"Beloved, who indeed is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" 1 John 5:5
When St. John Paul II visited Cuba in 1998, Fidel Castro harangued the crowd for four hours in the tropical sun, endlessly lamenting victimization by American Capitalist Imperialism. Then the Pope spoke, for three minutes. He succinctly, respectfully, directly, diplomatically, firmly, clearly contradicted Castro, telling those assembled "You are not victims! In Christ you are free, you are the agents, the protagonists of your own destiny."
The irony: Castro, deep in the victim complex, has created a system of almost total control. Consider: John Paul was speaking to thousands trapped, possibly weak with dehydration, by a vicious despot, in one of the worst totalitarian regimes in the world. Recall: he had spent most of his adulthood under Nazism and Communism, the two great demonic "systems" of the century. His message: "You are not the victim of any system! You are the protagonist of your own destiny, in Christ!" This is what we call encouragement.
"THE SYSTEM" is not real. It is a mirage of the paranoid imagination. It is a myth, a false dogma, a lie of Satan. It is the conviction of being a victim of a massive, omnipresent, omnipotent, invulnerable, evil Empire. It is the delusion that you are a helpless, passive victim; a clog in the machinery of society; that a greater, hostile conspiracy is in control and there is no freedom.
On the left it has been known as: the military-industrial complex, capitalist imperialism, colonialism, systemic white racism, heteronormativity, patriarchy, intersectionality, and yada, yada, yada.
On the right it is known as the deep state, the regime, the red plot, freemasonry and communism, the powerful-affluent-liberal-global-elite class, and yada, yada, yada.
A striking example is the narrative of BLM and Critical Race Theory. Yes, there is a history of slavery and oppression. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X in distinct ways overcame the victim error. But this new "anti-racism" emasculates the young black male by making him powerless, passive but furious before the overpowering white male policeman. This is in fact a more vicious, but disguised racism.
It is a favored movie theme: Three Days of Condor, The Matrix, L.A. Confidential, The Firm, Mulholland Falls, Conspiracy Theory, Enemy of the State and so many more.
It creates the "I am a victim" complex. Neal Lozano found in his ministry of deliverance from evil spirits that the most persistent, difficult to cast out is the "victim" spirit. When someone is convinced he is a victim, it becomes nearly impossible to change his mind.
The idea is not entirely irrational; there is a real ground for it. As Woody Allen said: "The fact that you are paranoid does not mean that they are not out to get you." So we live in a complex world, embedded among multiple mega-systems involving technology and bureaucracy. This leaves the average person with diminished sense of agency: most activities are performed by complicated, overwhelming systems. We find a niche within this overarching universe of machinery; we perform a narrow, specific task; we are compensated in status and money according to its value on the market hierarchy; but beyond our limited expertise we are dependent upon the megalopolis with little space for spontaneity, creativity, freedom, conviviality, co-partnership and agency.
About 50 years ago, Ivan Illich, Jacques Ellul, Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, Ernst Schumacher and others diagnosed this bureau-techno-professional-malignancy, without a partisan prejudice. Meanwhile, mainstream politics on both sides of the aisle share a blindness to it: Democrats favoring big government, Republicans big business.
We might describe our world as a competition between three rival totalitarianisms: Communism, Sharia law, and Western relativism. The last is the most subtle, manipulative, deceptive: it deconstructs faith/family and isolates the individual into an autonomous, lonely unit of production/consumption, dependent upon the mega-techno-market-state-bureaucracy. All three destroy the dignity of the person.
John Paul and Benedict were intimately familiar with Nazism, Communism, as well as the camouflaged totalitarianism of Western, secular relativism. Their message was clear: We are free in Christ; we are not victims of any "system"; we are protagonists of our own destiny.
Scripture talks about the "principalities and powers" that have been disarmed by Christ. These are the dynamics of "the world" understood as all the human systems resistant to the grace of God. An so we are always living in "The World" which is systems, large and small and in-between, often hidden and anonymous, which deny God, overtly or covertly. Every police department, corporation, athletic league, monastery and rectory is under the spiritual influence, not of "The System" but of "The World."
So what we in fact face in the real world is not "A System" or "The System" but a multiverse of systems...millions of them...macro, micro, medium...everywhere we turn. When two people speak on a street corner, when hit men plan their kill, when a boy and a girl flirt, when children play, when old people go to Church, when couples make love or fight or laugh...ALL of these are systems. All day, everywhere, we move in an out of systems.
These systems are fluid, responsive, fungible...they are not static, rigid, rock-like. We bring to each our own spontaneity, creativity, personality, spirituality. They are, all of them, interactive and dramatic. If there are three people on an elevator and a fourth stranger enters, the system changes: bodies rearrange themselves, there are new vibes (good or bad), all four persons are effected, by the mere physical presence, without words or interaction. A dear, hyper-sensitive friend once told me that he got bad vibes from a stranger on an elevator and he had to go home to bed because he felt so bad.
In complex, even contradictory ways, these systems are open to good and evil, truth and error, beauty and is absence.
(Sidebar: there is no clear antonym or opposite to beauty. Even more than error and evil, its absence is pure negation, and cannot be named. "Ugly" as an adjective describes a subjective reaction; but "ugliness" is not itself an objective form or substance.)
With the exceptions of Adam/Eve before sin and the Holy Family itself, every human system, community, gathering and organization is vulnerable to evil and yet receptive of the good. So every system is a drama in which the good and the bad battle for influence, as every person is. The interaction of person and social organism is boundlessly dense, complex, and eventful.
A defining demonic falsehood of modernity is that each of us is an individual, passive and powerless before an overwhelming system. This can be "the curve of history," progress, the oppressor/victim dialectic, evolution, and yada, yada, yada.
The Fact, revealed in Jesus Christ, is that each of us is a person, imbued with dignity, freedom, intelligence, free will, personal sovereignty, intentionality, love and liberty from bondages.
This inherent freedom is exercised, of course, in the midst of determinisms, limits, obstacles, misfortunes, opposition, persecution, violence, conflicts and contradictions. Ours is not a godlike power to overcome these. Rather, in the power of the Holy Spirit, it is for us to preserve our interior freedom and dignity and witness to the Good, the True and the Beautiful...to God in Jesus Christ.
So yes, one living in a Communist Gulag, a Sharia despotism, or the materialist West is free...in union with the crucified/Risen Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in communion with the saints on earth and beyond, and in understanding of the Truth.
The flowering and fruition of our dignity surrounds us in a million ways: romance, marriage, family life; new life; gatherings for liturgy and prayer; 12-step meetings; new schools and home schooling; lay renewal movements; young religious orders; small business initiatives; little leagues; family traditions; non-profit initiatives; friendships; pilgrimages; spontaneous play; prayer/contemplation and so many more.
Our determinism and negativities are endless: illness, mental and physical; addiction; poverty; inequality; violence; misogyny; abuse; warfare. In the very face of Evil: we are free! We are not victims, powerless and passive! In union with Christ in the Holy Spirit, we triumph...unfailingly...in our faith, love, joy, gratitude, solidarity, compassion, hope, humility, contrition, and generosity!
Come Holy Spirit!
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