You Must Fight

Posted on November 24, 2006 in Responsibility

One price of contention is that it is hard to conduct a fearless and searching self-examination. Perhaps that is part of the aim of those who attack.

At the beginning of the Bhaghavad Gita — that section of the epic Mahabharata which has been turned into a holy book — the rebel leader Arjuna finds himself looking over the ranks of soldiers arrayed on the field of battle and feeling sick because of the carnage which is about to occur. He expresses this to the Blessed Lord, Krishna, who says “You must fight.” What follows is a long exposition on the order of things, especially the caste system.

Lately, I’ve been told by others that I do not fight for myself enough. Which means that I don’t hang around when someone is lambasting me and slandering me. When I find myself making angry exchanges, I attempt first to redirect the conversation to the purpose. And if that purpose proves to be boiling me in wordy oil, I leave. I do not have to listen to libel and I do not have to submit to torture.

I, like Arjuna, might have felt the same pain. I have found myself on the field of battle, pressed forward by a sense of obligation to press on. And it did not make me feel well to do so. There are times, it is true, that you must fight, but not for every slight or every misstep on the part of others. My recent score on this has been mixed: I have to say that I have fought when I should not have fought but, also, I have walked away when a disagreement proved too calamitous for my health.

I do not think, like some do, that growth results from not thinking about your mistakes. Sometimes we need to be hard on ourselves. I’ve seen many people remain stuck in a happy land where they are free to keep making the same mistakes, retain the same insensitivities as before, online as well as off. I don’t want to be like that.

The question one might ask is if Arjuna had been accompanied by the Buddha or Jesus or Hillel, would his companion have told him to fight? It is doubtful. We as a civilization claim to be built on the words of Christ and of Hillel, yet there’s still a barroom mentality: a drunk attacks you and you must, some say, bring out the switchblade.

Resist, I say. Stand on the facts. Be honest in your dealings but do not fight. This is not an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This is being free to believe and to investigate, to stand by your thoughts and profit from your discoveries. No blood need be shed, no reputations ruined for this. Die Gedanken sind frei.