argument

To call what I am about to analyze as a "debate" is a misnomer. Such a word is a mere show of politeness. More accurately, I mean senseless waste of time. Let's begin.

I myself do not participate in Facebook debates a lot. When I see something I deem disagreeable, I pass along. I mostly read them and see what other people are thinking. But when someone challenges my view on my posts, I gladly accept and reply. But then again I soon begin to realize that it was a mistake to engage in such an activity for I should have realize that, chances are, the person commenting does not know how to argue for his or her own position with great thought. In order to prevent you from being that lesser Facebook's (or any other social media outlet's) netizen, I wish to provide you an example of something that resembles a fruitless Facebook debate, showing where things can go wrong.

Let me begin with a loose (and ludicrous) example:

Original Post (OP): "Bears are boring for they lack the entertainment value of Battlestar Galactica."

Challenger (CR): "Bears are not trying to be boring. They are just trying to be cute and cuddly for the masses. And are you seriously shaming all the bears for lacking some entertainment value?"

OP: "I'm not saying that bears are trying to be boring, but that they consequently are. And I'm not shaming bears. I'm just stating my opinion."

CR: "You would see just how entertaining bears are if you look past your prejudice. And you should stop with your hasty generalizations; they are logical fallacies. Not all bears are boring."

     Let's look at where things went wrong.

1) "Boring" is a subjective concept applied to a particular subject. In this case, the word is applied to Bears. It's akin to words like "offensive," "spicy," and "exciting."For most Koreans, American football is boring. Americans would of course disagree. Many Americans would consider cricket to be a boring sport. Members of the Commonwealth, however, would disagree. Some would consider bears, beets, and Battlestar Galactica to be boring. Someone might not. The fact that CR began a discussion about it is silly.

2) CR says that the OP was "shaming" all the bears. The context of the words do not suggest that OP was shaming the bears. To have concluded as such suggests that CR projected his own flawed interpretation unto OP's words. It becomes ever-apparent that CR is getting a little too personal and emotionally attached and unable to contain the said emotion by using the word "seriously."And when emotions are not contained, it is more likely that an interpreter would misinterpret and imbue undue meaning to other's words.

3) "Look past your prejudice," says CR. There is no telling that OP is prejudicial to Bears. The OP merely suggests a conclusion a person has reached in comparison to his attitude toward Battlestar Galactica. A more proper response by CR would have been: "How did you come by that conclusion? What parts of Battlestar Galactica are more entertaining to you than bears?" In turn, CR himself exercised prejudice against OP.

4) CR attempts to point out to logical fallacies OP was supposedly making, hasty generalization in particular. Objectively speaking, there is no telling OP made a hasty generalization. He merely shared a conclusion he arrived at on Facebook. There is zero evidence that OP made a "sweeping" generalization. Many people memorize a bunch of logical fallacies off of a chart they found somewhere online or in a logic 101 class, the contents of which they barely remember. But it becomes clear that they have not mastered the practical applicability of logic in an everyday setting.

5) CR says "not all bears are boring." CR does not follow it up with premises supporting that conclusion. At this point, whatever hope there was of there being a fruitful discussion is gone. Without premises supporting a conclusion, one person cannot understand the other.

These are common mistakes people make on Facebook and in Twitter wars. To sum it up, they are:
1) Arguing over subjective application of a word.
2) Misinterpretation of others' words.
3) Prejudice against someone you disagree with.
4) Fallacious accusations of logical fallacies.
5) Arguing against a conclusion with a conclusion unsupported by premises.

     

Why Personify Virtues as Women?

I remember walking around with a dear friend of mine at an art museum, admiring classical paintings and making fun of modern ones together. I remember having a brief conversation about a particular type of paintings. They were of personifications of different virtues: faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, temperance, and courage. One interesting thing of note was that all the personifications used female figures. My friend's answer was that, since the virtues fully actualized are perfections, the male painters probably projected the women they were in love with to the virtues for they would have idealized those women they so loved. My answer was that the male painters probably refused to use male figures for they found in men a vicious nature far often than they found them in women. A part of my answer came from my experience of being a male, and also from the fact that I did not idealize a woman in my life. Even my dear friend, who is a female, I do not idealize. The virtues of prudence, temperance, and courage I cannot exactly attribute to her ( :p ). But I digress. I didn't expound upon my reasoning then, so I mean to put my thought process on record through this post.


I will first present paintings that are like the ones I saw at the museum. I couldn't find the ones I saw on Google, but these three will have to do:

These paintings personify the seven virtues. As you can see, all the personifications are of women. The third one in particular is striking for the painting has seven male saints under the virtues which are personified as women.

     As they are all of Catholic origins, one might argue that the virtues were likely personified as women for the perfect example of virtue - Christ Himself - was born of a woman, namely Virgin Mary. So perhaps the classical painters started the tradition of personifying the virtues as women for it would be fitting considering their knowledge of Catholic Marian theology.

     But this tradition of personifying the virtues as women go back further than the Christian tradition. Roman goddesses Iustitia and Prusentia are both personifications of virtues (justice and prudence). Iustitia is particularly familiar with the modern Western tradition for we see blind ladies holding a sword and a scale in front of courthouses. For a further non-Christian example, we can look to Lady Liberty.

     Now, the artists were all men in male-dominant societies. Despite the perceived superiority of men, they depicted the virtues - perfections - as women. Why? Since the painters are men, and since I am a man myself, perhaps I could search in myself to empathize with them, hopefully arriving at a conclusion they have.

     Personally, I have had more female friends than male friends. Apart from when I was a little boy mocking fights with other boys as a form of play, I made most of my male friends in a religious context. If you have seen my hanging out with guy friends at a church, they are almost the complete extent of my male friends. For others I hang out occasionally, I only describe them as my associates. The reason for this is that I've come to be irritated with a vast majority of men, and I have met many.

     I suppose I will have to describe few behaviors that irritate me in men. If you are a guy reading this, perhaps you could use the occasion to search your conscience.

     Men like to talk about women with other men. I have heard very few men talking about a woman's character traits. In most cases, they talk about how "hot" a woman is. One time, one of the church associates was talking to me about women with another guy. One guy asked me, "Are you a boobs guy or a butt guy?" I was appalled at the question. Should a Christian striving for virtue ask that question? The answer is a clear no. The one who asked aid: "I'm a butt guy myself. I like big butts." He had a girlfriend. And indeed, her girlfriend has the physical attribute he likes. I wonder... Did he start dating her because of her character trait or something else? Thus began a conversation I desperately wanted to get out of. Apart from naming a specific body part they are attracted to, I know of men who consistently are attracted to blondes, Asians, redheads, etc. Such fetishes are disturbing to me.

     Another time, this time an atheist who is supposedly a fully fledged supporter of feminism, did a similar thing. Me and two other guys were watching a movie and he was in his room studying or something. One guy next to me, also a supposed fully-fledged supporter of feminism, said, "Hey, [name]! Boobs!" during a scene with nudity. And soon enough, this guy rushed out of his room to see the nudity. He also had a girlfriend. Their behaviors remind me of the recent season of South Park which involved a politically correct fraternity who act like they care about social justice issues in order to attract women for sex with their seemingly solid moral principles.

     Speaking of deceptions through appearances, I have also seen many of deceptions by men. In a show Marco Polo, there is a scene where a Daoist monk reflects upon Mongolian warriors celebrating by saying, "When men drink and tell stories they tend to hide within the stables. Why? It is the perfect repository for horse manure." It is very accurate. I have seen that most men bloat stories and add new details in every other sentence in hopes of appeasing their vanity. This habit of decepting, I have observed, increases dramatically during a date. I have had the privilege of observing a few guys on their dates and get feedbacks from them about how it went afterward. They lied through their teeth.

     Yes, I have seen plenty of vices from women. I know of many who objectify men as sexual objects; I know of a few who have a fetish for Korean guys. I know of an army of those who feel that they need to reveal their bodies to attract men, crossing their arms while sitting across a guy to make the cleavage appear bigger to angling their legs so that the man could see underneath their shorts or skirts; indignifying acts they are. I have also had women lie to me, clearly bloating their stories during a date, but not as much as men do. I initially thought that it was cute of them to lie in order to have me like them in return. But dishonesty is a vice nonetheless. I also know economically frugal women who say yes to dates just to have men buy them meals. But whatever vices they may have, not many result in violence and trauma like when men turn to their base nature.

     When men turn to their base nature, they learn to take advantage of their physical prowess against others. I know of men who have abused their wives or girlfriends, the ones who have raped multiple women and men, the ones who have imprinted permanent scars within people's minds. In sitcoms and cartoons, men are depicted as idiots. Homer in The Simpsons, Peter in Family Guy, every single guy in Friends, Ted and Barney in How I Met Your Mother, they are all depicted as idiots. The shows are comedic, so the characters should all be idiotic to a degree, that is true. Yet men in these shows are clearly idiotic to greater severities than women. Perhaps these shows reflect the dark part of our society with a comedic facade. The writers' decisions to create character profiles as such must have come from their own experiences (comedy writers are predominantly male).

     We have but to look to the modern state of family to see how men could be portrayed as idiots so often. We see too often men who do not know how to treat women correctly even when their prefrontal cortex has been fully developed at the age of 25. We see women appealing to incompetent men enslaved by their sexual impulses for they do not know what competent men seek in a woman. Social psychologists can easily point to our society's severe lack of a father figure. Even in a non-divorced home, a father can be distant, choosing a career that would put him and his children in situations where they cannot spend adequate times together. Divorces, of course, take a toll in a child's psyche. Flannery O'Connor titled one of her short stories as "Good Men are Hard to Find." It is a chilling tale depicting how ordinary people can be so evil as well as extraordinary people. Perhaps her observation is not so much a dark pessimism but rather a reality.

     The flaws of men I have mentioned would have been observed by classical Romans also. These behaviors are nothing new to humankind. I do not meant to disregard the evils done by women (for I know many). But I am pointing to the severity of consequences when men are incompetent.

     From what has been said, I think that you, reader, can draw an inference as to why I think that the artists refused to use men and preferred women in personifying the virtues.

What Do We Mean by "Good" Person?

Allow me to get to the point of this post through a story.

     It was 8:30 P.M. in the evening. Lilly's legs were aching from all the walking in her heels, her bared skin still chilled from the cold air conditioner of the BMW she just got out of. She half-regretted wearing a dress that was so revealing. It was her date night with a guy she met at a bar three days ago. As Lilly entered her dorm room, her roommate Ryla jumped out of her chair while reading, showing excitement for her friend she knew since her freshman year. Ryla felt jealous toward her friend, envious of how her friend goes on dates while she sits around scrolling through Facebook photos of engagement pictures all day, how her friend seemed to be liked by guys more than she is. But she learned to hide such dispositions long time ago.

     "So, how was it?" Ryla asked. 

     "It was good!" Lilly said with a smile on her face. "We just ate at this fancy place in midtown. Their shrimp pasta was fantastic."

     "A place at midtown? He must be really rich."

     "Yeah, he drives a BMW."

     "Nice!" Ryla exclaimed, still hiding her jealousy from her friend. "How did it end? A hug?" she asked. 

     "Well, his car was really cold," lilly said, chuckling. "When he saw me shivering, he put his arm around me and rubbed my arm."

     "And he went for a kiss?"

     "I think he was going to, but I got out of the car and told him 'goodbye'," Lilly said, rolling her eyes. 

     "Yeah, a kiss on a first date seems a bit rushed," Ryla said, relieved that her friend did not get to kiss a handsome rich guy, her envy still guised as happiness for her friend. "So, how was he overall?"

     "He's a really good guy!" Lilly replied.

     "So, are you gonna go out on a second date?" 

     "No," Lilly said. "I'm gonna refuse next time he reaches out. Something didn't really feel right."

     "You said he's a good guy. Why don't you give him another try? 

     "I don't know," Lilly said, letting out a sigh. "I mean, I had fun, but he just didn't feel right." 

     Ryla scoffed. "Is that your dad's cop instincts coming out of you?" 

     "Maybe," Lilly said, laughing. 

     Dumb bitch, Ryla thought. She had been stalking the guy on Facebook. She thought that the guy was settling for Lilly. To Ryla, he was too attractive to date a girl like Lilly. Lilly was a perfectly average-looking girl, but the guy looked like a model, like one of those young CEOs in movies. Perhaps it's good that Lilly won't go for him. An attractive guy like him would go wasted on the shy prudes like Lilly. After all, he seemed far higher in caliber than the kind of guys that usually ask out Lilly. 

     "Well, I hope you don't regret after you reject him," Ryla said, smiling. "I've seen regretting girls go crazy over a guy. And it's not pretty"

     "Oh, I don't think I will," Lilly said.
     After going into a deep thought for a while, Lilly said, "Hey, Ryla."
     "Yeah?" Ryla answered.
     "Did I make a mistake by going on a date with a guy I barely know?"
     "No, there's nothing wrong with having a little fun."
     Ryla said it with no thought as to the character of the guy might not be good, not knowing herself the fact that her prudential judgment failed out of her desperation for the kind of "fun" she was so envious of. A part of her imprudence and naivete was perhaps influenced by romanticizing modern "romances" like Fifty Shades of Grey.
     Despite her roommate's naivete, Lilly's conscience told her otherwise.

     A "good guy," Lilly said. Little did she know that the guy she went on a date with raped his then-girlfriend in his senior year in high school. In his sophomore year in college, he committed another crime of the same kind at a fraternity party. In his senior year in college, he committed the act for the third time. The reason he has yet to have been pressed with charges is that he manipulated his highschool ex into half-believing that the crime was actually consensual; the girl did not make a move to press charges out of her uncertainty. Second time around, the victim was unconscious, waking up thinking that it was a consensual one-night-stand. The third time around, the victim did not want her college life to be interfered. 

     He is now graduated, working at a business firm near the university Lilly attends. He was hired to work there as soon as he graduated, thanks to his connections in his fraternity. In between Lilly and his high school days, he would go around having one-night-stands as many as he could. He was wealthy and naturally gifted with his looks. He had plenty of resources to decieve his way through women seeking the novelty of fancy dates, and also to guilt-trip women into doing what he wants. The more expensive the dates, the more obligated the women felt to do whatever he wants.
     By now, he had much of such a predatory instinct honed, being able to tell intuitively the kind of insecure women who would fall for his tricks and guises, the ones that are so anxious to be dating to a point where their intuitions fail them. Indeed, he purposefully made his car into a freezer in order to put his arm around Lilly like so many of the girls before. Had Lilly not been able to quickly get out of her car, he would have played out his usual routine, escalating from his right arm around the prey to whatever he desired for the night. Lilly was right. He would have gone for a proper hug... but also far beyond it. Had Ryla known all this, she would not be so envious of her roommate.  

     One thing I'd like for us to focus is how Lilly characterised the guy as a "good guy," a guy she spent three hours with total. A wealth of psychological/sociological studies show that we lie often. I will not even link a source to where I found these studies for there are too many for you to miss from simple Google search (and searching your own conscience). Most of them are insignificant; they are mere fibs (men do more often than women). But these "fibs" are made out of impulse, especially on dates. A man whose end goal is sex, therefore, would lie through his teeth to someone they are hoping to sleep with as soon as possible. They would tell you that their end goal of dating is to settle down and start a family, but chances are, they would be lying through their teeth. Now, the guy would surely have deployed all the skills necessary to hide his ill-intent. On Lilly's part, she would need the intuition of the best criminal profiler in the world to spot all the fishy gestures the guy unconsciously slipped by to realize that he is a predatory individual. Even then, three hours maximum might not be enough to spot sufficient amount of gestures. It takes people (excluding the ones who are naturally gifted...or cursed) hours upon hours of time spent with another to know and become accountable to each other. 

     Regardless of all his crimes and all the lies he told her over the course of three hours, Lilly has still characterized the guy as a "really good guy." She would not be at a fault, of course. The vast majority of people pass judgments of character based on how much fun they have. Only in reasoning things out do we find that it would be too hasty to call a person good or bad in most situations. Perhaps it is the case that, when we say that someone is good or bad, we are not passing character judgments. More accurately, we are stating our preferences of certain moments. It is easy to call psychopaths with consistent criminal behaviors shown all over the TV "bad," but not so easy when that same psychopath starts giving money to the poor and when we do not know of his crimes. I believe that even psychologists lack the right to judge a person to be "good" in most cases; only a book-length behavioral profile of an individual would be reasonably sufficient to pass such judgments. Afterall, isn't Lilly's roommate Ryla "bad" in being so envious of her friend? 

     The story above is fictional, yes. The names and further details are made up. But not entirely. The basic outline of the story is true in many aspects for I have compiled different parts of different true stories, especially the worst parts. Scenarios like this happen everyday against too many women. I will not specify which parts are true; I'll let your thoughts take guesses. Considering the reality of it all, from having imprudent and jealous friends to going on dates with criminals, it is therefore saddening that some of our human interactions can fall to such dangers. The story is an extreme example, to be sure, the kind that makes every father's, brother's, and loyal friend's spines chilled and fists clench. Yet does it not represent how we are so quick to trust people? Is it not characteristic of the kind of naivete we display in being drawn to a person either as a friend or as a romantic interest in mere hours, sometimes in minutes? Personally, I know of too many stories where the ending was not so fortunate... 

     Would we be so pessimistic to suspend judgment on how good or how bad a person is? Or is it prudent? I cannot say. A part of me wants to believe that people I love are "good," and I compliment them accordingly. Yet I am fully aware that there are twisted parts of them that qualify them as "bad" just as well, especially the parts that lie and betray, the parts that will hurt me the most. Am I naive or virtuous in wanting to believe in my loved ones like such, pushing the bad parts of them out of my memory? I cannot say.

     As a closing statement, I want to mention the following. The point of this post is not to argue whether or not we ought to go on dates with a person we barely know, and whether there are prudential ways of navigating the modern dating culture which promotes impulsive behaviors and breeds insecurities. What I am suggesting is to point out by extreme example how quickly we pass judgments on people we have fun with as "good," and how unknowingly toxic such practices can be. Further, by using the story as an example, I want to point out how such a practice can be dangerous and imprudential. 

     

     

Against Feeding Our Prejudice

As we are human beings, we are all disposed toward prejudice. Prejudice, as hinted by the construction of its word which combines "pre" and "judice," is an attitude or judgment based on premature judgment, not accounting for every fact. Without us knowing, we tend to actively seek out information to confirm our biases, and, in some cases, we try to manipulate the surrounding around us to fit our purposes. Many of us have habits we consistently use to affirm our prejudice. The aim of this post is to provide a loose profile of certain prejudicial individuals, in legal professions in particular. Hopefully a reader might adjust one's habits to lessen the disposition toward prejudice by taking the cons of just behaviors mentioned.

     I know a law-student would be. She is an aspiring human rights lawyer. She studies ardently the relevant fields such as international politics and also French, probably for the purpose of working in Geneva. She is intelligent and dedicated, and I have no doubt that she will achieve her goal of being a high-ranking human rights lawyer. I have admired her dedication and her passion for her goals. I tend to have respect for people with clear goals they have for their lives. But she suffers from a character flaw: she is deeply prejudicial.

    When we are angry or at least frustrated, we vent to people we know. In many cases, venting is beneficial for our health in that we relieve our stress. But in some cases, we vent to conform our peers' opinion to agree with ours. It is a psychological response which takes root in our pride; we tend to feel more proud as the number of people who agree with us increases. Further, this form of venting would often put ourselves as the good guys of the story, distorting information to our advantage bit by bit every time we tell the story over. It is contrary to talking with a person directly, listening to that person's perspective while telling ours, trying to find a fair ground. This malicious venting, then, would in turn be gossiping and our mode of affirming our prejudice.

    Without me knowing, I found out that I "got to her." She is a hard-left leaning person and I a right-leaning centrist. I suppose some conservative things I said irritated her greatly... Not to mention how I questioned the veracity of her reasoning on Facebook once, a topic I will touch in the next paragraph. I found that she would say negative things to one of my dearest friends, attempting to shape the opinion my friend has toward me, pleasantly disguised as a venting session. She succeeded to a degree. This friend of mine took a joke I told her, and this joke is something she would normally recognize as a joke, as a slight against her. I was of course deeply hurt. And all this nonsense is attributed to a single prejudicial individual manipulating her surrounding to affirm her unjust prejudice against me.

     Let us now talk of this Facebook thing. I have observed her over a long period of time posting prejudicial statements on Facebook and saying such statements in public repeatedly. I'd like to talk of one incident that I faultily engaged by impulse. Not to reveal too much detail, she said something along the lines of "Texas is inherently sexist against women." I suspect that her hard-left leaning attitude made her a zealot of the ideal that the conservative ideals are racist/sexist/bigots. Just so happens, Texas is a red state. I simply questioned her reasoning that the whole state is sexist because of one instance she observed to be sexist. It is a classic "individuals do not equate to the whole" logic, and a mistake people make too many times. Yes, it is true that some Texans are still backwards. But the state, for the most part, respect women. For one, some major cities are liberal. Further, many conservative individuals respect women more than those sexually liberal people who tend to treat individuals as means to their sexual ends. Here, her prejudice against the conservative ideals made her make a logical mistake that should not be made by a good lawyer.

    It is of no small irony how a person willing to fight for justice is herself heavily disposed toward passing unjust judgments through prejudice. Relevant to her dream job, this prejudicial attitude is prevalent among prosecutors. It turns out that many of the people who pursue a career in  civil service against crime pursue the careers with excessive zeal for the just cause well beyond the noble limit. The zeal, however much noble, can become base when the zeal turns to prejudicial disposition. We see many examples of this, how some officers can have biased attitudes against certain people. Like so, many prosecutors tend to have prejudice against the people they prosecute, often being in denial of the fact that an innocent person can be found guilty by the court, that it is a conceivably possible consequence that can be delivered by their own hands.

     During trials, many prosecutors would gather around the DA office kitchen during lunch break and reinforce to each other the prejudice against people they are trying at the moment. The bias is understandable. Being a prosecutor is a great burden on one's conscience, for the obvious consequences of the prosecution winning a case. Human psyche tends to circumvent the unpleasantness like torn conscience. Like an immature woman who cheated on her boyfriend avoiding him at all costs and making nonsensical excuses for her wrongdoing, they would crawl to the safety of their prejudice birthed by pride rather than to bear the weight of their station. This attitude is of course dangerous. When they go into their cases with their minds already seeing the man on trial as a criminal, they would be liable to interpret evidence in a sly way or try to lead witnesses to fit their theory better. Worse yet, they might try to forge new evidences for they believe that they must at times act outside the law to convict a guilty man. These are habits that can get an innocent man in prison. To be sure, most people who get convicted are guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. But many are not.

     Other kinds of lawyers are not immune to this sort of prejudicial display as they are fallen beings like we all are. The above-mentioned behaviors noted are not exclusive to lawyers or people pursuing a legal career, but rather behaviors that are common to all human beings. I hope that I have provided enough of a profile for the reader to comprehend.

   

On the Motherliness of the Church

"Let us rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready" - Rev 19:7

The expression "Holy Mother Church" is a seldom used expression in our modern day. By "mother church," people would understand firstly, Protestants in particular, of which denomination came first, or which ministry gave birth to all the other ministries (the answer is clearly Catholic). The term is understood only secondly to be a spiritual caretaker. As a mother would, the Church as an institution gives birth to, educates, and nourishes the believers of the Christian religion. Whatever calamity should befall, the Church is there to nurture as a mother would. It is of little surprise how this understanding of a Mother Church has come to disappear; we only have to look at how individualistic and non-institutional approach to biblical interpretations of the modern world, birthing new heresies equipped only with their "personal relationship with Christ". I wish to briefly discuss the validity of the latter expression, the Church as a caretaker, in this post. 

    In the quotes verse above, what is meant by "bride" is the whole of the faithful as a community. It therefore connotes the whole of (savable) Christians as congregated in the Christian institution. According to Christian theology, Christ's crucifixion is the redemptive moment of mankind; it is the decisive step toward the New Creation. This moment is rich in metaphorical significance, connecting the events written in the book of Genesis and fulfilling their prophetic truths. There are a couple connections to be made. But one connections relevant to this topic is how the moment created a new "mother of all living" (Gen 3:20). As God opened a wound in Adam to take his rib (Gen 2:21), a wound was made by piercing Christ's side. Christ, then, is the new Adam, and the Church that was birthed from his death and resurrection is the new Eve. 

     I should digress and I should note quickly here that Virgin Mary is also called the new Eve. And this connection strikes true also, though the Church as the new Eve is an older thought. The divine Nature of God's works can permeate to the physical world in multiple facets. To understand the metaphorical significance to be extracted from the Christian narrative ought not to be constrained by worldly conventions.

     Now that the metaphorical significance can be gained from the events written in the Scripture, let us move on to see how the function of the Church can be motherly. First, it provides and nourishes. Like a mother milking her babe the Church feeds the homeless and shelters orphans. Also, thorough the ministering of the Eucharist, the physical form of which is made with "fruit of the earth and work of human hands," the Church nourishes us spiritually. The Church also educates. Through the community members, the Church corrects the wrongdoings we have done. When we run to one of the members of the faith, we are given advice. Sometimes, we are given an advice regardless of whether we are liable to listen, such as in the case of sermons and a true friend telling us just how bad we have been. Thirdly, the Church forgives and offers a shoulder to cry on. Through the sacrament of reconciliation and our friends we find comfort. By supporting one another in actions, and, if too distant, through prayers, we make the Mystical Body of Christ. In this support structure made possible by the Christlike virtues exemplified by its faithful members, the Church maintains its motherly nature. 

     It goes without saying ,then, the motherly imagery of the Church has been accepted by the tradition for a long time. The imagery not only exists in its functions but also in its architecture. Although this piece of architectural design is not seen commonly in our modern day, but it was the dominant on during the Gothic era. When we look at the doors of Gothic churches, we often see them ornamented with an arch shaped like halved almond. This "almond" imagery shaped like pointed oval is called vesica piscis. Perhaps the perverse modern mind would have a difficult time understanding it charitably, but it is an ancient yonic symbol depicting the female womb. The symbol has long been associated by ancients with how they considered the female womb as a mystical portal between life and non-life. Further, we often see Virgin Mary and Jesus within the full-almond outline. There was a conscious choice in Gothics choosing this design. With this architectural design, after the priest says "go forth the mass is ended," and the congregation replies "thanks be to God," the faithful, charged with the Eucharist, would be metaphorically re-birthing themselves, imitating the resurrection of the body. By exiting the archway, the faithful would be exiting the womb of the Mother Church out unto the world, renewed with the spiritual care given by the liturgy.

     From what has been said, the validity of expression can be seen.