Something about the notice bothered me, however. I know nothing about the woman who died except that she died of cancer and that she worked for that restaurant chain. But I have no reason to think that she was a loser.

That last remark sounds offensive, but in our noun-based culture, losing does mean more or less the same as being a loser. (Dealing with people or things in terms of what they do rather than what they “are” — what arrogance to think we could know! — is a huge matter, but let’s stick to what we have at hand.)

Ava, which was not this woman’s real name, had a family. She did not live to see her children grow to maturity and maybe get married and have children of their own, but she lived and nurtured life. That is fairly remarkable in a universe where more than 99.999999999 percent of everything we know seems to do nothing except for the odd chemical or nuclear reaction.

Of course, no one would come close to thinking that her death of cancer while she was relatively young overshadows her life, but we move in that direction by making a lost fight her epitaph. Some people “win their fight against cancer.” But not Ava, we hear. There are any number of reasons why, but winning and losing always have an undercurrent of ability or willpower. Any odds can be overcome if you try hard enough is a popular misconception. So to say that some people lose a fight with cancer is subtly to lessen them, however unintentionally.

Did Ava fight it? I ask because of how cancer acts: cells in the body reproduce, a necessary function, but in an out-of-control way. If we think we are separate from our body, then it would make some sense to say we could fight it. But a key point this blog makes, explained in The Logic, is that in our individual incarnations we are the sum of our parts. Some people — reputed psychic healers or yogis perhaps — might achieve unusual control over bodily processes, and we would be wise to investigate this, but most of us cannot will our bodies to change the way they act at the cellular level. We can no more fight our cells than we can force them to do things we want them to do.

The point I am trying to make here might seem of no consequence, but how we think about death reflects a lot of how we think about life. Human life begins with our coming into a particular, individual form of existence, ends with our departure from it and includes everything in between, without exception. Usually it lasts a good number of years, but not always. And lives that last shorter than others are not battles lost. No one loses a fight with old age, or with a natural disaster, or with faulty electrical wiring.

We die, at different times of life, in various and sometimes painful ways, almost always before we would wish it. In that respect, we are all born losers. Or we are all born winners through the remarkable achievement of life through us. And we die, sometimes of cancer. Enough said.

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We rightfully felt the unspeakable injustice of innocent lives cruelly cut short, but as a nation we failed to fully enter into the grief of those whose loved ones died that day. Had we done so, we might have realized that what we were feeling was not so different from what families in Southeast Asia and Central America felt at the hands of US or US-backed forces.

This is not some anti-US rant. So please don’t misunderstand it as such. It is a plea for people to touch into the pain we experienced and realize it is the same pain that Vietnamese and Cambodians and Salvadorans and Guatemalans and Nicaraguans, among others, have felt.

Pursuing those responsible for 9/11 was reasonable, to the extent that it was done with every possible effort to avoid harming innocent people. But realizing the immense pain others have gone through because of US political calculations, especially when those calculations are anything but transparent and are mixed with economic motives, should give us a new perspective. It should make us very reluctant to cause more such pain.

Sadly, the US has shown little sign of retreating from aggressive responses to situations around the world. Arguably sometimes there is no seeming alternative. Islamist militants today show no signs of being open to reason, similar to the Nazis in the past. But missteps have fueled contempt and hatred, as they did in the post-World War I situation that the Nazis took advantage of.

But again, the point here is not what the US has done or not done, but what we might still be able to do. That in addition to feeling the pain all Americans have felt because of 9/11, there could be the realization that others feel the same pain. That they do not see that much of a difference between the terrorists who flew planes into the World Trade Towers in some vague ideological war against the US, and soldiers who destroyed villages and communities for some vague ideological war against communism. That war truly is a last resort.

At the same time, 9/11 was as ineffective at forcing the US to its knees as US military intervention has been at securing the democratic goals it supposedly has been aimed at. That too is something we could learn from.

Whether from a standpoint of compassion or practicality, aggression that causes avoidable civilian casualties leads only to more bloodshed and the strengthening of a war mentality. And technology is putting ever more destructive power into the hands of any who would wield it.

Nothing could commemorate the tragedy of 9/11 better than fully realizing how horrible it was and vowing to never cause such pain to anyone if there is any way to avoid it. We might then see that there are almost always ways to avoid it.

The photo, Tribute in Light, was taken by Francisco Diez

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Mandela by his own insistence was not a saint. None of us are, of course, but his acknowledgment seemed a deliberate attempt to discourage a personality cult. While that puts him all the closer to sainthood, I’ll honor his self-assessment and merely accuse him of humility and wisdom.

Sadly, however, he undermined his claimed unsaintliness by refusing to serve more than one term as president. Perhaps he was just old enough to know better at that point, but even that would amount to uncommon wisdom. Not uncommon for an average person, but tragically uncommon for a politician.

It is that distinction, between common people and politicians, that grabs hold of me when I think of Mandela and his legacy. Without in any way detracting from his achievements, it is worth reflecting on the fact that Mandela knew firsthand what he was fighting for. Naturally he knew the oppression that black South Africans faced, and his 27 years as a political prisoner gave him intimate knowledge of the demoralizing reality of incarceration. But he also knew poverty, and life far from the conveniences of the comfortable, the life of most of his fellow South Africans.

I don’t think any US presidents or senators of the last few decades grew up poor and oppressed. Maybe I’m wrong. And I don’t think many Supreme Court justices or, for that matter, congressional representatives (statistically speaking) fall into that category either. I think the United States is being and has long been run by fairly well-off people.

It is easy enough to make the case that democracy in this country is dysfunctional at best, having been replaced by an oligarchy with the means and resources to manipulate public opinion almost at will. But I don’t think we need to debate that, because a more basic dysfunction is at work.

How many of our leaders who decide how lazy poor people are and how much and what type of assistance they should get have ever gone hungry? Or had to rely on outside assistance to get by? How many of the leaders who have presided over the increase of the US prison population to the highest per capita in the developed world have spent time locked inside a cell?

No, I am not trying to make the case that only poor people and criminals can run the country. But I am suggesting that maybe people who have no understanding of poverty and social oppression cannot run the country well. And I don’t think one needs to bankrupt oneself or go to jail to gain this understanding. Compassion is what is needed.

Mandela was compassionate. Like many other great figures in history, he did not seek revenge against his oppressors. He knew that he was fighting oppression, not for the right to oppress. He knew that suffering was something that should end, not be passed on, and he went with the idea of truth and reconciliation rather than revenge.

Suffering makes it easier to be compassionate. Actually, they are interchangeable, because compassion literally means to feel others’ suffering, just as it means to feel their joy. All it takes is not separating the world into me (or us) and them.

Since there really is very little chance of anyone with a background similar to Nelson Mandela’s coming to lead the United States out of what looks ever more like a form of social apartheid, what would it take for someone to attain a similar stature as a great statesman? The spokesperson for an era?

In the US context it would mean making the poor first-class citizens, on a par with the rich but without demeaning anyone. It would mean protecting the rights of ordinary people from being trampled by the legal might of corporations with their vast resources, while protecting the legitimate rights of businesses. It would mean treating everyone with respect and inviting them to do the same, and to be willing to sacrifice some of what they have and some of what they are sure of so that we can create something better than what we have, in ways that we might not think would work.

Nelson Mandela was a great man, and a politician insofar as he needed to be one, but he answered the need for greatness in a particular time and place. Greatness is also needed for our time and place. It will not be Mandela who answers the call, but it will be someone or some ones who know poverty and social oppression intimately — either because they have lived through them or because they feel them just the same.

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The opposition of native Mi’kmaq people to fracking exploration in New Brunswick puts a sharp focus on the bond that links us to the Earth. Their shameful treatment at the hands of Canadian authorities puts an equally sharp focus on the need to stop rushing to exploit our world, sacrificing our humanity in the process.

The basic story has received little mainstream coverage, so I’ll summarize it before looking at the bigger clash of world views.

SWN Resources Canada, part of Houston-based Southwestern Energy (SWN), has been conducting exploratory operations in New Brunswick since 2010 aimed at extracting shale gas through fracking, or hydraulic fracturing. Mi’kmaq people in the area claim stewardship over the land and reject the project. Their blockade of an SWN camp led to a violent confrontation on Oct. 17 when heavily armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police moved in to enforce an injunction against the until-then peaceful protest. Police arrested 40 protesters, all of whom were released except for six members of the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society.

APTN, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, presented the police explanation for the action without any prejudicial comment in a commendable act of journalistic integrity: Death threats, brandished weapons, forcible confinement triggered raid: RCMP. Following the release on bail of two Warrior Society members, two weeks after the raid, the network also published their account of abuse in detention, abuse they said was continuing against the four members who were still in jail: Mi’kmaq Warrior Society members say they were beaten, roughed-up after arrests – APTN National News.

One of the two who were released was subsequently interviewed and said, among other things, that they were kept in solitary confinement 24/7 except for court appearances.

I cannot say what did or didn’t happen concerning the events reported, and some protesters seemingly resorted to violence on the day of the crackdown, but I do know who I think was threatened with harm and, in fact, harmed. Perhaps truth and justice will out before too much time passes, but something deeper is showing through here.

The last word on the Mi’kmaq protest was that they were gathering again on Nov. 4 to light a sacred fire as part of a new blockade, and that the four arrested protesters not previously bailed remained in jail as of Nov. 3. Anyone would have to wonder why these people would risk further brutalization by once again pitting feathers and symbolic fire against corporate legal might and fire arms.

The answer appears to be that they sense a threat to their connection with the Earth, with life as a whole. “We are here to save our water and land, and to protect our animals and people. There will be no fracking at all,” Louis Jerome, a Mi’kmaq sun dancer, said in a statement Monday reported by Sun News. “We are putting a sacred fire here, and it must be respected.”

The threat here is not abstract and ideological; it involves the physical rupturing of life itself, seen as a holistic system that cannot be separated into parts. Unlike mining or drilling for oil or gas, which is very invasive but, under ideal conditions, can be contained to a limited area, fracking literally breaks the earth over a vast area, and has the potential to affect water resources over an unlimited area.

Naturally, fracking proponents say there is no real danger. But with the corporate record on “less” invasive mining and drilling, pipeline and oil spills, etc., can any reasonable person expect people to trust big business and government on this one? You can cap a well or shut down a mine if there is a catastrophe. What do you do with thousands or tens of thousands of dead land if it turns out that the industry-supported experts who pronounced fracking safe were wrong? And did they even care for non-human forms of life, or accept that they could be sacrificed en masse?

When people whose connection to the land goes back hundreds or thousands of years say, “Wait! Stop!” is there any possible justification for brutally shoving them out of the way? Maybe fracking is not as terrible as many fear, with reasonable cause, but the burden of proof is heavy and on the shoulders of proponents. And the need to rush headlong into it is indefensible.

Only people who have fractured their relationship with life can think they have the right to fracture others’ relationship as well as life itself in the pursuit of economic benefits, especially in the effort to ensure that unsustainable energy consumption can continue with future generations left to pay the bill, if life as we know it can even survive on the planet. Naturally, they must think of the other people and other forms of life they will harm precisely as other. Then the logic of compassion fails to hold, and they can prioritize their own interests through whatever means they deem necessary or convenient.

This destructive tribal way of thinking is the very antithesis of the fracking protest by the Mi’kmaq, a relatively small tribal group in a relatively remote corner of the world, to uphold the unity of life.

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In many ways, this situation reflects the wider situation in the country, where name-calling and self-righteous posturing have replaced debate. Many people are talking, and all too often parroting the same words that their comrades are copying and pasting all over cyberspace, but who is listening?

Sadly, however, the problem goes even deeper. More than just listening, people can dialogue only if they are open to being changed by what other participants say. This idea has stuck with me over the years since I read it in the work of David Tracy, who taught at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Tracy was particularly concerned with interreligious dialogue, and that enterprise is well worth considering. It has produced so little progress because there is probably no aspect of life where people are more resistant to change than religion. The very ground reality for their existence, here and now as well as in some anticipated ever-after, is at stake.

Instead of being interested in learning more about that reality, people close themselves off in a bubble of fear. They cling to a religious lifeline that they trust will pull them through, fearful that any doubt they are responsible for allowing into their life will drain the needed magical energy from them, or result in a God they conceive of as all-compassionate and merciful shunning them forever.

For sure people will take issue with that assessment and insist they are only defending the absolute truth against wily deceivers. I’m not about to argue with them, but I stand by my observation. And I’ll take the chance that neither a tyrannical deity nor a secret book of spells holds sway over our world, that if it came down to it, God would be pleased with whatever humanity as a whole came up with in a spirit of respect and love for each other and the natural world we are part of.

We do run the chance of ruining the world as we know it through wrong choices, but not by any limited choice, policy or law. Consistently ignoring evidence of a chain of wrong choices, as with the state of the environment, can lead to destruction. But even here, we have many chances to pick new directions and right wrongs, and even people who see the direst of futures know that the road to environmental sustainability will not be without missteps.

So let’s calm down a little. Do we need to balance the budget and get rid of the deficit? Of course we do. Do we need to fashion a society in which the needy are cared for and everyone has access to affordable health care? Of course we do.  And it is the same with other high-profile issues gripping this country, such as gun control and abortion. The opposing sides have valid, deeply held points. Personally I would like to see very strong regulation of guns, because I would feel safer if less people had them. But I have listened openly to the other side and realized that many people are responsible gun owners and feel safer that way.

On any important issue we could listen to the other or both sides. This might actually be a step forward, but even the most intransigent ideologues do this. It is called debate, and often involves what I would call bad faith. What we need to do is dialogue — come to a conversation with our convictions but be open to modifying them, to acknowledge that people who think differently from us might have some point we need to take better account of.

Maybe we will end up holding the same position we brought to the discussion, but it will be because we allowed for the possibility of change but it just didn’t happen. And our partners in dialogue will know the difference if we genuinely were open to them. At least as likely, however, is that we will all come that much closer to something we can agree on. We might even reach an agreement we all can live with.

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At the same time, I’d like to tell anyone ready to follow in those footsteps: Please, don’t do it. At least not unless you are personally sure that it is absolutely necessary: that it will indeed make the world a better place and there is no other way. Otherwise, I, for one, would rather have you with us, working to make the world a better place in so many smaller but perhaps more effective ways, day by day by day.

A friend recently wrote a moving post after the dedication of a memorial to local residents killed in service. He remembered how one young man made a difference in and a lasting impression on his neighborhood, until he went to Vietnam. I didn’t know Tommy, and I know nothing of what he did in Vietnam or how he died. Maybe he died saving fellow marines. Maybe during his time there he helped protect Vietnamese villagers caught in the crossfire. I would hate to think pressures most of us will never know drove him to take part in atrocities such as the My Lai massacre. But war, and especially war motivated by ideology in a foreign land where the distinction between the “bad guys” and the “good guys” is murky at best, does nasty things to people in many ways. Whatever Tommy did in Vietnam, I think the world would be a better place if he and the 58,000+ other Americans who died there had stayed home.

Let me repeat that anyone who puts their life on the line trying to protect others has my utmost respect. I cannot say the same, however, about US governments going back to the 60s that have urged or demanded these sacrifices far from home and are responsible for the deaths of many more local people. Americans sadly have every reason not to trust their government to take military action only when absolutely necessary for national defense or the common good, and only to the extent necessary. The rise of multinationals, and the politics of oil and arms, the world’s two leading moneymakers, have more or less ensured that US military action will involve vested interests and a balance sheet.

Such sentiments might trigger knee-jerk accusations of liberal bias, but the person who first warned Americans to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” was no liberal peacenik. President Dwight D. Eisenhower singled out that concern for his farewell speech as he left office in 1961. Go ahead and read what he said or read his lips.

I seriously question whether the Democrats or Republicans will be able to set up a government once again worthy of trust — a government that protects the true, long-term interests of Americans but also considers the true, long-term interests of the rest of world; and that does not risk lives except as an absolute last resort for the noblest of reasons. Members of both parties could do it together, but only if they stop the pervasive deception, hypocrisy and lack of transparency that have become hallmarks of politics.

Maybe we should all make a Memorial Day’s resolution to tell politicians to do that, quickly, while we count time and look for compassionate, capable people to replace any of them who won’t or can’t do the right thing. People who can regain the goodwill and respect that the United States built on the ideals and sacrifices remembered today, but then squandered strong-arming private profits built on oppression and exploitation. Then maybe days will come when we remember all the brave, selfless heroes who gave their lives protecting others before we truly honored their sacrifice by finding a better way.

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The concrete question we were struggling with at the end of that development was whether it would not be in the interest of life as a whole to remove “flawed” instances of consciousness – people who for one reason or another can’t or won’t cooperate, who insist on harming others or place great burdens on available resources. Let’s begin by asking another question: acting out of love, can we destroy life?

Of course, we could just answer that question “No!” and be done with it. But that would be to resort to ideology, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid. It would also place understanding ahead of love, whereas we just emphasized that love comes first. We can observe love as the inevitable attraction of life to life, but there is no objective reason for this. It simply happens. We can observe it but not calculate it from first principles.

Having said that, I would venture that all of us have had some kind of “cosmic” or transcendent experience of connecting with life as a whole, perhaps an experience we categorized as religious. And I’m willing to bet that the urge to destroy was not part of it. This is not to deny that some people have claimed to experience a cosmic or divine mandate to destroy, perhaps in the throes of war or religious frenzy. But these are what they are, products of extreme situations, and even then only the most extreme of the extreme, if any, have identified such actions as arising out of love.

It might seem at this point that we are heading down the slippery slope of relativism. And that is because we are. It is all that is left once you strip away ideologies and omniscient, all-powerful anthropomorphic deities. And that is why so many people are reluctant to do so. The unsettling truth is that there are no absolutes in a freely evolving world. In our way of looking at things, all that matters is whether an action in a given situation fosters or hinders life’s journey. But this does not mean that anything goes. Circumstances might be critically important in certain cases, but life’s journey is holistic. A situation is not isolated but is part of the evolutionary flow.

All things considered, we can make general rules as long as we realize they are compromises that cannot be absolute. A great example comes, surprisingly, from Pope John Paul II. Despite the Catholic Church’s fierce opposition to relativism, that pope argued against capital punishment in a remarkably relativistic way. He acknowledged that society has the right to take a life should no other way to protect itself exist, but he added that he could not conceive of such a situation actually existing.

Our answer, then, lies in reality and not the imaginary world of pure thought, where abstraction pushed to the limit produces intractable problems. We cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that the best way for life to move forward in a particular situation would be to take a life, but everyone who actually experiences love as the binding force of life might agree that they never have been able to justify such destruction.

There is another consideration as well. We cannot forget that we are not in possession of all knowledge, so we must make reasonable allowance for error, give the benefit of the doubt. This holds all the more should the potential error be irreversible. Need we consider our overall track record? Need we wonder whether an ounce of humility serves us better than a pound of arrogance? This reason on its own is vulnerable to the “common good” argument, but it complements the primacy of love.

Nonetheless, we must consider some extreme situations such as self-defense or, perhaps, a case in which killing someone would stop that person from killing innocent people. There is an obvious difference here, in that the choice is not between life being taken or not taken but between which life is taken. Protection of the innocent life or destruction of the aggressor must be accepted in such situations, although not prescribed, for the reasons already given – notably allowance for error. Affirmation would require the certainty that this action saved innocent life, and practically speaking it is impossible to say with certainty that someone will pull a trigger; it can only be said in hindsight that someone did or did not pull the trigger.

The consequences all down the line must be considered as well. It is tempting to argue, for instance, that assassinating Hitler in World War II would have saved countless lives, but this might have proven false. An equally or more deadly person might have taken his place. As an example, Hitler went against the advice of trusted generals by not invading Britain, by delaying the invasion of Russia to crush a minor rebellion and by deploying forces far from the D-Day invasion site. Going the other way in any of these decisions would have meant prolonging the war or even a German victory, and most likely the deaths of many more people.

Clearly, the only reasonable affirmation for taking life requires a certainty we cannot possess. Killing would have to be presumed an act against life unless proven otherwise, which would be more than exceptional and maybe impossible. Further evidence for this conclusion comes from the wealth of esteemed human experience and reflection through the ages that has championed nonviolence. Naturally we love, and just as naturally we reject violence as anything but a last resort.

This is already long, but we might need to briefly consider the cases of euthanasia or withholding exceptional means of life support. All I will say here is that the same basic formula applies. There can be no absolute rule, and the exact circumstances must be taken into account with as close to absolute certainty as possible. Even the matter of abortion must take circumstances into account, although these circumstances include long-term psychological effects as well as immediate desires.

So the answer I propose to the utilitarian challenge is that while there are no absolutes, certain questions could have a guiding consensus or relatively certain answers that seem to hold for all but extreme situations. And even in those situations, love and not reason alone would have to inform the answer. We can go no further, because reality tends to have rounded corners rather than the perfect angles of geometry.

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We tend to use the word love to describe a variety of relational stances: we love our parents or children, our partner, our friends, certain activities, a book or movie, etc. On the more abstract level, of course, people speak of God’s love for them or their love for God, or a kind of universal love. Such wide usage makes discussion problematic, so we have to agree first on what we are talking about. Certainly we are not investigating erotic or sexual love, neither love of God per se. Then let’s dismiss casual usages of love as applied to objects. And while some people might indeed love animals, for example pets, or even flowers as much or more than they love anyone or anything else, let’s focus on love as a human interaction.

The various “forms” of love can be seen as different kinds of love, or degrees or intensities of love. Either interpretation makes some sense – or at least does not stand out as such a glaring inconsistency that we have to think about it – if we are unique individuals relating to each other in an infinite variety of ways. But once we remove the false distinction between self and other, what can it mean to love one, or a few, more than others?

Clearly, a selective kind of love does not fit in with the understanding that we are conscious instances of one life impulse, not really individuals. Theoretically, it would mean loving part of our self more than the rest; but effectively it would mean creating and indulging an extended individual self and neglecting others. The only alternative seems to be that love must be one and the same regardless of who is involved.

Two major objections immediately present themselves. On a personal level, you might assume that loving almost everyone more must mean loving family and friends less. And even if you tried to love everyone the same, how could you love someone you don’t even know as much as someone you know well? I see no way to reasonably overcome these problems if love is something we choose to do, or something we direct this way or that. So the love we are trying to describe must be something else. And obviously it cannot rely on emotion.

What is left is something along the lines of charity, a caring love not motivated by pity or other emotions but by the desire to nurture life in its many forms. The best word I can think of to express this love is compassion, in the truest sense of the word. We will know how to nurture life, how to act in helpful ways, not just by acknowledging our unity, but by entering into an experience of unity, by opening to the experience of the other instances of life around us. And this does not require any kind of mystical union, though of course it does not argue against it. The communication tools we possess in everyday reality are quite capable of confronting us with reality as experienced by people almost anywhere in the world.

What we have, then, is love as life caring for life, which takes care of the “why” in a remarkably simple way. If we are in fact expressions of one self, of one life, then love is nothing more than self-interest or self -perpetuation. And justice is merely the practical application of compassion. It recognizes that mistreating or depriving any part of life hinders evolution as a whole. But compassion is the active principle. It is the lived experience of unity, which provides the necessary motivation not only to behave justly, which could remain passive, but to nurture life as a whole. We do not choose to love and we do not choose whom (or what) to love. Love is simply the response we make when we, as life, recognize our self in the rest of life.

So loving all of life might or might not mean a non-stop emotional high, but it does exclude favoring your family or community to the detriment of others. The active component of compassion also means that you cannot choose to remain ignorant of whatever is not within your immediate environment. Knowing that you are not aware of what is going on in other places, you are compelled to make a reasonable effort to become aware. And becoming aware, you are compelled to take reasonable action that would address any outstanding needs or problems. Because you recognize these are your needs and problems.

Now I think we are ready to return to the question of utilitarianism. But next time, with a fresh start.

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I say “case” in particular, because whatever it is all about, it is not about justice for Trayvon. It is sadly too late for that, as it was all along.

So what are people talking about? They are talking about blame and punishment. And they are focusing on individuals. A tremendous amount of nonsense has focused on painting Trayvon and George Zimmerman as “good” or “bad,” the murky agenda really being to paint one or the other as more or less deserving of sympathy and legal protection.

Even without an investigation, I think we can conclude that racism was involved in the killing. Not necessarily a premeditated racism. But anyone who says that a majority of Americans out on the street alone at night would not feel some fear at the sight of an unknown black youth is living in a fantasy world or lying. And what if fear gives way to panic and the person has a gun?

Geraldo Rivera might have gone too far in suggesting a fashion makeover, but the reaction to his comments was harder to fathom. Trayvon might well be alive today had he been wearing a suit and tie that night instead of a hoodie. Should he have dressed based on how others might perceive him? Of course not, just as women should not have to dress modestly to avoid being raped.

Racism is a factor in American life, as it is almost anywhere in the world, due to the poisonous effects of self-identification through tribalism and nationalism. It has become less overt, and laws say you might suffer consequences if you do not keep your racism tucked safely out of sight, but laws can’t change hearts.

Blacks certainly do have more “rights” and opportunities than in the past, so you might argue that the legal approach has worked and is sufficient. But while a black male aged 15-24 has very little risk today of being lynched by a mob of hooded figures, he probably has a higher chance of being killed. His risk of dying a violent death is incredibly high, as documented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Racists would be quick to say that this results primarily from violence at the hands of other young black men. I think, though, that there is very little racial difference behind the pulling of a trigger. The cited report goes on to say that most male homicide victims are killed following arguments or conflicts, and that two of every three homicides overall are committed with firearms.

Nonetheless, would the legal approach bring more than some kind of emotional satisfaction to one side or the other? Suppose that Zimmerman is found guilty of killing Trayvon with no legal justification, and is punished. Will anyone be any safer? Hardly. Theoretically, this could cause another person to think twice before pulling a trigger, but why do we assume that a person pulling a trigger is thinking rationally to begin with?

Research has shown that even on battlefields, many soldiers have died without firing their guns. Or they fired over their target. Evidence of this was found during the Civil War, if not earlier. Eventually, the U.S. Army started desensitization programs to decrease soldiers’ reluctance to kill other human beings. (An interesting article by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman discusses this and more.) Video games in which the player destroys enemies use the same basic principles the army programs have used to make killing seem less real, and thus easier to do.

Given our innate aversion to killing, I think it could be argued that almost everyone who kills is either panicking or suffering from temporary insanity, with stress perhaps a contributing factor, or has been desensitized.

Which brings us back to the shooting itself. Justice, in terms of fundamental equality among all people, would require that we change any conditions that place any group of people at more risk of harm than others. As regards Trayvon and his high-risk demographic, however, a particular concern is the so-called “kill at will” laws under which homicides might not even be investigated.

Given the reality of racism, is it not unjust to essentially tell people: “If you fear that someone is about to harm you, go ahead and shoot them, kill them. It’s OK, and the killing will not even be investigated”? Is that not almost sure to produce tragedies such as the one involving Trayvon? Of course, it will also produce tragedies that do not involve black youths. So are these laws enacted in line with some bizarre idea of acceptable casualties? Do people who accept passage of these laws understand that the possibility of people being killed without reasonable cause is close to 100%? And that Zimmerman and others may also spend the rest of their lives wondering why they pulled the trigger and wishing they hadn’t?

And that’s without even considering the generally high level of stress in modern life combined with the huge desensitization potential of video/computer games and violence as portrayed in the media. These increase the probability of violent assault to the point where permitting easy access to firearms and allowing people to carry them around is nothing less than socially irresponsible.

Of course, people willing to abandon justice out of fear for their safety are fearful for legitimate reasons, crime in particular, as well as false reasons such as racism or other prejudices. But the main factor in crime is unequal distribution of resources and goods, which will change only when we realize that harming or depriving another is harming or depriving our self, and that that we must do our best to ensure everyone has what he or she needs to participate fully in life. These are the two imperatives arising from the concept of justice we have outlined.

There was no justice for Trayvon, but there can be a move toward justice and away from society’s tacit encouragement of aggravated killings by people unable to think rationally when they pull the trigger. Certainly this would require opposing interest groups that are out to change the old motto of “a chicken in every pot” to “a gun in every hand.”

Beyond this stopgap, however, lies the singular need to remove false separation built on a misguided concept of self. Until then we all suffer the effects of injustice through violence, fear and crime; through anger, frustration and depression; through loss of what we have and what we could have, in ways we will never even know.

The Trayvon Martin case not only highlights a lack of justice but reveals, like the tip of an iceberg, how laws and willing ignorance of social reality enshrine injustice instead.

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