Living in the best way 6

. . ."Fifth, consider that you do not even understand whether men are doing wrong or not, for many things are done with a certain reference to circumstances. And in short, a man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct judgement on another man's acts." . . .

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11 (tr Long)

I must always be aware of the swing of the pendulum, the danger of moving from one extreme to another, without halting at the mean that is in between.

I may previously have hated my fellows, because I thought them to be lesser than myself. If I have rightly considered stages one through four, then I now understand that others are no better or worse than myself. This is because we all share the same human strengths and weaknesses. I have hopefully become able to think this way because I can try to understand the reason and motives behind the actions of others. They are really no different than my own.

Careful. I may now become conceited. I may now think that I can easily grasp how and why people do what they do. I will think of myself as the great genius, the one who immediately knows the inner workings of anyone and everyone.

I barely understand my own workings. Marcus Aurelius is quite right to ask me to think with and through others, but he hardly means that I can know their own minds in each and every way. It is one thing to show an understanding for the behavior of others. It is quite another to now make myself the master of their thinking.

The virtue ethics of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas offers a helpful measure. Consider not only the action itself, but also the intention behind the action, and the circumstances surrounding the action.

I may know, for example, that the act of theft is wrong. Now let me also ask what a man intended by taking what was not his. Let me also ask under what conditions or circumstances he did so. Suddenly, if I think with an open mind, I cannot be too quick to judge. Is the man who steals from greed different from the man who steals from need? Do starvation or profit make the situation different? Is one compulsion more justifiable than another?

Life will throw us many odd experiences. I once knew a fellow who quite innocently asked me if I had a crowbar in the trunk of my car. I did, but I asked him why he needed it. After much back and forth, he admitted he was intending to break into his former place of work that night, and steal the cash box. Why? He was angry, and he was greedy. He wanted revenge on his boss, and he was low on money, because he hadn't been granted unemployment insurance

A few years earlier, I was working in social services, and an attorney contacted me about one of our clients, a young man who had struggled with heroin addiction for ten years. He had been clean for almost two years. He sadly slipped, and the fellow had just been arrested helping someone try to hold up a liquor store.

I immediately offered to  be a character reference, and I appeared in court to help explain the desperation this young man felt. Nothing excused what he did, but I was happy to help a judge understand where our client was coming from. I had spent many hours consoling him, praying with him, and crying with him. His action was deeply wrong, but his heart was right, and his circumstances were beyond what most of us would possibly bear.

Which of these two was the better man? The first, of course, actually did nothing, even though he desired to do harm. The second did harm, but had absolutely no intentions of malice. Neither was better. I can only speak about both cases because I knew both men so well, and understood their intentions and circumstances a bit more fully than I would those of a total stranger.

It may be a truism, but I must try try to walk in someone else's shoes for a moment. I must attempt to think what he must be thinking, and put myself in his very specific conditions.

I am deeply saddened when anyone claims to fully understand the motives and circumstances of anyone else, especially of someone he does not know. How would I feel, what would I think, what would I decide, what would I do if I was in that situation? I cannot, in good conscience, throw stones, and I will not dispose of others because of my weak judgment.

Many people have hurt me, and I have also hurt many people. I cannot condemn the other, while also justifying myself.

I can love my neighbor far more fully when I am open to his situation, than when I close myself to his humanity.

Written in 11/2002