Once again, I’m not sure I can do this very well. In a way this is a review of the Netflix
Longmire series, but it is more about the thought it has provoked, i.e. my
reaction to it. Of specific interest to
me are the answers to these questions in my personal life. 1) What is
truth? 2) What is good and what is evil?
There are people and places in the Longmire story that are
symbolic of the forces of good and evil.
The protagonist, Walt Longmire, is not only one of the symbols of good,
but is also in a constant struggle with the question, “what is truth.” His best friend, Henry Standing Bear is the
classical helper for the main character, Walt Longmire, and Walt’s daughter,
Cady Longmire, is also a supporting character and possibly a snapshot of the
younger, good-hearted, idealistic Walt Longmire. Deputy Victoria “Vic” Moretti played the role of
the protector of Sherriff Walt Longmore and harbored an unconfessed love for
the Sherriff.
The city of Durant, Wyoming represents the normal day-to-day
American middle class citizen, while the “Rez” represents the vulnerable poor.
On the other side was the chief of evil, Malachi Strand, and
the morally compromised Jacob Night Horse.
Malachi Strand was the epitome of evil. He was shrewd. He was cruel and merciless. He was so skilled at weaving a web of deceit,
entrapping his prey, using his prey until it was of no use to him, then
disposing of it ruthlessly.
Jacob Night Horse built a casino using the money of a
wealthy man, Barlow Connally, who represents the power of money to corrupt people
in power. But, when Barlow Connally is killed (suicide by cop), Jacob turns to
more corrupting force for financing his casino, the Irish Mafia, which in turn
threatens to take over Jacob’s entire operation and flood the “rez” with drugs
and more poverty. While Jacob surely did
dance with the devil, it was never his intent to do more harm to his Native
community. But that is the nature of
evil, to attract and corrupt little by little, and finally totally destroy or control
its prey.
There is another character that shows only three times in
the series, Mary Jo Murphy, a hermit naturalist that just wants to stay away
from the path of corruption, and do what she can to save nature from that
corruption, as well. I think most people
may not recognize her role, but because of my interests in goodness, pureness
of heart, and spiritual influence, I immediately saw an important role. When Henry Standing Bear was literally staked
to the desert floor and left to die by Malachi Strand, Mary Jo showed up to
introduce the topic. While she did kill
the men who stood guard over Henry, she did nothing to help Henry directly, but
she told him that if his heart was good and pure, the spirits would help him get
free and he would live. She left a few
fetishes to guard him from further harm.
Of course, Walt Longmire eventually found Henry and snatched him from Death’s
grip.
There was another off and on character, Dr. Donna Sue Monaghan, a therapist that challenged Walt Longmire to look at things from a different perspective. She told him that we don’t know truth because everything is clouded by our own biases and interpretations. Walt immediately protested, “There is truth.” Sometimes, it’s not so easy to see, but we must keep on trying, we must continue to search for it and find it.
So, the Longmire series had many stories and themes going
on, but those of great interest to me were the ones that dealt with the nature
of good, the nature of evil, and truth.
I’ll start with truth, because without truth, it is going to be hard to
define good and evil.
The studies of human psychology reveal that, for the most
part, we have already formed our notions of truth before those truths are
challenged. In Walt Longmire’s case, he
judged people by his “gut feeling.” He
often determined their guilt or innocence prior to knowing the facts and by his
own admission, he gathered those facts that were consistent with his intuition,
and rejected those that contradicted those intuitive notions. It turns out that this is common human
behavior. Psychological research shows
that we do somehow miss facts that do not conform to our preconceived notions. So, in his quest for truth, Longmire often
ignored truth. At one point in the
story, he begins to doubt himself, and begins to let the “truth” of others into
his process only to his own peril. He
ultimately falls back on intuition and lets that be his guide.
Once upon a time, I found truth in education and religion. Religion and education were my guides, the
rudders that gave me direction. But, I
was not consistent, and I found it extremely hard to understand why. At some point my education began to undermine
my religion. It became a struggle to
find truth, since the “truth” I once knew had been invalidated. The Wiccans have a rule, “Do no harm.” The Christians have the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you.” Jesus the Christ says the most important
law is to love God above all else, and to love one another. The Talmudic scholar, Hillel said the primal
law was “Do not do to others that which you would not like done to you.” All other law, he said, was “commentary.” The Dalai Lama says, “Be kind.”
Well, there we have it.
The bottom line law for our behavior is, “be kind.” Everything else flows from that one “law.” Love and kindness are truth. If you are not loving and kind, then there is
something in you that is not truth. You
are not operating from a posture of truth if your behavior is not kind.
So that brings us to evil.
Now, it is easy to understand. If
you do harm to others, you are not operating in truth, and you are guided by
the deception and corruption of evil.
Oh, if only it were that easy, no?
That brings me to the Yin and the Yang, the two great
components of the universe, the negative and the positive, the passive and the
active; this according to the Taoist view of the universe. I often have heard also, “the Evil, and the
Good.” I reject that label. One of the points of departure I have had
with religions is that everything is given the quality of good or evil, when in
fact, nothing is inherently good or inherently evil. All inanimate objects are inherently morally neutral. However, all things can be used to harm or
help others, but that is the choice of those that use the objects, not the
choice of the object.
So, the use of an object comes down to the intent of the one
that uses it. So, when someone beats
another with a baseball bat, it is not the baseball bat that is evil. But, the person using the baseball bat is in
violation of the directive to be kind. The
intent of the actor is obviously to do harm.
But, wait! Maybe not! What if the “victim” was initially the
aggressor and the one with the baseball bat is merely defending him or
herself. Here we go again! It isn’t so simple anymore, is it? And again, our perception of who is “right”
and who is “wrong” perhaps hinders our judgment and our ability to know truth,
doesn’t it? Because…our perception of
reality has been proven to be inaccurate time and time again.
In fact, this whole business of judgment and justice is just
plain tricky. And like Walt Longmire, we
have to fall back on intuition. Then we
have to ask, “what is justice?” The
Longmire series asks the same question.
It seems that law is made to favor one class of citizen over another and
in the end, justice is not served; that is to say, that the harm done to another
is not reconciled. So, there is the
character of Hector on the “rez.” When
the judicial system cannot resolve an injustice, the tribal people turn to
Hector and pay him to mete out justice by doing violence to the accused
offender. But somehow, the role of
Hector is blurred and imperfect as well, because…truth is so hard to know at
times.
As Walt Longmire said, we have to seek out truth. We must,
or justice cannot be served. If justice
is based on truth, then justice is also kindness.
But, when truth is known, it behooves us to use it to do
good. A person robs another. That person is operating from the basis of
some untruth, a lie. So, part of justice
not only gives satisfaction to a victim, but must also bring truth to the
offender. And the offender now
understanding truth, knows what drove him to wrong another. And maybe, from there comes
rehabilitation. Sadly, our prisons are
just one more indication that our judicial system does not operate on the basis
of truth.
So truth and kindness are tightly interwoven. We must seek truth, and we must be kind. They work together. And when we have to resort to intuition for
our truth, how do we know it is right?
We must know ourselves intimately.
Meditation is the tool for knowing oneself…and many, many other things
that are not readily accessible to us.
Ultimately, we are responsible for our own actions; ultimately we make
the choice to do good or to do harm.
Ultimately, each person is responsible for learning truth, and using
truth to do good.
