For some people, fear of consequences is the only thing that keeps them from hurting others. Without those boundaries, they will take advantage of others. Without empathy, they can’t imagine doing good unless it benefits them, or refraining from harm unless it hurts them. They see kindness without gain as weakness. And since they can’t understand intrinsic morality, they can’t respect it—and they certainly don’t respond to it. In some settings, the fear of punishment is the only thing keeping some people from crossing dangerous lines. So, sometimes, to protect the larger community, intrinsically moral people have to act in ways others will understand. Punishment is a deterrent and reward is a motivator, even if intrinsically moral people wish that this way of motivating others unlike them wasn’t necessary. We may prefer a world where everyone did good out of genuine care, and certainly we can work toward that end. But until then, we can’t let the well-being of many be jeopardized because a few don’t share that inner compass.
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This is Part 3 of Humility, Inclusion, Power and Privilege
(Read this series from its beginning here.)
Sometimes, acting for the greater good means choosing the practical path, even when that path doesn’t feel like the most virtuous one. Dr. King once responded to someone who tried to chide him that changing laws doesn’t change people’s hearts and minds. At an address at Western Michigan University, December 18, 1963, King stated, “Now the other myth that gets around is the idea that legislation cannot really solve the problem and that it has no great role to play in this period of social change because you’ve got to change the heart and you can’t change the heart through legislation. You can’t legislate morals. The job must be done through education and religion. Well, there’s half-truth involved here. Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart. But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also. So there is a need for executive orders. There is a need for judicial decrees. There is a need for civil rights legislation on the local scale within states and on the national scale from the federal government.”
I, too, would prefer is to make choices based on the intrinsic value or potential for something to be life-giving and rooted in compassion and equity, rather than some present or future imposed reward. But again, that is not the world we live in.
What I do appreciate about our reading this week is Jesus’ admonishment to be inclusive about the “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” These are the people who, in his social context, would have been excluded and marginalized. Jesus is here promoting equity and inclusion, principles we still need today.
The war we are presently witnessing against equity and inclusion is often couched in appeals to tradition, meritocracy, or neutrality, but it nonetheless undermines efforts to create fair opportunities for all. Those opposing equity and inclusion resent those they would still like to consider themselves as better than, and that is what our reading is speaking to this week. Modern-day opponents of equity and inclusion claim that institutional equity and inclusion initiatives end up dividing rather than uniting, but in truth, what is really triggering them is how equity and inclusion challenges long-standing imbalances of power and privilege. Resistance often stems from discomfort with change, fear of losing status, or misunderstanding the goals of inclusion. Equity doesn’t mean favoritism. It means acknowledging systemic barriers and correcting them. Inclusion ensures everyone belongs, not just the historically dominant. Attacking these principles weakens social progress, silences marginalized voices, and sustains inequality under the illusion of fairness.
This week’s reading should not be aimed at those already being excluded to scold them for desiring equity and inclusion. Rather this reading is about those who oppose equity and inclusion to protect their own privilege. To these folks, our reading speaks: “Go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’”
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