Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [160]
Such people, then, jealously watch over the respect shown to their rights as such, independently of the interest they actually take in the good that their right happens to cover in the given case. The fact is that they attach an immense weight to the question of whether their person is treated with due esteem, which implies a scrupulous respect for their rights. Thus, if some property of theirs is stolen, they are much less grieved by the loss of that good than shocked by the sacrilegious interference with their range of rights. Hence, it does not lessen their fury if, owing to insurance, they suffer no material damage through the theft.
Something of this abstract sensitiveness about one’s rights is present in practically all of us. The saints alone are entirely free of it. However, it is inconsistent with the ethos of the true Christian and should be diligently repressed. For, apart from its constituting’ a specific source of discord, it obviously harbors a residuum of proud self-assertion and of petty self-importance.
This attitude, again, must be precluded from contributing to the motivation of our conduct and tinging our state of mind in cases when we are compelled to resist an aggression. Even should we deem it necessary to uphold some right of ours merely in order to curb the insolence of a reckless aggressor and prevent the establishment of a precedent that would place us in a false situation relative to him, we must remain inwardly free of that sensitiveness concerning our rights, and make our claim valid in a manner as though it were somebody else’s.
Cowardly acquiescence is not the love of peace
Of course, as has been pointed out above, a spineless disposition to abandon one’s rights is no more in keeping with the true love of peace than is the obsession with one’s rights as warned against here. Not to defend one’s rights, out of sheer cowardice or love of comfort, has nothing to do with the true spirit of peace. For these chickenhearted characters who would swallow any insult do not derive the principle of their conduct from a response to value; it is not the true value of peace that attracts them. They automatically obey the inclination of their nature, to which it comes easier to yield a right or to lose a possession than to sustain any conflict.
Not unlike a suggestible person who without critical reflection adopts alien opinions and outlooks just because he is exposed to their contact, these weaklings surrender anything for the asking, not on the ground of any conscious deliberation or of any reasoned conviction that would make them prefer surrender to strife as the lesser evil, but because they succumb to the dynamic superiority of others before they could even make an express decision. Such are the helpless “softies,” pushed aside or exploited by anybody coming their way, incapable of opposing any resistance (independently of any question of value, nay, even of the question as to pleasantness and unpleasantness), a defenseless prey to any attack.
The kind of peaceable souls we have just been describing lack that basic response to value which is a prime condition for all true love of peace. They are unable, therefore, to ponder the essential problem as to whether their yielding does moral damage to the aggressor or not. For this, too, we must examine before God—in addition to the question as to the value of the threatened good—before we decide between offering resistance or abstaining from it for the sake of peace. Our renunciation may encourage the offender in his unrighteous course, and habituate him to disregard the rights of others to the detriment of many, and above all, of his own soul.
Even in conflict we must maintain inward peace
It is clear, then, that true love of peace cannot dispense us from fighting for our own rights. There is no commandment enjoining man to behave peacefully in all circumstances and