LOOKING AWAY

Avoiding things that bring us pain or discomfort is a common behavior pattern. We often fail to realize that the outcome of such behavior may be worse than had we faced down the pain itself.

Photo by Diana Polekhina

One of the earliest behavioral patterns that I remember my parents instilling in me was looking away in moments of pain or discomfort.

I can easily recall childhood examples of when I was coached in this behavior. My earliest recollection is my annual medical checkup when the nurse came at me with her huge vaccination needle. Mom’s immediate advice was don’t look at the needle, look away and you won’t feel the pain so much and it will be over quicker. A corollary to the nurse’s scarry syringe was when my parents all too frequently found themselves playing domestic doctors, applying iodine to my skinned knee or using tweezers to dig out splinter from one of my toes.  “Look away! Don’t watch and it will be over quicker!”

As I made my early ventures out into the world, my parents encouraged me to continue the practice of looking away in certain social circumstances to which I was exposed. At the grocery store, the first time I encountered a disabled child or adult, my gaze became affixed as my young mind struggled with how God could let this misfortune happen to a person. Then Dad shook me out of my quizzical gazing with a tight grip of his hand on my shoulder and the stern command “Don’t stare!” I looked away.

Peer pressure was also at work during my school years when, obvious to us but not to the teacher, one of our classmates cheated on a test. Not that we would snitch to the teacher, but we were also reluctant to call out the student. To confront bad behavior was just too uncomfortable. Avoid it! Look away! Hopefully the cheater will get a comeuppance in the future.

Then there was the time in the high school halls when I came across three large boys pinning a smaller classmate against the metal lockers while they flung insults at him for some alleged disrespect he committed against them. Or perhaps it was just because he was different in some way, and small enough to torment without threat of retaliation. I don’t know what the other onlookers were thinking, but I was feeling increasingly awkward for not having the guts to jump in and defend. Even though, I feared, such an attempt would likely bring down on me a painful beating. I looked away.

Just as I turned to leave, however, I was jostled by a small girl who pushed her way forward, and with her arms flailing and shouting an amazingly developed locker-room vocabulary of invectives of her own she charged the bigger boys, who scattered in a submissive retreat. Then she put her arm over the shoulder of the victimized boy and walked him down the hall to his next class. That painful memory of my failure to act far exceeds what I suspect would have been punishment I might have experienced had I attempted what that fearless girl had done.

I’ve too often carried my looking-away pattern of behavior into adulthood. I feel for the panhandler at the Metro entrance, but I also look in the other direction when I pass. Why don’t I act differently? Why don’t I take the time to learn his story? Why don’t I work to find out why and how the social safety net system of the world’s richest country somehow failed him? I rationalize that to give him money would likely just support a habit of substance abuse; better to put some extra dollars in the Salvation Army pot during the yearend holidays to assuage my discomfort. Right now, I’ll just look the other way. These occurrences are infrequent, but they become additional depressing mental baggage that weighs on me. 

More troubling about this look-away behavior of mine is the ease with which I can ignore a news media exposé of a politician who clearly lies or cheats, or of corporations whose low wage practices force their employees to depend on food stamps and rent support subsidies to make ends meet. Somehow those with power sense that collectively we will look away when they trample public trust and social decency.

Too often the guilt of complicit silence is easier to tolerate than the emotional strain of becoming involved and joining the struggle to right a wrong. I look away because to look, to become aware and then not to act with whatever capacity I have, would make me feel more uncomfortable or simply inconvenienced. But when I look away in such circumstances, don’t I become an enabler, even an accomplice of bad behavior? Aren’t there some small but principled ways I can make a difference, by taking a more assertive stand against such practices?

As well-intentioned as their parenting was, perhaps my mom and dad were not doing me a favor by urging me to look away from bad and painful experiences.  When I do, I act more like the priest or the temple scribe, the Levite, than the good Samaritan on the metaphorical road to Jericho of life. I’ve now come to recognize that I need to work at reprogramming myself to not look the other way, but to welcome the pain, to take on the trauma, to share the burden and heal the bruises of those whom in the past it was easier for me to ignore or avoid.

Today I have the help of hindsight and the sense of urgency to shove me forward and into action. Moreover, I’ve found incentives to help me reform. One discovery is that I am not alone. I am particularly impressed by those around me with less time and resources than I now have who do not walk away from the injustices they witness.  Like the small girl chasing off the high school bullies, they amaze me with what they accomplish. Their convictions inspire. Their perseverance prods. These are the average folk, who organize and demonstrate for what they value, who use social media and street marches to shout “Enough!”  I may no longer feel up to marching in the streets but certainly can support such efforts, and not look away.

A second realization is that there are now several tools that I, that each of us, can apply to make a difference. When we collectively use these tools, we can speak louder and get potential perpetrators of injustice to act more responsively. One such tool is our precious but still vulnerable news media which provides comprehensive coverage of the performance of our political leaders and candidates, information to help us vote more responsibly and advocate more effectively.

Moreover, as consumers and as investors we can easily access readily available information to help us identify which firms’ products we should avoid buying or stocks in which I should eschew investing because a company follows racial, gender or other discrimination in its hiring practices and wage policies or pollutes the surrounding environment with its emissions and waste products.  If my bank engages in predatory lending, I can move my accounts elsewhere. If the big box retailer I patronize engages in acts to drive small mom-and-pop stores out of business, I can patronize the mom-and-pop stores to show my support for the value of their services and products even if I have to pay a bit more.  It’s called pocketbook politics, and collectively we can employ it to great effect.

With a little research I can put my retirement savings in funds that invest in companies which follow responsible environmental, social and governance practices; for example, manufacturers with responsible waste and energy management programs, companies with fair wage and employment policies, and corporations that have racially diverse leadership and management teams.

In addition, many of these social investment funds mingle my money with much larger likeminded institutional investors – teacher pension plans and university endowments - which increasingly are directing their money toward socially responsible firms. My voice can be greatly amplified in corporate board rooms when combined with that of other like-minded large and small investors.  And there are increasing examples of those collective voices being heard and changes made.

Finally, and perhaps the most compelling incentive for not looking away is the awareness that there really is nowhere we can look away in the world today. We are all experiencing a global viral pandemic that is indiscriminately striking down even the most noble and morally erect among us, many more than need be the case if we can advocate successfully for principled and empathetic leadership to guide us. There really is no ‘away’ where we can look to avoid the current social, economic and political challenges confronting us. Pain and unpleasantness no longer go away by looking away.  

I can now more easily identify the institutions and people with whom to engage to comfort the hurting and to confront their victimizers. I no longer have any excuses for looking away.