The Measure of Our Outrage

And a poem by Wendell Berry

Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash

I can’t stop thinking about the insurance executive who was assassinated in New York this past week. The murder itself, along with the public reaction, means something. This was the murder of one man, and although it reeks of retribution, we don’t know any of the details of the killing. For all we know, it has nothing to do with his role as an insurance executive. And yet, the public response reveals something deeper about the collective mood in America.

The comments on news articles and social media posts are telling. I’ve read as many as I could find, and in all of them, I have yet to see someone express remorse for this man’s death. Not one. Usually, there’s at least one voice holding the moral line, someone reminding us that murder—no matter the grievance—is not the answer. But this time, there’s silence. Or worse: frank acceptance, even outright glee. The more I read, the more I found myself searching for my own outrage, my own discomfort with what happened—and coming up empty-handed.

It feels significant that so few people, myself included, feel sympathy for this man. That realization left me unsettled, a little sad. This is a public temperature gauge, and the gauge reads that we are okay with murder if it might (finally, finally) get the point across. After decades of corruption, of being lied to and jerked around by medical and insurance companies, is it any wonder people are this enraged? The comment sections are a treasure trove of horrors—endless examples of life-saving treatments denied, of families driven to despair by absurd denials, of suffering inflicted for profit.

I carry my own medical trauma, and I can’t think of anyone in my life who doesn’t harbor some deep distrust of the system. I’m tired of all the lying and corruption. I’m tired of being unable to trust my fellow humans. It’s exhausting, constantly wondering how I’ll be fleeced next and how much time and energy I’ll have to spend trying to avoid it.

And what’s the alternative? I can hear an acquaintance’s voice in my head saying: “That’s why you need to put yourself on the other side of the equation.” In other words, become like those doing the fleecing. What a ridiculous solution. I’d rather keep my soul.

Wendell Berry’s poem comes to mind in times like these. It’s not humans that will offer solace but the peace of wild things. When despair grows in me, I step outside and find grace in the quiet persistence of the natural world. Maybe, in that space, we can find a way to hold onto our humanity.

"The Peace of Wild Things" by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.