A reactionary Democracy is a for-profit society without reflection only perpetuates change as a reaction to a negative, a debt, a vacuum of power. This debt that accumulates I call a non-point source sin, a harm that doesn’t have a single, identifiable cause but results from the actions (or inactions) of many. It mirrors environmental "non-point source pollution," where harm accumulates from countless small, diffuse sources. collective, systemic sins may not feel personal, but they are part of a shared moral fabric. Jesus's sacrifice, in this context, could be seen as addressing these broader, interconnected failures of humanity, not just individual misdeeds.
The tragedy in New York recently is not the killing of one man, nor the killing of many by a corporation, the tragedy lies in our inability to make changes before the injustices occur. Is the murder of Brian Thompson the responsibility of every one of us that sees a corrupt system but does nothing other than to hope and gamble that it will not happen to ourselves? Yes, it is. Our lack of awareness is a pollution to the collective, and it accumulates into a non-point source pollution of sin that permeates the collective and individuals. Like a bucket brimming to the top it leaks out until someone knocks it over.
An oppressor, no matter who that oppressor may be, creates a vacuum a debt that pollutes the collective. When this debt is disturbed, people are quick to defend it and deny it, like protecting an open wound. But if someone or an idea seems like a way of balancing the debt, it creates a bloodlust amongst the hungry and they can’t be satisfied. It is not the young kid Luigi Mangione who shot the CEO from United Healthcare everyone sees; what people see is hope that the scales will be balanced and their debt filled by those who owe them.
What Jesus, Gandhi, Guy Fawkes, and Luigi Mangione all have in common, is they confronted the collective consciousness in their own ways, and at great peril. We can argue over how they did it, what works and what doesn’t but the fact that remains, is that they shouldn’t be in that position in the first place. It is up to us as individuals to understand and have a relationship with the collective mind. We are the sinners; we are the responsibility bearers. It should not be a sacrificial individual kicking over the bucket of pollution to get the collective’s attention. Where was the crowd of protesters at the cross? They are the sinners collectively, not the man who nailed him up there. Why didn’t they stop what was going on? Jesus should not have died. Luigi should not have killed a man. Opposite ends of a spectrum, and we see balance but at what cost? All these men victim to the hungry need of the collective mind.
Non-point source sin is something we all need to address and understand. We all are responsible, and we all have control. When we confront the collective mind in our own nesting doll, we confront it in all layers of reality. We cannot hide, deny, or defend the gaping wounds of the collective or ourselves. Our quest is to align ourselves, thru our work and thru our words, with our relationship with the collective. We must trust the process and trust the ripples of effect, and never stray too far from our heart, or we lose ourselves. We must all look further than our own individual needs and think of the needs of the collective as well.
The question we have to ask ourselves in our relationship with the collective mind, is how do we achieve balance, without the enviable spiraling into debts and powers struggles? It is balance we crave, and that cannot be achieved by static complacency, nor overcorrecting the system. We do this by a constant balance of yin and yang energies, both within and without. With empathy and awareness, and you do this by building structures, whether it is corporations or governments, by thinking about what pollution am I contributing to and how can I stem the damage? Is it mental? Is it environmental? What debts are accumulating that I need to address?
The damage we cause, by not being reflective is substantial. We must reflect before we build, before we act. Yin must not die; yang cannot do this alone.