The Baltimore Riots, 2015

My first reaction to the Baltimore riots was a personal one, in a narrow sense.  On the evening of the riots, my wife was about to come home from work, south of the city; she usually travels through it to get home.  Did she know about the disturbances?  Would she be safe?  I called and warned her to take an alternate route, which she did, and arrived safely.

My second reaction was also a personal one, but in a broader sense.  I felt and emphasized with the sense of frustration, despair and hopelessness that is present in large sections of my city; I was also very much disappointed by the violence.

When my wife got home, we turned on the TV, which we very rarely do.  Just at that moment, the mayor of Baltimore City, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake gave a press conference about the riots.  She looked tired and stressed.  This is what she said: "Too many people have spent generations building up this city for it to be destroyed by thugs who, in a very senseless way, are trying to tear down what so many have fought for," 

I had an immediate visceral reaction to her usage of the term, "thugs."  It made me feel even sadder.  No, I thought to myself, it's not right to call those young men thugs.  They are guilty of thuggish behavior, that is true; but I know it is morally wrong to sum up a fellow human being as a thug, despite obvious immoral acts. (In this case, immoral acts committed on a single day.) No, I said to myself, everyone of these young men are redeemable.  Everyone of these so-called thugs, have an inner core of decency, what I often refer to as a "Zen diamond," within them that is priceless and has just as much carats as the one inside you and me and everyone else.  Granted some inner diamonds are buried under a lot more outer mud than is the case of others, but everyone has one, everyone.  Whether that diamond will be ever accessed in some is another question.  Yes, the conviction of equality makes me an idealist, but I am also a realist.  Yes, I believe that we must love our neighbor as ourselves--no exceptions;  I also believe that no one can follow this commandment without taking responsibility for his or her own actions.  I also believe that we not make moral progress on a national level if we fail to create conditions that make one's taking personal responsibility more likely. This is especially true for our fellow citizens who live in poor, black communities.  We're not doing a horrible job of it--and I include myself in that "we".

I am neither a journalist or a pundit; I'm not going to descant about the riot, I will leave that to community members and to professional commentators.  I want make a few points of what I know, however, namely, that we must judge the behavior of others as well as our own, but it is always very wrong to judge the person. I will explain, after a few words about myself.

I came to Baltimore in 1980, having accepted a position as the Director of School Health for the Baltimore City Health Department.  During the next few years, I visited just about every school in Baltimore City.  I taught male health issues in some of them, including Walbrook High School, which is no more but was located in an area where riots took place.  Around 1985, I became medical director of a Baltimore City health center, located at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and North Avenue, around which much of the violence did indeed take place. I left the Health Department in 1988, and was soon employed by a Johns Hopkins--associated clinic, where I served as a pediatrician for many years.  Now, in my seventieth year, I am just about retired from medicine and spend a good deal of my time writing, reading and playing music. Enough about me.

The dominant emotional reaction I had to the riots was one of overwhelming sadness.  When I heard about the destruction and the looting of many stores, I thought of people in my own age group who are not in as good shape as I.  If an elderly person needs, say, blood pressure medication and has no transportation, where will she go once the neighborhood pharmacy has been destroyed?  I'm sure many of the good people in the community will come to the aid of people in this predicament, but the chances are greatly increased that some will not have the medicine they need, at least for a while.  (This is just one example of the effects of the riots, which will fester long after CNN has changed its attention to other disasters.)

Yes, I was sad.  Then I was shocked; then I was mad.  I read a few reports from conservative pundits that assert that the cause of the riots was the failure of liberal policies!  One said that the mayor of Baltimore is black and the city council is composed largely of black members--so you can't blame it on racism.  He went on to say that the city has been governed by Democrats for decades--so you can blame failed liberal policies.  The ideology behind this is the belief that the poor have become too dependent on government programs, "have it easy" --I can't even write that without putting it in quotes--and, thus, the toxic combination of government programs and individual irresponsibility has caused this mess.  One even said they get free food, free housing, free education--what more do they want?  (After that was said, I imagined a travel poster depicting a burning ghetto with the message: Free Food!  Free Housing!  Free Education! Come Spend the Time of Your Life in Baltimore!" The poster, of course, would not include the fact that the time of your life will most likely be considerably shorter if you live in a poor, black neighborhood.)

The message of of these radical pundits--and they represent, unfortunately, a large segment of the population is this: it's their fault, not ours.  We are not like them.  All we need to do is to pull the cushy rug the government provides for them, on which the loll about like vagabonds;  yes, all we need to do is to pull that rug from under them--Once we do that, they will dance and sing to "God Bless America" instead of to that awful, barbaric rap music.  Once we do that, they will, just like we did, Fox-trot off to prosperity." 

Such attitudes are beneath comment.  If you agree with them, nothing I write is going to change your mind.  I will state only this very important fact: The United States ranks low among OECD countries regarding benefits and services to the working-age population.  (Denmark spends 30,1% of its GDP on social policies, which is broken down as follows: cash benefits for those of working age: 7.9% GDP; cash benefits to the elderly and survivors, 6.2 % GDP; services to the working-age population 7% GDP; services to the elderly 8% GDP.  In contrast, the U.S. spends only 18.3% of its budget on social policy, and, corresponding to the categories of spending in Denmark: 2.4%, 6.7%, 1.4% and 8%.  Medicare takes a big bite out of our GDP, while services for the working-age population takes barely a nibble.  And, as you probably know, there are no ghettos in Denmark.)

As I said in the outset, I want to discuss something about which I think I know more than a thing or two.  Let's zoom out of Baltimore and view a central problem of the entire planet.  That is, the problem of freedom vs. determinism.  Is a person ever completely responsible for a crime?  Can a person ever be declared innocent of a crime due to insanity, or to a particularly toxic combination of bad environment and bad genes?

There are two schools in this regard.  I will illustrate them with examples from two contrasting religious stances.  Once, when I was driving to South Carolina, I saw a church with a large sign in front of it, stating that this church was a "Free-Will Baptist Church."  We're completely responsible for our behavior; that's one way of looking at it.  Another comes from a form of Hinduism called advaita, or non-duality.  The individual self is an illusion; the concept of free will is simply and illusion of an illusion.  This view was at the center of the teaching of perhaps the greatest Hindu sage of the past century, Sri Ramana Maharshi, (1879-1950.)  He taught this view very eloquently.  He believed that all mental suffering stems from the mistaken belief that "I  am the doer."   It is the I behind the I, the very source of consciousness, that is doing everything.  One of his most striking illustrations of this view has to do with train travel.  In India, porters usually carry luggage on their heads.  Sri Ramana said that it is foolish to keep luggage on your head once the train is in motion.  In other words, once you realize that the train is doing the traveling, you can put the luggage down and rest. 

The first view I reject outright.  No one knows himself well enough to know whether he is completely responsible for his actions, not to mention the fact that one can't even get inside another person's head.  I have practical problems with the second view, however.  From a cosmic perspective, there may well be no such thing as free will; but for life in the world acceptance of personal responsibility is a necessity.  The individual self may well be an illusion, but it is an extremely potent illusion rooted in Darwinian evolution.  One has to plan for next Tuesday; one can't expect to live in this world--and nearly all of us live in this world--by putting down our luggage, putting one's feet up, and relaxing while life whizzes by with the scenery.

My strong belief that the solution of the free will/determinism dichotomy is that they are both correct.  Matters that are most important to human beings are never facts, they are paradoxes. Does God exist?  Well, in a way.  Does individuality exist?  Well, in a way. Does free will exist, etc.

The free will/determinism dichotomy is so mysterious that I state the obvious: we can't figure out our own behavior, much less anyone else's.  As responsible citizens, we must judge behavior and remove those from society--never with the use of the death penalty-- who are a very real danger to others.  But we must never judge the person.

This is hardly an original idea.  I will give three famous formulations of this view: "Do not judge anyone unless you have walked a mile in his moccasins;"  "Judge not lest ye be judged," and "There but for the grace of God go I."

That's all I have to say at present.  It is enough.

In summary:  First of all, I am still sad because I doubt that America at present has the political will to solve our problems. Second of all, all those who see the problem with an us against them mentality probably wouldn't deign to put on the moccasins of a poor black male and walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, and are thus woefully lacking in empathy.   Third, I believe the correct response to the problems in Baltimore as well as to all the problems of the world is to say to those guilty of thuggish behavior:  "You and I are both human, which is a great privilege.  Unfortunately, you have gone astray.  Unfortunately, I have gone astray as well.  From now on, let's walk to the promised land together."