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First, let me say that my problem is not with judging between two paths to good, as between the two views of sponsorship Dave cites in his June 5 post in the Sponsorship discussion. I think Dave is perfectly correct in saying in effect, 'hey, whatever works for you' and in being careful not to impose what works for him on others. Our founders were right in warning us against setting ourselves up as some kind of standard to which all others must conform.
However, I do think there is a trend within AA to take tolerance too far and to fall into moral relativism. Our fear of alcoholic grandiosity has been allowed to become a fear of making moral judgments. Let me emphasize that I know that this is not Dave's position, but the discussion we've been having brings the subject up, so I'd like to take a swing at it.
As alcoholics we are told (correctly) that holding resentments is one of our greatest dangers, that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness, that resentments shut us off from the sunlight of the Spirit, thereby preventing the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience. And we are told to be tolerant, to look to our side of the street, to see others who wrong us or others as sick, just as we are sick. Above all, we are told to let go of our resentments and forgive.
OK, but what is forgiveness? As I heard once at a meeting, forgiveness does not mean bringing down the gavel and proclaiming “not guilty.” It means letting go of the pain. It has nothing to do with guilt or innocence.
The Amish have long been held up as models for forgiveness, especially since the Nickel Mines school massacre. However, as Kraybill, Nolt, and Weaver-Zercher make clear in Amish Grace, the Amish make strict distinctions between such concepts as forgiveness, acquittal, and pardon. They will forgive a criminal while having no problem with that criminal being imprisoned for his crime. (By the way, do NOT refer to the movie of this book for any of these issues. The authors have distanced themselves from the movie precisely because it distorts these core issues.)
Forgiveness is an act performed by the aggrieved and its goal is to free the aggrieved. It allows the victim to sleep at night. As Harold Kushner wrote in his contribution to Simon Wiesenthal's The Sunflower,
Forgiving is not something we do for another person...Forgiving happens inside us. It represents a letting go of the sense of grievance, and perhaps most importantly a letting go of the role of victim. For a Jew to forgive the Nazis would not mean, God forbid, saying to them “What you did was understandable, I can understand what led you to do it and I don't hate you for it.” It would mean saying “What you did was thoroughly despicable and puts you outside the category of decent human beings. But I refuse to give you the power to define me as a victim. I refuse to let your blind hatred define the shape and content of my Jewishness. I don't hate you; I reject you.” And then the Nazi would remain chained to his past and to his conscience, but the Jew would be free.
An important point here is that forgiveness is an act that can only be performed by the aggrieved to the degree the he or she has been aggrieved. When a wrong is committed it is rarely, if ever, that only one person is hurt. The central victim (for lack of a better term) is surrounded by those who suffer a form of 'collateral damage', often emotional or psychological damage. Each can forgive only to the degree they have been injured. A person can forgive a friend's attacker to the degree that he or she, too, has been injured, but the core forgiveness can only come from the central victim.
I have no noticeable standing for forgiving those who committed genocide in Rwanda. As a human being I do, however have standing to condemn genocide. And I can demand punishment – even vengeance. As Deborah E. Lipstadt says in her contribution to The Sunflower,
Often we are asked to think this way: vengeance brutalizes, forgiveness refines. But the opposite can be true. The rabbis said, “Whoever is merciful to the cruel will end by being indifferent to the innocent.” Forgiveness can brutalize.....
Vengeance does not requite evil with evil; vengeance cannot requite, repay, even out, equate, redress. If it could vengeance on a mass murderer would mean killing all the members of his family and a great fraction of his nation; and still his victims would not come alive.
What we call “vengeance” is the act of bringing public justice to evil – not by repeating the evil, not by initiating a new evil, but by making certain never to condone the old one; never even appearing to condone it.
Failing to condemn evil – to make moral judgments - means surrendering all moral standards. Hard as it may be, we must distinguish what is and isn't a sin. At the same time, accepting the responsibility of distinguishing between good and evil requires a serious commitment to humility. We can only make moral judgments from a position where we acknowledge that we are wrongdoers, that we must often beg forgiveness, repent, and atone. If we don't see ourselves as flawed we set ourselves up as little gods, omniscient and omnipotent, free to bless and damn. The founders of AA were correct to emphasize our flawed nature in order to better fight alcoholic grandiosity. However, I think we have been too quick to embrace the idea that we are sick people among sick people and we have let ourselves fall into a moral relativism. In choosing not to make moral judgments we are choosing an easier, softer way that does end up being merciful to the cruel and indifferent to the innocent.
Not all acts are morally equivalent. We have to acknowledge that if we are to make our contributions to humanity's spiritual growth. But it is important that making these moral distinctions should always be painful. We are the sick judging sickness and that should never be comfortable.
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