John Gardner and the Value of Life

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now, and honestly, there’s no clean way of dealing with it. It’s going to be rambling, open-ended, and not particularly well-written or even in standard blog format. For lack of a nice introduction, I’ll just jump right in.

Three days ago, I watched The Hurt Locker.  The film centers around Sgt. William James, the leader of an EOD squad in Iraq whose sole job is to dismantle bombs.  As one would expect, every day is a near-death experience for him. This drives him to become addicted to adrenaline, as the film’s opening quote by Chris Hedges alludes to. “War is a drug.” Death is not dramatized or glorified in this movie. When a bomb explodes, its victims simply vanish. When a gun is fired in the distance and a soldier falls to the ground, the soundtrack remains silent.

As I tried to enjoy the film on its own merits, I couldn’t help but remember that I was watching a true story. Not necessarily that the characters existed, or that the film is realistic in its technical portrayal of the Iraq war; but that (as current military servicemen have pointed out) the mood it conveys is spot on. War is a desolate thing, and human lif on both sides is ended without stirring monologue or string accompaniment. It vanishes.

This past couple of weeks, everyone has been following the story of Chelsea King, the Poway High School teen who went missing. To avoid sensationalizing a family’s loss, I don’t think I need to elaborate on the story. Honestly, I can’t imagine losing a daughter only to have her face, and the grizzly details surrounding her last moments, plastered on every news site or blog in the country. My heart goes to the parents who are forced to go through the grieving process on Larry King Live instead of in the privacy and dignity of their own homes. My focus here is not on her, but on the perpetrator.

The man charged with this crime, John Gardner, has quickly earned the scorn of the nation. A repeat offender who was first charged with assaulting a 13-year-old girl in 2000, Gardner is also suspect in the death of Amber Dubois, a teen who went missing earlier last year.  Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, he denies the allegations and shows no remorse for his actions, just as he showed no remorse in his prior offense. He seems to us to be the embodiment of pure evil, and people are horrified.

Here are a few comments I’ve read, both on CNN and a Facebook group clamoring for the death penalty:

“I believe the death penalty is too good for him. He should be tortured just like he has done. An eye for an eye”

“I want him burned alive and the whole thing YouTubed so any other predators out there think thrice before harming another innocent. BURNED ALIVE.”

“I hope he dies slowly and rots fast.”

“A death penalty? seems more like a slap on the wrist. They should castrate him with rusty knives and add in a healthy dose of rubbing alcohol before adminstrating other forms of torture.”

“He should be publicly hung.”

“Throw him to the sodomites and then into general population! I believe that if you kill someone who didnt deserve it, ALL YOUR RIGHTS AS A HUMAN ARE FORFEIT.”

I don’t include these things  to condemn the people that said it. Clearly, there are a lot of emotions involved here, especially from empathetic parents and those who have themselves been the victim of assault. But as I read the general consensus of the public, I’m struck with a very basic, almost terrifying question. Is John Gardner’s life sacred?

We Christians often profess a belief in the sanctity of human life. The phrase is most common when discussing abortion, and for good reason. Barring a discussion of Original Sin, unborn children are completely innocent. And there’s nothing difficult about saying that an innocent life is of intrinsic worth. But what of a person who is not necessarily innocent? An adult who has made a few mistakes but generally tries to live morally? A U.S. soldier serving in Iraq? A terrorist fighting in Iraq? A sexual predator? Is there a point at which life stops being sacred and worth respecting? If so where is it, and are we justified in setting it?

The currency of war is human life, and the goal is always an ideal. Independence, autonomy, democracy, justice, cultural identity, patriotism, religion, etc. Sometimes saving lives is a goal, but rarely is that the sole focus of war. Even in our most “just” wars, more abstract things were at stake. For example, the Axis forces of WWI may have threatened to take over the world, but there’s no reason to think they intended to kill innocent, unresistant civilians in the process. They were after an idea (political power), European nations were defending an idea (autonomy), and the US joined to uphold an idea (justice). None of these ideas necessarily adds or removes a single human life from the equation, yet 16.5 million lives were spent fighting for them. Each, we claim, is sacred. So again, I need to ask: what is the value of a life?

Gardner has committed unspeakable evils, but the world is not in danger of him doing them in the future. Regardless, he’ll be locked away for life. However there are other things which the public and (more importantly) the victims’ families want assurance of: justice and vengeance. In other words, the death penalty. So again, we have a problem: can we justify ending a human life for one of those ideals? How much is the life of a murderer worth? How much is vengeance worth?

These are things I’ve been wrestling with, and I really have no answers to give. But I do have a thoughts:

• As a Christian, I believe that man is made in the image of God. With that in mind, every person has an intrinsic worth that is infinitely greater than material things. Naively, I’d be inclined to think that this infinite worth must outweigh anything else. That would mean the death penalty is never justified (which I am inclined to believe). But it would also mean that war, for any purpose other than saving lives which are threatened, is never justified — it requires trading the infinite worth of human life for a finite idea. Which would mean if Napoleon wanted to take over the world but didn’t threaten to kill a single civilian in the process, losing even one life in battle wouldn’t be worth it. That sort of conclusion is difficult for me to accept.
• A second thought is that I’m simplifying things too much.  Life is sacred and of infinite worth, but not just in the true/false notion of existence. It’s a spectrum. Living and dying aren’t all there is to life’s worth: quality of life, freedom from pain, emotional well-being, etc. all contribute. To a Christian especially, the spiritual well-being of a person is worth more than the physical. If the sanctity of life lies not only in being alive but in how you live, these ideals which touch human life (justice, freedom, democracy) can’t be dismissed just because some may die in the process.
• Even if the right decision is made, that doesn’t make it any less somber. In war, every casualty on either side is a sad thing. Regardless of what we’re fighting for or how those we are fighting have wronged us. Vilifying the enemy is the easy way out; Christian love doesn’t allow it. And even if the death penalty truly serves a just purpose, we shouldn’t be craving it, or be happy when/if it happens. A “monster” is still a person, and the fact that someone can reach that level of depravity should be seen as tragic.

So yeah. That’s what’s been on my mind. Feel free to contribute.

Dumbstruck With the Sweetness of Being

Sorry for the delay between posts. It goes without saying: I’m far too busy, far too often. That’s not to say I haven’t technically had the time to update this. As hectic as my current schedule is, I’d be lying if I said I never had a free hour in the week to devote to writing. But on the rare occasion that I am free, I find myself too exhausted to do anything that requires thought.

Every day goes according to the same routine: wake up at 8 and head to campus for classes and labwork, leave campus around 9 or 10pm, stop by the Asian Ghetto for dinner, walk home, start to work for my real job in San Diego, or start whatever homework is due in the following morning. When that is finished, I should sleep. After all, it’s well after midnight at this point, and my shot at getting a full night’s sleep is already forfeit. But instead, I invariably spend an hour playing guitar, or watching TV, or my newest Netflix acquisition. Not because I want to, so much as I need to. I need a moment of solitude — a part of the day, purposeless as it may be, that is singularly mine. It’s a chance to play the part of a person free of responsibility: the type who would have the luxury of wasting an hour in front of a television screen, with nowhere to be in the morning. Even as the actor stifles a yawn, his character is wide awake and enjoying himself. When I do go to sleep, it will be on my terms. Even if it’s only for a handful of hours.

Routine does strange things to you. This semester has flown by in a flurry of lectures, lab meetings, exams, presentations, papers, projects, and all-nighters spent with a bright, buzzing computer screen in a windowless lab. Everything feels nonlinear and fragmented. Yesterday it was January and I was at a Starbucks in Big Bear, learning “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” on a friend’s ukulele. This morning was February and I was leaving the lab after my third consecutive night, delirious and frustrated. Now it’s March, and I’m sitting in Cafe Med with a cup of coffee hoping to cram a post in before the midnight closing time sends me back to the responsibilities I’ve left in my apartment. In a few minutes my midterms will be over, and I’ll be driving past the sign for Pea Soup Anderson’s at 3 in the morning just north of Bakersfield, looking forward to a week-long break. Then with a blink I’ll reverse directions, passing the same mile marker and wondering where the time went. By sunrise, it will be May and I’ll be on a plane to Anchorage, reviewing my presentation and cramming for finals. Land, mingle, take off, land, and with the scratch of a pen and the close of a bluebook the semester will be over. A month-long break in San Diego should decelerate things a bit. Then in June I’ll be back in the lab, where I’ll spend the bulk of my summer in research. And everything speeds up again.

This would all be easier to accept if I had a vague idea of what I was sprinting towards — preferably a clear finish line which, upon crossing, would guarantee to slow everything down to a manageable pace. But so far, no luck. I don’t know where I’ll be a year from now, and certainly have no guarantee that it will be any less stressful than where I am now. And I get the feeling I should stop searching for it.

A few weeks ago, I drove to San Francisco with a friend for a concert. Since the artist isn’t especially popular, I assumed there would be tickets available at the door. Of course, I was wrong. (Never underestimate the hipness of San Franciscans.) But since I was his ride, I couldn’t go home without him. So while my friend enjoyed the show, I drove around looking for a way to pass the time till 1:00.

After dinner at Tommy’s Joynt and dessert at Mel’s Drive-In, I wound up at Pier 39. During the day it’s by far the most touristy part of all San Francisco. After midnight on a weekday, it’s a ghost town.

Past the shops, restaurants, arcade, and carousel, is a bench at the end of the dock. It’s hardly a typical place to sit and relax. Waves lap against the creaky pier, flags flap loudly in the breeze, and the wind is chilly and unrelenting. Not to mention the resident sea lions, which feel the need remind the world of their presence every few seconds with a splash, cackle, and hoarse bark.

Straight ahead is Alcatraz. To the right is a view of the East Bay, the Berkeley Campanile just out of sight. To the left is the Golden Gate bridge, the Presidio, Hyde St. Pier, and Ghirardelli Square. Any given afternoon, crowds of visitors would be wrestling cameras out of their fanny packs and desperately fighting for a view. Now there’s only me; and I love it.

If this seems reminiscent of another post to you, you’d be right. The busier I get, and the more worried about my future I become, the more I cling to moments like this. To reverse the platitude, it’s a much-needed chance to forget the forest and see only trees. Taking insignificant things (a sea lion barking, a wave lapping, lights in the distance) and letting them, for a moment, be all that there is. Call it existential if you’d like. It’s a sort of primordial joy in simply existing, free of all context. Or to take a cue from Joanna Newsom,

We could stand for a century
Staring
With our heads cocked in the broad daylight
At this thing:
Joy,
Landlocked in bodies that don’t keep
Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being
Til we don’t be

It’s a feeling I don’t get often enough, but one I would love to replicate. That sense of feeling “dumbstruck with the sweetness of being.” It comes to me most often as a strictly emotional response — but why is it limited to that? What if I could experience it sitting in a lecture hall, or slouching home after another all-nighter? Not as a response to my surroundings, but as an affirmation of an obvious truth. In a universe which is mostly comprised of the lifeless and the deterministic, being is an astonishing thing.  And it persists in all circumstances. Taking it as the sole meaning of life makes for an insane philosophy. But ignoring it completely makes for a jaded worldview. I don’t know where I’ll be a year from now; but thank God that I’ll be a year from now. For the moment, that should be enough.