The progression occurs something like this:
“That is appalling! I won’t allow myself to even acknowledge its existence.”
“Well, its increasing presence is making it harder to avoid thinking about it, so I’ll act hostile toward it.”
“Hostility isn’t able to stave off the onslaught, and I’m miserable when I’m hostile. I’ll ignore it.”
“Ok, ignoring is hard to do for the same reason that pretending it wasn’t there didn’t work. I’ll try to make sure it’s marginalized by making derisive comments about it.”
“Some of those derisive comments are pretty funny. I enjoy belittling it.”
“I’ve gotten to where I find it quite entertaining to make light of it. No sense in getting too riled up about it.”
“You know, it really is a joke after all. And to think I was so worked up about it at first!”
I have observed this process at work in many areas of life, but perhaps no more devastatingly than in the arena of morality. Premarital sex is one area in which this has happened. Homosexuality is definitely a subject that’s just reached the last phase in the last decade or so. Of course, not everyone’s on the same page (or phase) on those issues, and no doubt there are people at each phase at any given time.
We need to make sure we haven’t gone through the above progression on important issues. It is, after all, a relief to stop boiling about something and just laugh about it. But maybe the solution isn’t as much the mockery as the problem is the boiling in the first place. If we could “Vulcanize” our thoughts on these divisive issues (for non-Trekkies, if we could fortify our positions with rational arguments that minimize undue influence from emotional responses), we would likely never exhaust ourselves with feigned ignorance and unsustainable emotion that turn themselves into the need to escape the fight. The kind of mockery this leads to is the faltering last line of defense against acceptance. It can also be a sign that the necessary step of reasoning was absent and that tumultuous emotion was given reason’s place. We can’t allow ourselves to get tired out beating the wind: when facing an ideological foe, keeping calm will allow us to use our consecrated minds to hold the line. Maybe this is related to Paul’s statement in Philippians 4:7, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
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