In the United States, we are again facing the grim consequences of our gun culture. In this newsletter, I am going to reflect on this from a systemic point of view. If you are reading from a country other than the USA, I invite you to read on in a spirit of compassion, and perhaps see the parallels in your own, different cultural context.
This is also a heads up to readers who, to take care of themselves, may need to put aside such a reflection. I do hope that I find a way to do this that is strengthening and kind, while also being honest.
Matthew McConaughey comes from Uvalde, Texas, the town where the children were shot in their schoolrooms. And so, he has some authority to share on this issue, which he did, immediately following. I was impressed by something he said: “Once again we have tragically proven that we are failing to be responsible for the rights our freedoms grant us.”
First, I was grateful he wrote “we.” In situations like this, it is so easy to move into an us/them perspective. But systemic constellations work constantly reminds us that both sides of any situation belong to one larger system, where the logic of some kind is being worked out. So, in these kinds of situations, it’s all of us, always. There is something going on with all of us. There is something we are all doing and choosing, even if unconsciously.
I was also impressed by his reference to the tension between freedom and responsibility. It was so unexpected, given the usual rhetoric of the debate on guns in the United States. Later, I heard an interview with Ryan Busse, a former gun industry executive who now works for gun violence prevention. He said something similar: “We have to figure out a way, in a complex democracy, to balance freedoms, which we all love – all of us want our freedoms. But none of them will be maintained if we cannot balance them with responsibility. And that balance is just way, way out of whack.”
“Balance that is out of whack” — that is a systemic insight. We explore these imbalances all the time in constellations work. We start with Honoring What Is — in this case, that we are an incorrigibly violent country, with a violent history, and today children are still dying. But not only that, of course. The main impact of the unregulated gun industry is accidental deaths and suicides — the hidden and stunning reality of our embrace of freedom over responsibility, and the lingering systemic entanglement with our history of genocide and slavery.
So, we honor what is. We see it, bow to it, acknowledge it. Again, if you are reading from a different country, bow to what is true in your country’s history, known and unknown. And, quite poignantly, we also bow to what is true in our personal family’s history, too: our lineage’s losses, violence, and devastating encounters with the larger forces that have shaped us all.
Every parent knows the difficult passage of their children into adult freedom. Parents can’t just give a small child infinite freedom — it’s unfair to the child. There is so much they don’t know yet, and part of parenting is protecting them. Limiting freedom is part of that. But at different points in their children’s development, and in different ways, parents have to grant children some freedoms. Then, they watch and observe, seeing if the child has integrated enough responsibility to keep reasonably safe. If not, then often a parent appropriately takes away some freedoms, until more responsibility can be learned. It’s a delicate dance, and never done perfectly.
Many traditional cultures do this better, because the role of formal initiations help children step properly into their adult place in the society, so that freedom and responsibility are inextricably bound together, inseparable. In many ways, the United States is like the uninitiated child who grew into adulthood, thrilled with the idea of freedom, but the lesson about responsibility was imperfectly learned. As we know with children who, for instance, get the freedom of drinking and driving without the lesson of responsibility, tragedy is the result.
Our gun culture is certainly an issue of policies and unfettered commerce. I honor everyone who commits to critical advocacy and political work. And, beneath those conscious structures lies a deeper set of systemic imbalances that we are having a hard time facing, because it’s all of us.
Can we bow to our past, and see what brought us to today? Can we commit ourselves to balancing our own freedoms with responsibilities to the common good? For the sake of the children, who are vulnerable to becoming, in the context of our society’s shadows, additional victims and perpetrators, we need the bravery for this work.
When have you bowed to something unimaginable in your ancestral past? Or when have you worked consciously with the balance of freedom and responsibility? Please share on my blog below.
Leslie, thank you for this perspective. The balance of rights with responsibility is something that is often missing in the discussion. Let’s hope we can acknowledge and repair this imbalance.