Abstract
In today’s ‘age of protest’, people have the right to publically resist what they perceive to be unjust and abusive. Sometimes, public protest is non-violent, but often it becomes destructive. People get hurt and property is damaged. Those who have the least are often affected most. This article explores the potential of the centuries old ethics of the Jesus tradition coupled with recent insights from psychology on empathy, for effective and necessary resistance against injustice and power abuse, but without the futility of the violence and destruction. This way of love resists all evil, oppression and injustice, and has the power to break the spiral of violence.
Highlights
From an ‘age of innocence’ to an ‘age of protest’. Over against eras such as ‘The Age of Innocence’ as portrayed in the film by that name, where New York’s high society in the late 1800s was extremely polite, ‘civilised’ and proper, while perpetrating a quiet, well-hidden violence against the other if she does not fit in and tow the line, and the upright, conservative, correct ‘Biedermann’ in Europe, a heritage that reached far beyond the Biedermeier Era (1815–1848), whose covert and psychological violence was exposed by Freud, ours is an era of overt resistance
This article is interested in the potential of ordinary mature empathy, as a spontaneous and unconscious response and as interpreting meanings, combined with mature spirituality, to counteract the human tendency towards resistance as violence, vengeance and retribution, which most often results in needless destruction
Mature empathy and mature spirituality. Paul develops his ethics on non-violence and tolerance in line with how he understands the Jesus-tradition (Van Aarde 2012:49)
Summary
From an ‘age of innocence’ to an ‘age of protest’Over against eras such as ‘The Age of Innocence’ as portrayed in the film by that name, where New York’s high society in the late 1800s was extremely polite, ‘civilised’ and proper, while perpetrating a quiet, well-hidden violence against the other if she (the character played by Michelle Pfeiffer) does not fit in and tow the line, and the upright, conservative, correct ‘Biedermann’ in Europe, a heritage that reached far beyond the Biedermeier Era (1815–1848), whose covert and psychological violence was exposed by Freud, ours is an era of overt resistance. This article explores the potential of the centuries old ethics of the Jesus tradition coupled with recent insights from psychology on empathy, for effective and necessary resistance against injustice and power abuse, but without the futility of the violence and destruction. In this ‘Age of Protest’, this article explores the potential of the centuries old ethics of the Jesus tradition coupled with recent insights from psychology on empathy, for effective and necessary resistance against injustice and power abuse, but without the futility of the violence and destruction that often accompany such resistance.
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