The Better Angels of Our Nature
Redemption and forgiveness are more important than ever ... and maybe all I need is a shot in the arm
The Path To Redemption
Last week, Teen Vogue announced that Alexi McCammond, who had recently been hired as the magazine’s new editor, would be stepping down from her position after staffers at the magazine complained about decade-old tweets sent by the then-17-year-old McCammond that mocked Asian-Americans.
Though the tweets had come out years earlier and McCammond had apologized for them, it was not enough to save her job. Writing in the Atlantic, Graeme Wood, who is half-Asian American, makes a point about the situation that I wholeheartedly endorse:
If Teen Vogue, even in its current woke incarnation, does not exist to celebrate this period of still-expungeable error, then it may as well be calling for the abolition of the teenage years altogether. Its staff, as well as many of its advertisers, evidently think its readers deserve no bonfire, no sin jubilee, and should be hounded eternally for their dumbest and most bigoted utterances.
If any magazine should understand that 17 year-olds do dumb things and they should be allowed to make amends, it is (other than Seventeen) Teen Vogue. And if there is a statute of limitations on facing professional sanctions for bad tweets, one would hope it would kick-in when you enter adulthood.
“For the sake of today’s Teen Vogue readers,” writes Wood, “I hope that by the time they are McCammond’s age, the current culture has developed its own process of expiation. Most people were 17 once, and those who haven’t gotten there yet will be 17 someday, and 27 too.”
But I don’t think this goes far enough. People do and say dumb things when they are 17 … and also when they are 27, 37, 47, and 57, etc. None of us are perfect. All of us make mistakes. Some are more egregious than others, but we are a richer and more compassionate society if we recognize the ability to repent, seek forgiveness, and allow for redemption.
I realize this might sound like a religious argument, and, for me, at least, it’s not. I’m not a person of faith. But one does need to be to recognize, as I wrote a few years ago, “that introspection, in the pursuit of redemption, and the willingness to grant forgiveness are among the most powerful elements of the human experience. They are what allow us to grow and evolve as individuals.”
What troubles me about the Alexi McCammond story and so many of the anecdotal tales of “cancel culture” is that we are seemingly losing our ability to forgive and recognize true contrition. One-time mistakes become reasons to lose jobs and careers. They become proverbial Scarlet Letters dogging and defining us. No one would want to be judged by the worst thing we’ve ever done (and certainly not by something we said on Twitter), and yet it feels as though that’s where the culture is headed.
We teach children to recognize their mistakes and learn from them. We want them to do better the next time. That’s much of what childhood is about. But it’s a mistake to assume that we should stop teaching that lesson once someone leaves childhood and adolescence behind. There are things I’ve done and said as an adult that I’m not proud of, which makes me similar to 99.9 percent of all humans. I think I am a better and more empathetic person than when I was in my 20s, 30s, and even 40s, and that I’ve learned from past errors. Perhaps this is just a self-interested argument, but I hope that others would recognize my atonement, just as I try to recognize it in them.
Of course, it’s easy for me to write all this since McCammond’s tweets weren’t directed at me. If I were an Asian-American staffer at Teen Vogue, I would likely see the issue quite differently. That anger and feeling of dehumanization is real and can’t just be swept under the forgiveness rug. Would I feel the same way about McCammond if she had sent anti-Semitic tweets?
The thing is, I’m pretty sure that I would - so long as I felt that her contrition was genuine and she recognized that what she had done was wrong. Repentance and forgiveness are two sides of the same coin, but unlike those of faith, I believe that the latter must be earned. It cannot simply be bestowed.
But it also cannot be withheld. I’m sure this will be an unpopular opinion, but I truly believe there is no sin that cannot be forgiven. I realize this is not easy. Forgiving someone, particularly someone who has wronged us, is incredibly difficult, and there are situations where it is simply not possible. But we are better, stronger, and more generous people if we, at the very least, open our hearts to the possibility.
A Shot In The Arm
On Monday afternoon, I took my dog for a walk, and as I passed a local Rite Aid, I was reminded that I needed to pick up a few items. But first, I made a beeline to the pharmacy to see if it was possible to make an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccine since earlier in the day, New York State announced that those over the age of 50 could start getting the vaccine.
About 45 minutes later, this happened:
It turns out the pharmacy had some extra vaccine for the day, and I was in the right place at the right time. It’s pretty rare that I’m at a loss for words … but I’m kind of at a loss for words in describing what it felt like to get that shot in the arm. It was a combination of giddiness, liberation, and above all, relief. I still need to get the second shot in three weeks, and then it’s another two weeks until you’re totally out of the woods. And I did have COVID already, and so I wasn’t as worried about getting it again … but just knowing that the chance to return to normalcy is so tantalizingly close was overwhelming.
I thought about the day in the now foreseeable future when I will fulfill the promise I made to my kids … and set all our masks on fire. I thought about all the activities I’ve been dreaming about doing for a year - going to concerts, seeing movies, watching a baseball game (in person), eating in restaurants, drinking in bars, traveling for pleasure, seeing people’s faces, not worrying about testing positive for a deadly virus that has taken millions of lives. You know, the little things.
I also thought about the more than 542,000 Americans for whom this life-saving vaccine came too late. I thought about the year that we’ve lost and the year to come, and all that I plan to do, now that I understand how easily it can all be taken away. Getting vaccinated isn’t just a path back to normalcy; for me, at least, it represents a second chance. I plan to take full advantage!
Musical Interlude
There’s really only one song I could have chosen for today’s musical interlude.
And since I’m spending so much time talking about redemption … hard to leave this one out too.
As humans, and especially as formative kids, we should try on various belief systems, opinions, as well as hobbies, fashion, and social personas. That's how we find out what fits, and what part of our inherited accoutrements don't. We find out how we differ from others. We find out about empathy. We find ugly aspects of ourselves and our tribe. We figure out what to reject, what to hone, and experience how other misfits may feel. In this process, we hurt others, we hurt ourselves, and hopefully we learn.