Redemption Strong
One of the last recorded songs of the great Bob Marley was “Redemption Song”, which took inspiration from Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey. He wrote “The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind.”
One of the prominent themes of my upcoming novel, The Night Howler, is redemption. Specifically, redemption in the modern age. How do you get it? Who deserves it? Is it even possible? The idea of redemption has been documented throughout human history, but the discussion around redemption has become more contested in the last few years. In America, you are innocent before proven guilty. That’s how our justice system works, but true justice is a slow, complicated process. Today, there is also the online court of public opinion, which is much quicker to casually toss around labels of guilt. This reactionary mindset can destroy a person’s reputation, ostracize them from their community and even make them a villain to their own loved ones.
So, what can we do about this? Is a person entitled to anonymity before they are duly tried? What should redemption look like in the modern age?
Here are 3 things I think can help as we navigate this complicated future:
#1
The internet has only been around since the 80’s and social media, the 90’s. That’s not that long ago. If we want to live amicably in this new world of online social interaction, we need to remember that there is such a thing as “talk”. What do I mean by that? People love to say things they don’t mean for the purpose of making someone laugh or bring light to a particular subject. It’s why people tend to have inside jokes, or enjoy comedy, or act silly with their friends. If we don’t laugh, we’ll cry. There used to be a time where you could say a thing and it would drift up into the atmosphere. Now, there’s a transcript for every word you mutter. We need to remember, and allow, for people to be able to say things without consequences for every foul word. People need to be able to say things they don’t mean to eventually get to the thing they do mean. Without space for innocuous foul talk, you run the risk of stunting all forms of talk.
#2
Mistakes happen. Duh, right? It’s a simple idea but one that has seemed to slip away in the vast online sphere. We’re increasingly becoming less accepting of people just f***ing up. This way of thinking fuels the fire of the court of public opinion. If we can’t be more accepting of people’s mistakes, we’ll always be quick to label them as bad. Words are important and the written word can often sting more because its interpretation is based on how we read it. Text on a screen is sounded out by the voice in our head, and who knows what the voice has been through. Understanding that there’s very likely a complex and messy human on the other side of the screen can help us all be a bit more forgiving when we see something we don’t like.
#3
Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. (When’s the last time you heard that expression?) But the point is valid. Everyone has their reasons for why they think and act the way they do. And the truth is, you will most likely never fully understand. America is a vast soup of people and cultures from all walks of life and descendants from across the globe. The idea that we would all think the same way is to deny what it is to be human. When you start to think of people as parts of a bigger picture you start to realize that you have more in common than you think.
In ‘The Night Howler’, the titular superhero finds himself at a crossroad between seeking redemption and moving forward in his life. He is haunted by his past mistakes that have led him down the path of destruction, and pain and people do not let him forget it. Moving forward can be hard, especially when you feel like you need to redeem yourself first in the eyes of the public. In the modern age, there are far more people to please and that road to redemption has gotten very long. If we can all be a little more understanding of each other, we can learn to forgive, and maybe we can even learn to forgive ourselves for our own shortcomings. That, perhaps, is the greatest redemption there is.