Webs of Justification

March 15, 2011

After watching Inside Job last night–the documentary outlining how the economy tanked and all the bubbles burst in 2008–I was struck not by human greed and hubris, not by our materialism and selfishness, not even by the carelessness and recklessness that characterized the past two decades and created a culture where this could happen.  That’s not necessarily new for any of us.  And, after all, the film was designed to raise our ire.  I’ve been “administration” long enough to know that there are also multiple sides to a story.  So I worked to stay calm and balanced.

What struck me most was the power of education and the ease with which it can be manipulated if we’re not careful.  We shrewd humans aren’t content to just harm the community for personal gain; we have to invest vast amounts of energy justifying them and spinning them as good.  We’re not content to pad our own pockets and just plain take things that don’t belong to us…our consciences couldn’t take that very long.  Instead, we infiltrate the academic system and teach proteges to believe in our own ideologies and perpetuate our way of being through research and intellectual posturing for decades.  And we further expose our arrogance by telling others they’re not possibly smart enough to understand the complexities that we can embrace.

God, in all that I do, may I never be so certain that I close off my heart and my soul to You, your Holy Spirit, and the wise counsel of believers…and may I never be so flexible that I offer to others only “truth” that satisfies my temporal needs!