I often wonder how many of the unduly passionate progressives have sacrificed for their cause. Sure, they want others to sacrifice, but did they give up their job or college admittance to someone marginalized? Did they hand over the house keys, car keys, IRA password, to a historically oppressed person? Or do they just emote about it on social media, demanding that others sacrifice for a cause when they won’t. Muttering a land acknowledgement before a meeting isn’t the same as giving the land back, and if you’re unwilling to do the latter, the former is performative crap.
Then someone does something that isn’t merely sacrifice, but a sacrifice so extreme that it makes you question their sanity. During the Vietnam war, one of the iconic images was of a Buddhist monk, Thích Quảng Đức, who self-immolated in Saigon. Whether it changed anything is hard to say, but it made its point about the persecution of Buddhists by Diem’s regime.
But what of Wynne Bruce?
A Colorado man who set himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court on Friday in an apparent Earth Day protest against climate change has died, police said.
It wasn’t widely reported. Many have no idea it happened at all. Why would a 50-year-old man set himself on fire?
Kritee Kanko, a climate scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund and a Zen Buddhist priest in Boulder, said that she is a friend of Mr. Bruce and that the self-immolation was a planned act of protest.
“This act is not suicide,” Dr. Kritee wrote on Twitter early Sunday morning. “This is a deeply fearless act of compassion to bring attention to climate crisis.”
Accepting the premise that this was a thoughtful, deliberate act of protest, and not the an act of suicide by someone whose mental health was dubious, it fails to answer any of the questions it raises. Why? What did Bruce hope to accomplish? Why in front of the Supreme Court? What thing did he believe so critical that he was willing to sacrifice his life for it?
Mr. Bruce, who identified as Buddhist, set himself on fire in an apparent imitation of Vietnamese monks who burned themselves to death in protest during the Vietnam War. A Facebook account that Dr. Kritee identified as Mr. Bruce’s had commemorated the death of Thich Nhat Hanh, an influential Zen Buddhist master and antiwar activist who died in January.
This might make sense to Bruce and Kritee, but does it make sense to anyone outside their circle of Buddhists? And if not, then to what end was such a sacrifice? And this isn’t the first time in recent vintage someone has engaged in self-immolation as protest.
David Buckel, a prominent civil rights lawyer turned environmental advocate, also set himself on fire in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in 2018 to protest climate change and died. In a letter beforehand, Mr. Buckel alluded to the spiritual roots of self-immolation in protests, including in Tibet.
Maybe you remember Buckel’s protest. Probably not. A human being, a lawyer, lit himself on fire for a cause and nothing changed, no one was saved. Was it worth it? Did Bruce or Buckel, or any of the others who self-immolated, believe that by sacrificing their life, they would have such an impact that it would be worth it?
At the other end of the spectrum are the people fighting passionately for the most pointless nonsense by twitting furiously at all the evil people who want use preferred pronouns or call Hispanics by the name they’re too stupid to realize they should prefer. There are some people who are sufficiently sincere in their belief in the cause that they are willing to out, night after night, and take a beating or a rubber bullet if need be. Not that I agree with their cause, but at least they are willing to suffer consequences for their beliefs.
As for Bruce, it’s unclear why his self-immolation didn’t make the evening news. Maybe it’s an intentional choice so that others of questionable mental health don’t become copycats. Maybe it’s because Bruce failed to make clear why he was doing such an extreme act, so that there wasn’t really more of a story than guy lights himself on fire.
And why in front of the Supreme Court, of all places?
The court had heard arguments in late February on an important environmental case that could restrict or even eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to control pollution. The court’s conservative majority had voiced skepticism of the agency’s authority to regulate carbon emissions, suggesting that a decision by the justices could deal a sharp blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to address climate change.
This paragraph appears to be purely speculative by the New York Times, as Bruce offered no reason for choosing the Supreme Court. It’s possible that Bruce sought to influence the Court’s decision, although the issue is more about agency authority than the social value of the agency action. Even so, it’s unlikely to have any effect. Many protest in front of the Supreme Court these days, to no avail.
Jay Caspian Kang, who harbors thoughts of self-immolation, tries to explain such an act.
But self-immolation forces the witnesses, whether in person or through the news, to confront an intensity of conviction that goes well beyond what they may think is possible. In this way, self-immolators like Thich Quang Durc become almost inhuman, even holy. At the same time, the act establishes an entirely personal connection because the real question at hand isn’t really, “Why did he do that?” Rather, the self-immolator is asking you — with all the intimidation and self-righteousness a person can muster — “Why don’t you care even half as much as I do?”
Does it persuade anyone by screaming at them that they’re wrong or evil? Its reflects the depth of one’s passion, even if its cost-free to the shrieker. Won’t it force the unwoken to “confront the intensity of their conviction”? Assuming Bruce’s act of sacrifice was as “holy” as Kang suggests, does the depth of his caring change the depth of your caring?
I am still horrified by self-immolation, but I also believe that we should resist the urge to write it off as the last act of the mentally ill and the desperate. Nor should we simply frame each incidence with some made-up measure of how much effect it has had on the world. The discomfort we feel over this practice and our sincere desire to see it end should not preclude us from taking it seriously as an act of protest. We should hope this practice ends, but we also shouldn’t just look away.
If a protest fails to serve any end, then it’s pointless. This isn’t some “made-up measure,” but the entire point. If you’re willing to sacrifice for your cause, then consider whether the sacrifice truly serves the cause, and whether the cause is truly worth your sacrifice. And if you’re not willing to sacrifice for your cause, then you’re just putting on a show for your pals on social media and deserve to be ignored.
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