The crows try to keep the eagle grounded. The eagle’s strength is the ability to fly to higher altitudes, to Rise Above.
You are an eagle. You are meant to soar. But one level of oppression by the crow today, perhaps the main level, is socioeconomic oppression.
Contemporary society can take a person who on the surface is relative to the majority lowly and struggling, and effectively cause them social, psychological, and economic death. Principally through social stigma. To effectively ostracize them, to make them into outliers beyond their own choice.
Those blessed with family stability, social acceptance, and a typical middle class standard of “success” or higher may not see the reality that there are many, not merely a tiny percentage, who are pushed to the margins to perpetually struggle upstream just to carve out their own little niche in life.
At the center of the clique today are the narcissists, with unfolding, concentric circles of enablers around them, reaching outward towards the perimeter. They enable the narcissist first and foremost so they also don’t get in some manner targeted and alienated. Those who have different weaknesses than narcissistic tendencies end up not near the center, nor within those concentric circles of enablers.
They typically end up on the margins. I’m sure that socially darwinistic dynamic has always played out in society as a consequence of original sin. There will always be people persecuted like Abel was persecuted by his brother Cain (in the extreme form of murder), or suffering souls like Job left to wander the planet in search of relief from their darkness, whose own friends turned their backs on him. There have always been Christians who experience either physical martyrdom or some form of white martyrdom.
If you have felt like there is a pattern in your life of white martyrdom or the like, besides invoking the imprecatory psalms to ask God to exact His own vengeance on your enemy, to make them “your footstool,” as Scripture says, you don’t always have to roll over and take it, or just move on.
You are a child of God made as much in the image and likeness of God as the elites or their enablers. You have just as much moral and legal rights to dignity, peace of mind, and legal justice.
So, Rise Above, at least some of the time availing yourself of the Law and the option of going to Court. I think that approach is more commonly taken if you have the money for an attorney, and your life can sustain the drama of a legal battle.
But in the long term, you can’t afford to always or near always surrender your rights and not stand up for yourself. You must choose your “battles,” which means sometimes you must go to battle to defend yourself from the aggressor and person who instigated the conflict. And to defend those like yourself of similar status.
I think one of the impediments is the person typically thinks that if they cannot afford an attorney, or secure one based on a contingency arrangement, that means they cannot effectively represent themselves in civil court. If you can handle yourself well in small claims court, truth be told there really isn’t a big leap to doing the same in civil court, except, for the most part, more time, hearings, and paperwork.
Also, in the first place, you can certainly prepare well all documentation, a timeline, and witness list in a folder given to attorneys, and plead your case to at least be taken on contingency, if necessary making several appointments. Nonetheless, considering the ethical reputation lawyers have earned for themselves, you can certainly Rise Above even them and represent yourself.
And remember, according to the constitution, you have a right to a jury trial of your peers. Also, I think according to most jurisdictions, the Court typically will give financial considerations based on your income level and personal debt, in terms of all court fees.
The whole point in most cases is not actually going to trial in front of a jury, but to build your case against the defendant and their lawyer’s case, to then negotiate settlement outside of court.
In an age of entitlement and greed, most people, especially if they represent large corporations or organizations, will never apologize or make amends in a personal way. The “apology,” the restorative justice, the compensation boils down to a judge or jury determining guilt, and ordering the defendant to pay compensation in the form of $$$ (for pain and suffering, punitive damages, etc). Or much more often in the form of a settlement.
Then use that fair compensation to better your life and those around you, in a Christian way, THAT is the justice. THAT is your closure, making you at least somewhat whole again. Though probably never entirely whole.
You will Rise Above, over time.
We are all encouraged and empowered to take care of ourselves, to seek help from others, and to seek what is fair and just, in which justice is, as St. Thomas explained well, “rendering to the other what is owed them” (see his Treatise on Virtue and his Treatise on Law). Just as everyone of us can be to some extent his own physician, or to educate themselves, so you can also be in a general, informal sense, to a certain degree, your own lawyer.
If you are charged with a crime, or sued for a large sum in civil court, in which you are the defendant, then it is of course foolish to represent yourself in court. HOWEVER, if you are the one suing in civil court, or simply leveraging that possibility to settle a grievance outside of court, you don’t have much to lose if in the end you represent yourself or lose in court.
The bully is empowered to be a bully by means of the knowledge that statistically most of the people they bully will not have the staying power or will power to go the distance, assuming you can’t or won’t seek a “legal process” that implicitly could lead to a jury trial. They assume you will probably be a doormat. But they and their ilk are morally disoriented focusing on material survival at ground level, like a crazed flock of crows pecking at the dirt, whereas you have moral compass, divine purpose, and are pointing your beak upwards into the sky to hopefully soar.
Like an eagle. They are crows, and you are an eagle, at least an eagle-in-training earning your wings.
The bully is hedonistic, driven by the utilitarian pleasure principle (laid down by the “Enlightenment” philosopher John Stuart Mill), so on a personal level in their internal constitution, they have little staying power, while you are driven in contrast by the quest for wisdom and virtue, and so are willing to walk through fire to get justice.
To go the distance, to plug away and persevere through the 15th round, so to speak, with the interior peace that the very act of seeking justice gives you peace, regardless if you win compensation.
For the vulnerable, the underdog, the marginalized, if this is their mentality then it is their SECRET weapon. This was the strategy of Mohammed Ali when fighting and beating George Forman, which he called, and popularized as “Rope a Dope.” Your enemy has no right to know your strengths, so keep them secret from them, keep them guessing.
They will train more to be strong, powerful, and to dominate. But you will train to outsmart, outmaneuver, to be resilient, to be ten times better at taking punches, to Rise Above. The health of muscle tissue is not only the ability to do physical work and move limbs across a lever system.
A bodybuilder may have large muscles, or a deadlifter may be able to dead squat 500 pounds. But how resilient is their muscle tissue to injury; how long does it take to recover?
But you will focus instead on building resilience, smart and calm reaction, and speed of recovery, in addition to strength and power. Your goal is to wear out the bully and make them eager to give up. And then you artfully create a resolution in your favor. Or you turn back and defend yourself with a calculated degree of what is called “defensive aggression.”
You don’t just defend yourself defensively, like blocking a punch, you end their aggression by knocking them down until they don’t get up, figuratively speaking. You will be prepared and know when to switch from the “Rope-a-Dope” strategy of the underdog, weak only at surface level, and turn the tables on the aggressor and defeat them.
You do this through an attitude of seeking both justice and mercy. Through an attitude of mercy, you are able to pursue justice and restitution instead of revenge, which belongs only to God, by means of any legal, authoritative process in which ultimately there is some human being with God-given authority to judge and punish justly. Taking a “legal” approach, which implicitly could lead to the grievance being brought before some form of “court” or “judge” enables you the underdog to defend yourself in the first place, but also avoid falling into the sin or at least psychological state of “unforgiveness.”
Bitterness and wrath will wear down the bully themselves while taking a civil and calm approach will be one of your secret weapons. Every time you re-engage them, you wear them down, because it saps their energy levels to respond to you, or even to ignore you, being consumed by negative emotion, whereas you being consumed by calm and reason, you are sustained by the positive emotion of righteousness which is what you feel emotionally when pursuing justice.
Avoiding bitterness and self-righteousness, which is relative to you the actual state of mind of the aggressor which weakens them over time in the “battle,” then over time you grow strong and actually stronger than them. Maintaining that frame of mind, combined with going the distance, will generally result in eventual victory. It isn’t a guarantee, but high likelihood.
That is part of the nature of injustice in society, that if the defender wishes to defeat the aggressor, and get justice, it often takes a drawn out process and period of time. Think to yourself “so be it.”
It took centuries for the early Christians to have their rights to the true Faith upheld by the Roman Empire. Some battles are worth fighting, even if it takes some time. Stop choosing to never or rarely defend yourself. Weigh when a situation is gravely impacting your life or your loved ones, in terms of money, employment, livelihood of all kinds, health, or social standing.
And then Rise Above. Document, have witnesses, a detailed written Timeline as it unfolds, stay calm, respond within the law, and always consider that you have the secret weapon in the U.S.A., despite all its flaws, that as long as there is some basic merit to your case, then you have a right to a trial, and to ask a jury of your peers to use their God-given authority, by means of government, to judge and order restitution.
That is one critical way to Rise Above the crows like an eagle, not only spiritually or psychologically. The Catholic Church after all, has never taught a spiritualistic doctrine to only wait for justice to be given out by God directly, or in the next life. Scripture does give a process of fraternal correction, and internal resolution, but does encourage legal justice when the enemy continues to stonewall, by going to court after all internal efforts are exhausted.
And the last point, remember, if you stand before a jury in civil court, in contrast to criminal court, you are not required to prove your case “beyond a reasonable doubt” but only to “be more likely true than not.” You only have to show that evidence and testimony TILTS somewhat in the direction that your allegations are the truth.
Think about that the next time you get screwed over by a mechanic, health care provider, or corporate organization. The next time you experience bona fide harassment, discrimination, assault, or the like. Or the next time someone in trusted authority re-abuses you while reporting bona fide abuse.
Rise Above. Always keep the “usefulness of court” in your back pocket as another one of your secret weapons.