On Turning the Other Cheek III

14 January 2023

A few weeks ago, we began an exploration of what it meant to turn the other cheek.  That concept, when traced back in time, seems to have originated in the Old Testament where the prevalent notion of fairness was the taking of one eye for one eye.  The New Testament felt that retributive justice could be bettered with transcendence—rising above the fray and walking away from injury and insult.

My response is that turning the other cheek, walking away, works when it is your idea and your considered intent but fails miserably when it is preached at you by anyone other than your own mind and conscience.  In the subject passage from Matthew 5, five ideas were identified.  The first two were examined in the previous two blogs, the third, understanding, acceptance, and good will, will be examined herein. 

To get literal about turning the other cheek, if you are slapped in the face, a number of things happen.  First, you feel the burning shock and shame of violence enacted.  Your arousal level races to the fight or flight response, at least in me, and tells me to strike back with everything I’ve got.  When Googled, face-slapping calls up a number of medical websites.  Causally, a slap in the face is a form of injurious trauma.  Those injuries can be a lack of feeling in the face, deformation, injuries to the respiratory system, altered vision, missing teeth... (Penn Medicine).  It's no wonder our evolved fight or flight response kicks in—such injuries must often result in permanent damage. 

If you have been raised or trained to think before acting, understanding may kick in strongly enough to counter the fight or flight response.  If you are that fortunate, your thoughts might include 1) that violence was about him not me; 2) am I a greater or lesser person for striking back? and 3) will striking back end this or invite another round? and 4) what do I want?  (That’s a lot of good thinking in less than a few seconds with a burning face to deal with!) 

The original passage went like this:

38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on they right cheek, turn to him the other also…43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.  44  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5, Holy Bible, King James Version, 1957).

Today’s themes, understanding, acceptance, and good will, are visible, above, at 39, 44, and 45, where the instruction is to roll with evil (acceptance), and to love thy neighbour (good will) in the face of the inevitability of the uncontrollable ill winds of fate and fortune (understanding).  What if Ukraine had done this in February 2022?  What if Israel had done this since 1948?  What if England had done this per Prime Minister Chamberlain’s insights?

The answers to these questions are not knowable as they become counterfactuals, an historian’s tool far beyond my scope.  My guess, as to the thesis of any counterfactual arguments I might begin, would be that Putin would keep going, that Israel would be no more than desert dust, and that Europe would have been run by a racially motivated National Socialist named Hitler for a decade or two.  Knowing what we know, turning the other cheek in those cases might not have worked out too well.

On a personal level, there is a different and subtler argument.  I had two grandfathers who fought Germany in both world wars.  Yet one of those men married a Canadian woman, my Nanny, whose father was a German descendant with a decidedly Germanic name, Jacob Trietz.  I would like to believe that my grandfather didn’t prejudge Trietz’s morality based on his lineage.  And this is where understanding and good will play an enormously important role: the refusal to visit prejudice on individual human beings. 

I believe, that as a general policy, unexamined turning of the other cheek is a developmental error which could be harmful, per the blog of 10 December, (https://understandings.ca/2022/12/10/on-turning-the-other-cheek/).  But equally, I believe that prejudgement, of unknown individual human beings, is at least equally harmful.

So what does all of this have to do with living a well-spirited life?  A lot.  At no time since I have been conscious of prevailing ideas, has the need to speak honestly been more important or less popular.  Turning the other cheek plays to the advantage of the prevalent spirit of our time.  Resistance, particularly well-chosen resistance, speaks to the need of multiple perspectives, intellectual courage, and real democracy.  Turning the other cheek can be no less damaging than silence, in contexts where silence is consent.  As a great poet wrote,

          “Do not go gentle into that good night.

          Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

          —Dylan Thomas c. 1937

Dan Chalykoff is working toward an M.Ed. in Counselling Psychology and accreditation in Professional Addiction Studies.  He works as a supervised psychotherapist at CMHA-Hamilton where his primary focus is trauma.  He writes these blogs to increase (and share) his own evolving understanding of ideas.  Since 2017, he has facilitated two voluntary weekly group meetings of SMART Recovery.  Please email him (danchalykoff@hotmail.com) to be added to or removed from the Bcc’d emailing list.

References

Face slapping, https://www.pennmedicine.org/for-patients-and-visitors/patient-information/conditions-treated-a-to-z/facial-trauma

King James Bible. (1957). Collins’ Clear-Type Press. (Original work published 1769)

Thomas, D. at poets.org, https://poets.org/poem/do-not-go-gentle-good-night