Off the Mark

I have a confession to make.

I was a bad person earlier in life.

My first full-time job was on a nuclear missile site in West Germany at the height of the Cold War (1978-1981).  I then spent over 20 years in the Army.  I voted straight ticket Republican for years in my own self-interest.  I took the easy road and rarely questioned my larger role and responsibilties to the world-at-large.  This could be teased apart in more detail, but it only becomes more damning to do so.  And what is really at issue is that I do it for myself, and not publicly.

The other night after our oncampus day for my distance ed class, the instructors and about half of the class went out for dinner.  It was quite an enjoyable time.  At some point in a conversation with another student, one who is becoming a librarian to leave her long-term employment in a job of personally (to her) questionable merit, I mentioned that one of my hopes in becoming a librarian was that I might do some good to offset the harm that I had done through earlier choices.

Another student across the table said, "Wow! I never thought of librarianship as penance before!"

Well, neither had I, nor do I, nor my other conversational partner.  What she, and I, think is that we are making a moral choice now, hopefully to offset previous choices.  [All future comments are only in reference to my thoughts, not my fellow student's.]

Is this penance?  I don’t think so, but let’s take a look.

penance n. 1 an act of self-punishment as reparation for guilt. 2 a (esp. in the RC and Orthodox Church) a sacrament including confesson of and absolution for a sin. b a penalty imposed esp. by a priest, or undertaken voluntarily, for a sin. (The Oxford American Dictionary and Language Guide. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999)

Am I engaged in self-punishment?  Certainly not.  Do I believe librarianship is a punishment?  Definitely not.  Do I believe that I sinned?  No, not in a religious sense.  There are no priests involved either.  And most importantly, whatever good I may end up doing as a librarian can in no way be absolution for my previous way of engaging, or not engaging, with the world.

I was raised as a Southern Baptist, so I have no well-defined sense of penance and absolution anyway.  What I have is only a sort of anthropological acquaintance with the concepts.

I also most certainly do not believe that being a librarian is in any way inherently morally good or even better than what I did before.  One can be a librarian and still not engage with the world, or even be heinously evil, especially in someone else’s eyes.

What I meant was that what I want to do, and be, as a librarian will equate to a much more positively moral choice, for me, than my choices earlier in life.  The same goes for my other dinner partner, I believe.  It is not being a librarian that will make a difference in our lives or in the world, but who we will be, and what we will do, as a librarian that will make the difference.

While some jobs may damn your soul, I do not believe that any job or profession will save your soul—neither in the here-and-now nor in the afterlife.

I cannot change my previous impact on the world.  I can only try to somewhat make up for it.  Atone maybe, in the sense of "make amends for."  And, of course, change my behavior now and in the future.

For those who may have decided to judge me negatively based on the context I set at the beginning, please be aware that it is highly unlikely that you might judge me more harshly than I myself have and do.  But to help you set any perceived moral indignation aside, please be aware that our government and the U.S. Army own me for another 18+ years.

That is a thought that daily terrifies me!  This fact should be very evident from many of my prior posts when coupled with the knowledge that I am an owned person.  E.g., see:

A Soldier Returns From Iraq  30 Jan 05
The criminals we call our leaders  30 Jan 05
I know I will take some flak for this one…  1 Feb 05  "Sometimes, unfortunately, other things, such as this, speak to me.  I used to try and ignore them.  I no longer can."
What does "Support the Troops" mean? 25 Mar 05
Melissa says "I Wish This Fit On A Car Bumper."  26 Mar 05
The story that I could not tell for Storytelling  26 Mar 05
The world is falling apart and America leads the charge…  27 May o5
‘Army of One’ to even more lies  5 Jun 05
No Child Left Behind…by the Military  3 Jul 05
Happy Independence Day  3 Jul 05
Bless you Dorothea and everyone else who has someone they care about deployed  5 Jul 05
My country ’tis of thee  5 Jul 05
True Patriots Act  13 Jul 05
Recruiting Command asks for my help  18 Jul 05
Returning troops and mental health  31 Jul 05
An Open Letter to the American Legion  1 Sep 05

That is most, but certainly not all, of my posts about the military.  The fact that I could be forced to again work for the people who use and abuse those trying to honorably serve their country is a terrifying thought to me.  Maybe I deserve it for my prior behavior.  But then I do not believe in "Just World Theory," nor many other similar sorts of theories, religious or secular.

Zick Rubin of Harvard University and Letitia Anne Peplau of UCLA have conducted surveys to examine the characteristics of people with strong beliefs in a just world. They found that people who have a strong tendency to believe in a just world also tend to be more religious, more authoritarian, more conservative, more likely to admire political leaders and existing social institutions, and more likely to have negative attitudes toward  underprivileged groups. To a lesser but still significant degree, the believers in a just world tend to "feel less of a need to engage in activities to change society or to alleviate plight of social victims."

Ironically, then, the belief in a just world may take the place of a genuine commitment to justice. For some people, it is simply easier to assume that forces beyond their control mete out justice. When that occurs, the result may be the abdication of personal responsibility, acquiescence in the face of suffering and misfortune, and indifference towards injustice. Taken to the extreme, indifference can result in the institutionalization of injustice. Still, the need to believe that the world is just can also be a positive force. The altruism of volunteers and of heroes who risk their lives to help strangers in need is a result of people trying to restore justice to insure that the world remains just.

I do not believe that the world is just.  Not by any stretch!  What I do believe is that the world ought to be just, the human/social parts of the world anyway.  Do I believe that it is possible to achieve?  No, not really.  Do I believe that we ought to try to the best of our abilities as humans?  Most certainly.

And that is where the librarianship comes in for me.  It is a means to a possible end.  It is not a given in that it alone will do nothing towards me reaching my goal.  I must remain present and committed to my goal of being a better human being and working towards a world that is more just.  For me, being a librarian will give me a better chance at staying the course towards that goal than many other occupational choices I might make.

Librarianship as penance? Not likely.