Words

"Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish." 
-Hermann Hesse

*Justice or Your Mother

 The seminar today was given by a Professor of Political Theology. His topic: Justice or Your Mother; Levinas and Zizek...I forget what the rest of the heading was...and this is a crude recount...

At any rate, the seminar opened with Albert Camus's statement when he received the Noble Peace Prize in literature. He stated, if I had to choose between Justice or my mother I would choose my mother. This indicated a preference of the particular over the universal. That we are inclined to decide for the loyalty and love we have for the one's closest to us over the justice driven by the state, an extension of patriotism or nationalism; justice being one of many that represents a universal. This poses a problem for the speaker. That how are we to decide when faced with such a tension between that which is particular over that which is universal. My thought is that we must beg the question before anything meaningful can truly come out of this. What is the particular and what is the universal? What are its contents? And what are the circumstances of each?

The speaker goes on to discuss Levinas, who starts with the negation of God and goes on to discuss the responsibility of persons. That because responsibility, in a Sartre sense, is one that is placed upon the burden of all persons to love thy neighbor and place them before the selfish needs of the individual, it is a suicidal self-abnegation. That it is a perpetual asymmetrical relationship between the self and the other. Because there is no God, the divine responsibility shifts unto the neighbor. That this calls for a subjective responsibility for the "salvation" of others. As such this leads one to consider particulars and circumstance. For a greater sense of empathy for our individual neighbors.

In contrast, Zizek proposes for the universal through the domain of "the third." The domain of the victims of collateral damage. The unseen faces. That Justice, not love, is blind and must consider the absent. That there is a responsibility to Justice. The unseen faces, those constituting "the third," must be taken precedent over the subjective faces of the present. This is a call for the Universal. And that because there is no God, it is humanity that must take on divine responsibility.

There is a polarization of the universal and the particular. The speaker notes that he thinks this polarization and leaning towards one or the other have resulted from a pronounced death of God, as both Zizek and Levinas do not start with and do not place a concept of God within their assessments. The speaker suggests that we pronounce the death of the death of God. That we should be able to utilize both the Universal and the Particular for an ethical over the political.

I, personally, do not see a difference whether God is in the picture or not. If he is in the picture then we have an array of other issues of heremeneutics in interpreting what God is, and what his "law" is as a Universal and how to apply it to the Particular. And yet, even if we did the pragmatic concerns will still persist about the Universal and the Particular. And in the event of without God, we have a Kantian conception of how to describe and ascribe a universal law of human rights, its enforcements and how to apply it. The set of practical issues are the same in drawing a relationship between the universal and the particular. What do we do? A Christian leader does not necessary entail a more just government nor does a secular one. The bickering over labels ring empty and hollow to me. Perhaps a better approach, as suggested from the audience, is framing the issue in another matter and at the same time consider what the content of the Universal is. This is a task of framing what the good life is and what is morally good. What are the virtues?

I want to return quite briefly to Camus and wonder, what he still choose his mother over justice if his mother was a serial killer? Or a genocidal dictator? And would Justice be chosen over one's mother when Justice is not truly Justice? There are corruptions and judicial mishaps in the pursuit of Justice. The court system is not perfect and there have been many innocent people convicted of a crime (the 'Innocence Project' is a documentary of innocent men who were released from Death Row after a DNA test exonerated them). There are alternative questions to this Justice vs. Your mother question. And to me the issue cannot possibly be one or the other without considering the circumstances and how the issue is framed in posing such a dreadful dilemma. I love my mom. And I will take humanity over patriotism any day.

quote

Love without Courage will always lose to Fear

"Do they not see the vast variety of inclinations and pursuits among our species, where each man seems fully satisfied with his own course of life, and would esteem it the greatest unhappiness to be confined to that of his neighbour?" -David Hume

*Response

 After giving the paper below on 'Religious Experience: From Public Discourse to Responsibility and Courage' I was given some interesting remarks and questions. My paper argued for a change in cultural habits through responsibility and courage such that in the event of a developed neutral discourse, the previous habits of power and past prejudices do not re-constitute themselves. In other words, I was advocating change at the day to day social level. The paper began by acknowledging religious experience as a source of meaning and went on to touch on the discussion between Habermas and Taylor about the role of religious reasons in the public sphere. I then shifted to responsibility and courage for meaningful social change to substantiate political change.

The responses were pretty interesting...from a mundane question of reference to questions about Habermas - in fact, the rest of the questions were about Habermas and religion in the public sphere, nonetheless I obliged.

One of the questions was raised by stating that Habermas' presumption was that he began with the secular perspective. And the questioner, some Old Testament Prof., wanted to know where I saw politics was heading or where it would be in the next 50 years. I said, yes, Habermas does start with the presumption of the secular and that it is where the discourse is grounded. In the next 50 years, I don't know where politics is heading but that the current trend is not one that includes the virtues of equality and justice. He seemed to be alluding to the assumption that a Christian state of things was inevitable and that the secular discourse may not be meaningful. Habermas and his discussions are becoming moot. I will return to this as there was another questioner that asked the same question.

Another member of the audience asked about the socialization process of the secular. Shouldn't they have to accommodate for the religious? What about the religious who aren't socialized with the secular? I replied that Habermas did not think that the secular required a socialization process to a specific community and it was thereby neutral to any specific faction. The majority of discourse in the public sphere is secular. You do not see people giving religious reasons for taxes, the national debt, or healthcare. The reasons given are secular, although at times highly technical. You do not see reasons provided to the public in religious terms, although the underlying reason my be religiously motivated. But unless, the questioner thought that there was a gap between the religious and those who were not socialized as religious in terms of their discourse and that there was a socialization process for the secular then it would seem that he was alluding to the underlying beliefs and values. But if he listened to my talk, my discussion was for a transcendence of ontic and social categories in favor of virtues such as equality and justice. That we should not dwell on these presumptive categories of how other people would be. In short, I'm talking about you motherfucker. Don't get caught up on that shit but look towards what values are agreed upon and go from there. Injustice and corruption are real and you want to bicker about socialization and how to talk.

Towards the end, another professor, echoing the first questioner about the secular presumption and the direction of politics. He made reference to the Republican party in the U.S., politics in Latin America and politics in Africa talking about the current trend in Christian discourse in the political sphere and was wondering whether my talk was...parochial (?!) to western Europe. And while I do not know enough about politics in Latin America or Africa, the concerns are still there. I think it is necessary to delineate what is meant by the "public sphere" and the discourse within it. He referred largely to the political campaigns and how they appeal to a general public. And although this is one of the modes of discourse in the political sphere it is not the one of primary significance. The legal and policy decision making processes are much more critical on a state and international level. In terms of the former, in appealing to elections and campaigns, the discourse is secular until the issues turn to matters of abortion, rape, gay rights, immigrant, and other human rights. Here the underlying religious reasons are most prevalent. In other ways, religion does not enter the discourse regarding the budget, or the role between state and bank.

With respect to Latin America and Africa, these areas are not homogeneous in terms of their religious composition. There are various denominations of Christianity, Islam, and other religious groups, as well as the secular. If the trend is towards a Christian state of "natural law" where "God's law" is the foundation for the state, then that begs the question of what "God's law" is to begin with, what the discrepancies in the interpretations are and how they translate meaningfully into practical concerns and contemporary issues. Somebody, after the panel, came up and talked to me about right and wrong experiences or wrongly interpreted. This raises concerns about orthodoxy and whether one can deem them right or wrong, they still provide meaning for the individual. If a state of Christian discourse and "natural law" were to proceed, then we have to ask the question in converse: how do Islamic reasons translate into Christian discourse or how do secular reasons translate? This opens up a whole new array of other issues. And if we acknowledge a Christian nation-state then we must also acknowledge a Muslim nation-state of Sharia law as well as a Buddhist nation-state. Is this the direction that we are going? I do not think so, although the underlying current of the populace around the world appeal to a religious fervor or some religiosity. Is there a unified Christian "natural law"? I don't think that there is. How does such a state discuss poverty, equality, and justice? And by what standard of justice are we speaking about? The culture of power is apparent and the habits are there. In the U.S. we have had so called "Christian" leaders in the White House and none of them have truly addressed the poor, the under-priveleged, disadvantaged, and marginalized. They perpetuate the status-quo for the upper-middle class. So then we have to begin questioning whether politicians and legislators are in fact going to act according to any "natural law" theory. 

At any rate, I left the conference feeling that they did not really listen to the point of the paper but rather wanted to pick on the Habermas section about the secular and the religious in the public sphere. Rather than advancing any real social change at the cultural level so that any change for all in the political and legal sphere will be substantial as opposed to nominal and superficial where past cultures re-constitute themselves.

*Religious Experience: From Public Discourse to Responsibility and Courage

Religious Experience: From Public Discourse to Responsibility and Courage

working paper
Bosco Bae

Personal experience is often the basis for faith in a religious tradition. While there are debates about the nature of these experiences, there are also debates about the place of religious discourse in the political decision making processes and law. According to Jurgen Habermas, the contemporary task of the liberal state is to go beyond a ‘modus vivendi’ in search for a ‘universalistic legal order’ and ‘egalitarian societal morality.’ In addition to finding a neutral ground of discourse, there is a parallel task of responsibility and courage rooted at the level of identity and social interaction.

Introduction

            Experience has always been a topic of significance in the area of epistemology. Through a personalized space-time continuum and a distinct stream of consciousness, a relationship is built bridging our sense of self to the world around us. Memorable events provide a source of meaning in a coherent framework relevant to the individual. Religious experiences are no different in providing a sense of meaning for the nature of life and what lies beyond. Many have set out to explain what these religious experiences are, how they become possible, and what they entail for other questions in the philosophy of religion. The current debate on religious experiences has largely been divided into two camps: the perennialists and the constructionists. While this paper will provide a brief overview of their positions, it is not the purpose to analyze the relation between experience and knowledge. Rather, I begin with the premise that experience does indeed play a critical role in the formation of beliefs and knowledge, regardless of how and what the role of “reason” is. Religious experiences – how ever way we want to describe, validate, or invalidate them – will continue to provide convincing evidence for the individual in his or her confirmation or affirmation of faith.

Granting legitimacy to this position, my concern is in the appropriation of religious experience, as it contributes to the formation of beliefs and convictions for a religious tradition, within the context of an increasingly globalizing and glocalizing, post-secular society. While acknowledging the possibility of a universal trans-cultural element in religious experiences as well as the necessity of cultural frameworks, religious experiences – regardless of their nature – will continue to be a significant influence and source of meaning for self and identity. Jurgen Habermas and Charles Taylor, take up the task in discussing religious discourse and their place in the political decision-making process. And indeed, this is an important task due to historical, linguistic, and pragmatic concerns, but I would like to argue that there is a parallel task at the level of day to day experience, identity, and social interaction. Here I argue that there is an existential concern of responsibility and courage. That we must hold our identities and belief structures responsible, regardless of where they emanate from, as we are embodied representatives of the choices we make and the identities we take. In doing so, there is an element of courage involved. Without this courage and responsible awareness of our being in relation to society and the content of our representations to others, there is a danger of continuing, reproducing, and re-creating tensions and animosities even if a neutral discourse or official language is created in the political arena.

Religious Experience and the Debate: Perennialists vs. Constructionists

As William James points out in the title of his book, there are “Varieties of Religious Experience” from visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, holistic somatosensory experiences, near-death experiences as well as a variety of methods in the inducement of such religious experiences from meditation, prayer, temporal lobe epilepsy, magnetic stimulation, to drugs and other forms of sensory overload. In another sense, religious experience can also refer to the socialization of persons in a particular religious tradition. The nature of these experiences has been widely debated, and the camps have largely been divided into the Perennialists and the Constructionists. The former argues for a common cross-cultural universal amongst religious experiences that transcend cultural differences, which would also support a ‘God is one’ hypothesis; that we are all on different paths towards the same mountain peak. The latter argues that religious experiences are religious primarily because of the cultural framework and the availability of concepts. In other words, any emotion or experience can be religious if it is appropriated in a religious context, with social and symbolic structures, and/or interpreted through a religious framework.   

The debate is still far from exhausted and pre-mature to definitively claim that it has settled in favor of one camp or the other. Nevertheless, there is insight we can draw from both camps. The possibility of a universal trans-cultural element of religious experiences can provide a common denominator amongst various traditions, cultures, and lifestyles in opening up a discourse. From the constructionist camp, we see how various cultures frame their religious experiences and what areas of life they place significance. Irrespective of how we deliberate the nature of these experiences, the significance of cultural contexts, and how they are induced, these experiences will continue to be foundational as confirming or affirming events for faith in a religious tradition.   

Habermas and Taylor

            In light of religious experiences and various forms of religious discourse, the place of religion in the public sphere of political and legislative decision-making processes has been of recent debate. Charles Taylor proposes that we should not single out religious reasons as a special case and that the discourse across religions have enough similarity within them for mutual understanding. For example, the statement “I’m for the rights of human beings because humans were made in the image of God” is not a specific discourse of one religion but something out of Genesis. There is no one clear denomination that this statement would come from but equally applicable to several. Taylor emphasizes the different kinds of discourse within a religious tradition and that this variety carries the potential to appeal to a discourse within another variety of discourse from a different religious tradition. Taylor gives the example of Martin Luther King Jr., who spearheaded the civil rights movement in the U.S., and made the analogy of civil rights with Exodus. Taylor states that this kind of language appealed to all people regardless of religious tradition.      

            Jurgen Habermas, in contrast, states that religious reasons should be translated into secular reasons for a neutral discourse. He points to the socialization of persons in a particular religious tradition which gives rise to religious convictions and reasons. This creates difficulty in understanding certain forms of terminology. For example, it would be difficult to explain what “revelation” means to someone who is not of that background. Whereas secular reasons, he states, are not dependent upon the socialization to a specific community. Because of these discrepancies in religious language, Habermas states that “religious speech in the political public sphere needs translation if its content should enter and affect justification and formulation of binding political decisions that are enforceable by law.”

            Both Taylor and Habermas agree that a common discourse and mutual understanding is necessary in these decision-making processes. The aim of what Habermas calls a “post-secular society” can be stated in this way:    

“Since the liberal state depends on a political integration of the citizens which goes beyond a mere modus vivendi, the differentiation of these various memberships must be more than an accommodation of the religious ethos to laws imposed by the secular society in such a way that religion no longer makes any cognitive claims. Rather the universalistic legal order and the egalitarian societal morality must be inherently connected to the fellowship ethos in such a way that the one consistently proceeds from the other.”

The concern here is no longer something limited to the political and legal sphere. A “universalistic legal order” and an “egalitarian societal morality,” inherently connected a “fellowship ethos” points to an underlying social concern amongst persons of different backgrounds in a globalizing and glocalizing context. While the discussion about the place of religion in the public sphere is indeed an important and necessary task, these discussions are still abstract from what we can relate to in our personal day to day lives. Even in the event of an agreed form of discourse in the political and legal sphere, without critically looking at the culture of our interactions, inter-subjective spaces, our social habits of thought and critically looking at the culture of power, the established discourse will only go so far; past prejudices and tensions between and amongst traditions carry the danger of re-constituting themselves. The additional task is not only the development of a public discourse and how to approach it, as Habermas and Taylor discuss (and if we consider Foucault, a criticality directed at neutral institutions), but also a reflexive task of responsibility and courage. This is the task of persons living in, participating, and reproducing, the cultures that intersect and interact, which give tangible substance to concepts like morality and culture.  

Responsibility

            No matter how much we want to attribute to ourselves our individuality, we are still inevitably part of a larger whole. We may know that we, as individuals, are different from others. And true enough, we are all distinct persons in our own right. Even identical twins, with the same genetic makeup, will have differences despite their uncanny similarities. The personal creativities, proclivities of being and expression cannot be neglected. Nevertheless, we are participants and constituents of society; units of cultural reproduction, if you will. In this sense, as Paul Tillich says, the “self and world are correlated and so are individualization and participation.”

            The participation in culture and our individuality within it begins at the most basic and mundane; from catching the bus, going to the supermarket, the post office, we abide by the norms of how to say hello, and have tacit presuppositions of what is taboo and what is not taboo. But this extends further when we begin to consider our channels of information, which informs our understanding of the rest of the world. We may place our trust in these vehicles of information and hold them as true because we consider them reliable or have no reason to disbelieve them. Thousands upon thousands of things happen in our society and around the world but we are only given selective information. This is to say that as much information we are given, the information we are not given is equally interesting. And yet, it is the provided information that shapes our understanding of persons of other cultures. At the same time, other countries develop their own understanding of who we are as well. Through various sources – the news on television, movies, newspapers, the internet etc. – we develop certain views of other people and they do the same of us. In social interaction, we create impressions and further those understandings in the minds of others. It is in this arena of social interaction, that inter-subjective space, where we should have a sense of responsibility. Becoming aware of what we represent, how we are seen, how our views affect others, and the responsibility to acknowledge these stereotypes as well as the responsibility to create new impressions and areas of inter-subjective commonality.

              In the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, “every man [is] in possession of himself as he is, and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon his shoulders. And, when we say that man is responsible for himself, we do not mean that he is responsible for only his own individuality, but that he is responsible for all men. […] To choose between this or that is at the same time to affirm the value of that which is chosen […] Our responsibility is thus greater than we had supposed, for it concerns mankind as a whole. […] I am creating a certain image of man as I would have him to be. In fashioning myself I fashion man.” This kind of responsibility that Sartre talks about extends to all the categories by which we identify ourselves: as a person, as a gender, ethnic background, nationality, religious tradition, sexual orientation, profession, and so on. This is not to say that we should conceive of a singular definitive lifestyle that everybody should have but rather that we should consider the position we place other people as well as the values and virtues that we wish to have, respecting all persons, traditions, cultures, and lifestyles. When traveling to a country of radically different norms with a different color people, one’s skin will never be more apparent and one becomes a novelty associated with stereotypical content. At the same time, one’s own habits of thought, expectations, and culture will be put into stark perspective when a life of different norms is experienced. This creates the necessity to consider different ways of life as well as being conscious of what we perpetuate. With our individualization and participation, the actions we take are actively reproducing and re-informing cultural categories as well as their representation. In this sense, we are embodied representatives of our identities.   

   

Courage 

            Such a responsibility, however, does not take away anything from individualization. I am by no means implying that we should be so conscientious that we should be afraid to be who we are, to deny the affirmation of self. Nor does it mean that every single one of us is accountable for the atrocities others commit. What this kind of responsibility does entail is a sense of, what Paul Tillich calls, courage. “Courage is self-affirmation ‘in-spite-of’, that is in spite of that which tends to prevent the self from affirming itself.” The self-affirmation that Tillich talks about is not a call to be selfish or self-centered but rather a call for authenticity, for a transcendence of ontic categories for virtue. That is, apart from our differences, it is the courage to participate in the social construction and re-construction of cultural norms in spite of those institutions and social categories we identify with, especially when they take positions and views we do not agree with.  

Tillich sets out the task for Christian theology, “There should be no question of what Christian theology has to do in this situation. It should decide for truth against safety, even if the safety is consecrated and supported by the churches. Certainly there is a Christian conformism […] But this should not induce Christian theologians to identify Christian courage with the courage to be as a part. They should realize that the courage to be as oneself is the necessary corrective to the courage to be as a part - even if they rightly assume that neither of these forms of the courage to be gives the final solution." This is a task for any religious tradition, to take the stance of courage and truth over safety and conformity. Of course, this is dependent on what a tradition regards as “truth,” but at a social level, there are local and global concerns of justice. Cornel West talks about courage as the “enabling virtue that allows one to realize other virtues like love, hope, and faith.” To have courage, he says, “is to be willing to look [at] circumstances and muster the will to overcome fear, never to fully erase and eliminate the fear, but [to] overcome [it] so that fear does not have the last word or […] push one into conformity, complacency or cowardice.” It is this kind of courage that will allow an active sense of culture in the direction of truth and responsibility, as opposed to one of judgmental presumptions. Social Psychologist, Daniel Batson, states that we always tend to interpret other persons’ actions through internal causes, such as personality traits, states of mind, or ideologies, etc. While we interpret our own actions through external causes – this or that happened so I did this; that we explain our own actions as reactionary. This entails a further necessity to understand perspective as well as the courage to be critical of ourselves, our society, and the world. Courage is necessary to be open to persons, different from our own, rather than allowing stereotypes, and whatever information we have, judge what others are about.

Responsibility, Courage, and approaching the Funk together

            In responsibility and courage, there is an underlying sense of hope that persons of different traditions, cultures, lifestyles, can approach each other as fellow persons prior to any presumptive categorical classification. Romantic the notion may be, without the courage to empathize and consider other perspectives, as well as a responsibility to hold one’s self affirmation as representative of a culture, the polemics of peace will continue to fall short of reaching its potential. U.S. historian Howard Zinn said that “you can’t be neutral on a moving train.” Society is already moving in a direction. Events around the world have brought Taylor and Habermas to discuss how different religious traditions and the secular can meaningfully speak to each other. This is a critical task in progressing towards a state where different traditions can converse meaningfully and construct a “universalistic legal order” and an “egalitarian societal morality,” which connects to a “fellowship ethos” in a globalizing as well as a glocalizing (a diversification of local contexts) society. Regardless of whether we believe that certain experiences are valid or not, legitimate or otherwise, experiences will continue to inform our worlds – whether it is a particular culture or religious tradition – and people will continue to find meaning within their respective frameworks of plausibility. The parallel task to Habermas and Taylor, is the responsibility of self-affirmation within the interplay between individualization and participation. As well as the courage to affirm one’s self in spite of, and the courage to overcome the fear that pushes one towards conformity, complacency, or cowardice, such that the judgmental nature of society shifts the cultural habits towards a fellowship ethos and common concerns of justice.      

*Some thoughts on neutrality

I have been thinking about 'neutrality.' And it seems much would determine on where we place 'neutrality' conceptually, or in terms of methodology, to begin considering practical considerations.

Neutrality could be placed in common social concerns where a common consent in perspective or approach is adopted for issues such as justice, corruption, and poverty.

In another sense, neutrality could be placed in between traditions for a place of discourse to be adopted in advancing a common understanding of text.

Neutrality could also be seen in terms of common practice as well.

These are all somewhat preliminary in their considerations and one of the questions I continued to arrive at was a neutrality towards what end?

Much of these thoughts on neutrality, I thought, could be advanced in the political and legal arena after discovering, creating, a common discourse, or at least some mutually understandable method, for various religious traditions to speak meaningfully to each other. This was my discussion, although very brief, between Habermas and Taylor where they talked about discourse and the place of religious reasons in the political and legal sphere.

My own position is that some of these concerns have to be considered at a personal level of social interaction where responsibility and courage comes in prior to presumptions and media based impressions of others. I would argue that the culture of persons, attitudes of mind, would have to shift in order to find a common understanding, or any kind of societal morality, where the well-being of the populace is placed prior to any other agenda (though, this in itself is a kind of agenda on its own by searching for a non-violent state of persons and their mutual well-being).

*Hope, Responsibility, and Courage - Joseph Kony 2012

Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, perpetrator of Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide, Child Abduction and Sex Labor, and others.

Kony has been on the International Criminal Court's radar since its creation. Apart from any political ideology, religious affiliation, and degree of apathy to any form of communicative action, the mere awareness and perpetuation of this video on any social forum is an act of hope, responsibility, and courage. This is one of those times when the global community is finally focusing on the "funk." These types of horrifics, the terrible things that happen around the world, should be front and center. This exposure to the violations and systems of abuse is necessary. At one and the same time, it is both amazing that it took this long for Kony to surface and that he actually surfaced in the media in this way. What is perhaps, the most saddest thing about this campaign is that it had to come from independent sources of money. That this kind of money had to be spent to reach this kind of publicity. Nonetheless, the fact that this has reached facebook and twitter proves that there is hope and that it is still a driving force. There is courage for bringing this up to the front, regardless of our differences. Religious differences and the formation of discourse comes second. It does not matter what one's religious credo is, color, or politics, the crimes against humanity that Joseph Kony is perpetuating is enough to rabble the moral instincts in anyone. It is disgusting what he is doing. It is unfair and unjust. It is harmful. It is blatant disrespect to not only the people of Uganda but also the international community and human rights. It is an environment creating distrust and fear amongst the Uganda people, the continent of Africa, and the world. This is a systematic form of oppression and abuse.

The Lord's Resistance Army may be in decline in Uganda. I really don't know. They have not been seen in my news feed for quite some time. And it won't necessarily be the case that the LRA will simply disappear or that other similar forms of these resistance regimes will no longer continue to pop up. They will. Substituting one militant regime for another is not the answer either. There is a systematic issue with the way society functions, the way politics functions, and the way people, organizations, react to those systems. In this sense, regimes like the LRA will not simply vanish because of the indictment of one. Nor will the forms of oppression cease to continue. The flaw with the way the global system operates must be criticized and looked with hard scrutiny. However, without holding accountable those who commit these atrocities the credibility of a global justice system such as the ICC will not hold merit. Discipline must be enforced and a cause and effect of injustice and prosecution must be upheld. The world needs to take institutions of justice and the ICC seriously with legitimate causes for action. Without doing so, the "bully" will know that it is only a slap on the wrist, that the rest of the world does not care, and they will continue on in their own rampage. Accountability becomes necessary and critical. Justice must be upheld such that corruption does not corrode and deflate truth. The legal system within local contexts are already rotting at its core because of the impact money has on the outcomes of justice. We now have corporations, institutions, and people who have become "untouchable", "too big to fail", "too big" to prosecute. A necessary corrective must be put into place.  

The online community has taken new forms of responsibility. It is with this vast exposure of information and capacity to spread information that this is possible. The responsibility is to keep it going when we see what is noble, virtuous, and just (however, as http://visiblechildren.tumblr.com/ points out, there is a danger of blindly supporting an organization who trumpets around with the virtue of a just cause. The economic subtleties and manipulations is another thing to be considered. But the point of my article is not about this kind of corporatization of non-profit and charitable organizations for the benefit of their own hidden agenda. The point is in the virtue of communication and awareness. Can't say that I know about the organization that is conducting this campaign [after perusing the internet, this organization has some shady shit going on http://thedailywh.at/2012/03/07/on-kony-2012-2/. But money is not necessary, the awareness of it happening is. Any meaningful action about this kind of atrocity does not involve money or giving it anywhere.) This is a responsibility to Justice. Courage is the enabling virtue that Cornel West talks about. It enables Love, Hope, and Faith. It is the courage to overcome the fear that pushes us into conformity, complacency, and cowardice. Courage is necessary.

Letter to President Barack Obama From Civil Society Representatives in LRA-affected areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan 

Ugandans are not amused by Kony 2012: http://transitions.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/14/ugandans_are_not_amused

Nor should they be. The internet hype is still abstract from the daily lives and struggles they go through. We'll see if such an online campaign does have any tangible results other than a critique of what it is doing, the legitimacy of the organization, and the efficacy of something like this... it is ironic when the cause is overshadowed by the reputation of an organization who wishes to champion its cause...

"A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty" -David Hume