Justice
,
diversity
, equity, inclusion, faith,
patriotism
, law and order — all of these concepts or catchphrases are in vogue these days.
Mercy, very clearly, is not.
REPUBLICANS SHOULD CONTINUE TO RUN AGAINST LOCKDOWNS
The Catholic Church, the week after Easter, celebrated “Divine Mercy Sunday,” a new feast instituted by Pope John Paul II in 2000. Divine mercy and human mercy are distinct but related concepts. Despite the late Holy Father’s best efforts, neither species of mercy fits into the zeitgeist of 2023.
Over the weekend, I published an article arguing that an airplane passenger, to be nice, ought to give up his seat for a young child who wants to sit next to her mother.
Many of the replies were along these lines:
1) The example is bad – asking people to switch to worse seats to accommodate yourself is selfish and bad.
2) Not getting seats together often means you bought cheap “basic” seats that you can’t select individually. If you want to sit together, pay up. Dont ask for free upgrades.— GeneralSnoop (@GeneralSnoop) April 15, 2023
https://t.co/B7BbWGFsoz
YOUR lack of plan isn’t MY fault. If someone PAID for particular seat assignment -YES they ARE “entitled” to it-bought for their comfort. In YOUR case you tried to game system by booking aisle &window hoping to have entire row to yourselves.— Monyka (@monykalyn) April 17, 2023
This last one is something of a cultural
meme
these days.
Meanwhile, cancel-culture defenders explain their appetite for punishment and their support for ruined careers and demolished reputations with the word “accountability.”
“So you’re being held accountable?” asked liberal media columnist Margaret Sullivan as critics dragged up decade-old tweets to suggest Ben Shapiro should never be published in Politico. “That’s not ‘cancel culture.’”
“The online reckonings of late would be best described as demonstrating not ‘cancel culture,’” stated an Atlantic magazine piece defending social media mobs, “but ‘accountability culture.’”
I think we see this unmercifulness on both the Right and the Left these days. For former President Donald Trump, a major motivator in life seemed to be never being the sucker — never giving up something of value without getting something more valuable out of it.
And on the hyper-individualistic Left, being nice and forgiving is often derided as being exploited. Study closely the folks who plausibly work in the mercy business, the criminal-justice reform groups and officials, and you’ll see they prefer talk of
justice
and accountability to talk of mercy.
In these days of perceived precarity and total political war, perhaps talk of mercy strikes some ears as a sign of weakness. But it’s the opposite.
Shakespeare’s Portia, in The Merchant of Venice, said mercy “is mightiest in the mightiest. … It is an attribute to God himself, and earthly power doth then show likest God’s when mercy seasons justice.”
An ancient prayer in the Catholic Mass declares as much: “O God, who reveal your power above all in your mercy and forgiveness.”
Mercy isn’t popular these days, but it’s needed.
