Crying Love

 The New York Times reported last night that the state of South Carolina just executed a man by the barbaric method of firing squad—the first such execution in the United States in more than a decade. 

There is so much that is ugly and brutal about the story. One could dwell on the shabby cruelty of organized society and its licensed violence—the cowardice of shooting a defenseless unarmed man in the heart, while he is shackled to a chair. 

Or, alternatively, one could linger over the brutality of the original crime for which he was convicted. One could say, for the thousandth time: "he deserved it; an eye for an eye." 

But what is actually most striking about the horrible story is not its violence or depravity—but what the prisoner had to say to the world before his execution. The Times reports: "he wanted his message 'to be one of love and a calling to my fellow Christians to help us end the death penalty.'"

I am reminded of the words of the poet Stevie Smith: 

Man [...] 

Beaten, corrupted, dying

In his own blood lying

Yet heaves up an eye above

Cries, Love, love.

It is his virtue needs explaining, 

Not his failing.

So too here—what should stay with us in not the sordidness of the original crime—or the even more depraved manner in which society ultimately punished it. But the fact that amidst all this sordidness and vileness, a man cried out with love. 

It is his virtue needs explaining, not his failing. 

The fact that human beings in our weakness commit horrific crimes, and inflict horrific punishments, is no great mystery—given our evolutionary heritage and the manifold ills to which we are prey.

The mystery is rather that a human being can transcend these crimes and speak—even in their midst—of love. As Michel Houellebecq once wrote, of the human species: 

"This vile, unhappy race, barely different from apes, which nevertheless carried within it such noble aspirations [...]  was sometimes capable of extraordinary explosions of violence, but never quite abandoned its belief in love." (Wynne trans.)

That's what really "needs explaining." 

As Erich Fromm once expressed the same thought, in his Escape from Freedom: 

There is no reason to wonder why the record of history shows so much cruelty and destructiveness. If there is anything to be surprised at—and encouraged by—I believe it is the fact that the human race, in spite of all that has happened to men, has retained—and actually developed—such qualities as dignity, courage, decency, and kindness as we find them throughout history and in countless individuals today.  

But... what about the fact that the prisoner's plea for love did not stay the hand of organized vengeance in this case? 

What about the fact that society—which supposedly represents good—nonetheless shot him, the prisoner—who supposedly represents "crime"—while he was in the very act of proclaiming love? 

Who was the true criminal here? The unarmed man shackled to a chair? Or the society that struck him in the heart from behind the invisible protection of a stone wall? 

Or the judges at every level of the system who did not heed his cry for aid? The Supreme Court justices who declined to even hear his last-minute plea for a stay of execution? 

Such things can make one doubt the efficacy of the human mystery of Love. As Hugh MacDiarmid once wrote—in one of the greatest poems ever composed on the subject of capital punishment: 

I think of men as innocent as I am 

Pent in a cold unjust walk between steel bars

Their trousers slit for the electrodes

And their hair cut for the cap

Because of the unconcern of men and women, 

Respectable and respected and professedly Christian [...] 

And I am suddenly completely bereft 

Of la grande amitié des choses crées,

The unity of life which can only be forged by love. 

The prisoner spoke of love. He sought to forge the unity of life. He invoked the great friendship of all created things. But organized society—the supposedly "respectable and respected and professedly Christian"—the judges and juries and Supreme Court justices—did not listen. 

If humankind has any hope for mercy, it is in this prisoner, not the people who killed him. If we have any hope for forgiveness, it is because he forgave us before the bullets started to fly. It's that he—who had least cause to believe in the "great friendship of created things"—nonetheless invoked it in his final moments. 

He heaved up an eye above, crying love, love. If there is any hope for us as a species, it is in him—not in the organized legal crime that killed him.