Wanneer mense 'n moordaanval vier.

Hier brand die huis van Osama:

In Indie vier hulle dit groot:

Ook in Amerika juig mense:

Die gesprek hier in Amerika oor die die eliminering van Osama bin Laden duur voort. ‘n Belangrike fokus is die oënskynlike wraakgierigheid van mense wat met die bekendmaking van die nuus uitbundig op die strate gesing, gedans en slagspreuke geskree het. 

Onderliggend aan die baie artikels merk ek ‘n wydverspreide onsekerheid oor die gebeurtenis, wat iewers gesublimeer word in die herhaalde vraag na hoe ‘n mens op sulke nuus behoort te reageer. Dit gaan vir sommige mense wat ‘n bietjie dieper dink immers om die doodskiet van ‘n ongewapende man sonder dat hy verhoor is, om nog ‘n tragedie in ‘n bose kringloop van omstandighede.

Ek dink aan iemand wat iewers in die tyd in kommentaar skryf  dat sy juis as gelowige, as ‘n Christen, nie bly kan wees oor die dood van die man nie – hoe veel hy ook al anders was as sy, skuldig was aan sulke buitensporige hatighede. Dit is ‘n teken van die diepte van ‘n mens se verhouding met God wanneer ‘n mens die dieper vrae begin vra.

In hierdie artikel in vandag se New York Times argumenteer Haidt dat Amerikaners nie uit weerwraak of ongevoeligheid gereageer het toe hulle uitbundig die strate ingevaar nie. Hul viering is eerder ‘n goeie teken van eenheid in die gemeenskap waarin hulle uiting gee aan hul gevoel dat Amerika die geweldige uitdagings wat die terroriste aanvalle kan en wil aanpak. Hy dink ook nie hulle vreugde moet gesien word as ‘n eksklusiewe, nasionalistiese viering waarin ‘n negatiewe gevoel oor ander groepe uitgebeeld word nie, maar eerder as ‘n gesonde stuk patriotisme waarin die oorwinning oor die bedreiginge vir die land gevier word. Amerikaners het vir ‘n slag hulle eie, selfsugtige klein bestaan deurbreek en as ‘n groep bymekaar gekom om hul gemeenskaplike ideale te vier.

Dit is natuurlik ‘n vraag of sy idealistiese siening van die situasie klop met die werklikheid. Daar is genoeg artikels, koerantberigte en video’s wat wys dat mense nie regtig so ingetoë en trots gereageer nie. Tipies van hierdie soort reaksies was die vulgêre koerantopskrif die dag na die dood van Osama bin Laden op die voortse bladsy : “Rot in hell.”

Ek hou van die artikel omdat ek duidelik daarin raaksien hoe ongemaklik die skrywer is met mense wat roekeloos oor geweld en die eliminering van mense kan skryf. Ek hou ook van die manier waarop geregtigheid uitgelig word as ‘n belangrike oorweging by enige optrede teenoor gewelddadige, psigopatiese kriminele soos Osama bin Laden. Dit is duidelik dat die skrywer van die artikel erns neem met die argument van ontstelde Amerikaners dat ‘n mens nie weerwraak moet neem nie, maar geregtigheid moet soek.

Ek het egter my vrae oor die groot argument van die skrywer dat ons nie van ‘n gemeenskap dieselfde reaksies kan verwag as van gewone mens in ‘n kriminele saak nie. ‘n Gemeenskap het volgens hom die reg om met waardigheid hulle suksesse teen die slegste van bedreigings te vier. Sekerlik. Die vraag is eerder hoe hulle dit doen.

En baie dun is sy opmerking dat ‘n mens die goeie, gesonde en altruïstiese kante van die eliminering van Osama bin Laden sal mis as ‘n mens die gebeure te individualisties lees. Jy kan nie Bin Laden se dood vergelyk met die moord van jou kind en jou innerlike bydskap wanneer sy moordenaar gestraf word nie, redeneer hy.

‘n Gemeenskap het die reg om die dood van ‘n terroris te vier, sê die opskrif by die artikel. Asof ‘n gemeenskap nooit selfsugtig, self-gerig  en wraakgierig kan wees nie.  

Terwyl ek die berig lees, bedink ek die verskriklike verlies wat 3000 families en groepe en die hele Amerika gely het toe die Wêreldhandel-sentrum vernietig is en probeer hierdie debat van binne uit verstan. Ek het in daardie tyd na die aanval op 11 September  baie onderhoude en berigte met families gelees wat tot vandag toe by my bly oor die groot verdriet en lyding wat mense ervaar het.

Maar ek dink ook terselfdertyd terug aan ‘n berig van die week oor die seun wat sy ma Maandagoggend in New York van die skool gebel het. Hy was vyf jaar toe sy pa in die aanval dood is. Die jare sedertdien was vir hom traumaties. Hy bel sy ma, vertel die berig, dat sy hom moet kom haal, want hy kan nie by die skool uithou nie. Sy maats en onderwysers vier al die hele oggend uitbundig die dood van Osama bin Laden. Dit, sê hy vir sy ma, maak die pyn waarmee hy leef net erger.

Die seun weet, besef ek uit die koerantberig, wat baie ander onnadenkendes nie begryp nie. Die dood van mense, hoe skuldig ook al, hoe wreed en psigopaties ook al, kan nooit anders as ‘n tragedie wees nie. Sulke tye pas dit ‘n mens om stil te raak en om diep na te dink oor die kwaad wat so ‘n houvas op ons wêreld het. Dit is nie ‘n tyd om te vier nie.

Later vandag, sien ek dat koerante verslag doen van wat predikante in hul preke oor die gebeure verkondig. Ook in die kerke, gelukkig, kom die oproep: hierdie is nie 'n saak waaroor 'n mens jou verbly nie.

Why We Celebrate a Killing

By JONATHAN HAIDT; Published: May 7, 2011

Top of Form

A  MAN is shot in the head, and joyous celebrations break out 7,000 miles away. Although Americans are in full agreement that the demise of Osama bin Laden is a good thing, many are disturbed by the revelry. We should seek justice, not vengeance, they urge. Doesn’t this lower us to “their” level? Didn’t the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. say, “I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy”? (No, he did not, but the Twitter users who popularized that misattributed quotation last week found it inspiring nonetheless.)

Why are so many Americans reluctant to join the party? As a social psychologist I believe that one major reason is that some people are thinking about this national event using the same moral intuitions they’d use for a standard criminal case. For example, they ask us to imagine whether it would be appropriate for two parents to celebrate the execution, by lethal injection, of the man who murdered their daughter.

Of course the parents would be entitled to feel relief and perhaps even private joy. But if they threw a party at the prison gates, popping Champagne corks as the syringe went in, that would be a celebration of death and vengeance, not justice. And is that not what we saw last Sunday night when young revelers, some drinking beer, converged on Times Square and the White House?

No, it is not. You can’t just scale up your ideas about morality at the individual level and apply them to groups and nations. If you do, you’ll miss all that was good, healthy and even altruistic about last week’s celebrations.

Here’s why. For the last 50 years, many evolutionary biologists have told us that we are little different from other primates — we’re selfish creatures, able to act altruistically only when it will benefit our kin or our future selves. But in the last few years there’s been a growing recognition that humans, far more than other primates, were shaped by natural selection acting at two different levels simultaneously. There’s the lower level at which individuals compete relentlessly with other individuals within their own groups. This competition rewards selfishness.

But there’s also a higher level at which groups compete with other groups. This competition favors groups that can best come together and act as one. Only a few species have found a way to do this. Bees, ants and termites are the best examples. Their brains and bodies are specialized for working as a team to accomplish nearly miraculous feats of cooperation like hive construction and group defense.

Early humans found ways to come together as well, but for us unity is a fragile and temporary state. We have all the old selfish programming of other primates, but we also have a more recent overlay that makes us able to become, briefly, hive creatures like bees. Just think of the long lines to give blood after 9/11. Most of us wanted to do something — anything — to help.

This two-layer psychology is the key to understanding religion, warfare, team sports and last week’s celebrations. The great sociologist Émile Durkheim even went so far as to call our species Homo duplex, or “two-level man.” Durkheim was writing a century ago, as organized religion was weakening across Europe. He wanted to know how nations and civil institutions could bind people into moral communities without the aid of religion. He thought the most powerful glue came from the emotions.

He contrasted two sets of “social sentiments,” one for each level. At the lower level, sentiments like respect and affection help individuals forge relationships with other individuals. But Durkheim was most interested in the sentiments that bind people into groups — the collective emotions. These emotions dissolve the petty, small-minded self. They make people feel that they are a part of something larger and more important than themselves.

One such emotion he called “collective effervescence”: the passion and ecstasy that is found in tribal religious rituals when communities come together to sing, dance around a fire and dissolve the boundaries that separate them from each other. The spontaneous celebrations of last week were straight out of Durkheim.

So is collective effervescence a good thing, or an ugly psychological relic from tribal times?

Some of those who were disturbed by the celebrations fear that this kind of unity is dangerous because it makes America more warlike and prejudiced against outsiders. When celebrants chanted “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” and sang “God Bless America,” were they not displaying a hateful “us versus them” mindset?

Once again, no. Many social psychologists distinguish patriotism — a love of one’s own country — from nationalism, which is the view that one’s own country is superior to other countries and should therefore be dominant. Nationalism is generally found to be correlated with racism and with hostility toward other countries, but patriotism by itself is not.

The psychologist Linda Skitka studied the psychological traits that predicted which people displayed American flags in the weeks after 9/11. She found that the urge to display the flag “reflected patriotism and a desire to show solidarity with fellow citizens, rather than a desire to express out-group hostility.”

This is why I believe that last week’s celebrations were good and healthy. America achieved its goal — bravely and decisively — after 10 painful years. People who love their country sought out one another to share collective effervescence. They stepped out of their petty and partisan selves and became, briefly, just Americans rejoicing together.

This hive-ish moment won’t last long. But in the communal joy of last week, many of us felt, for an instant, that Americans might still be capable of working together to meet threats and challenges far greater than Osama bin Laden.

Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, is the author of the forthcoming book “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.”