Floating On The Wind
By DONALD DeMARCO
In September 2022, Richard Alan Harvey, age 74, shot Joan Jacobson, an 84-year-old woman who was canvassing door-to-door in south-central Michigan against an upcoming pro-abortion measure in that state. Harvey said that he became angry when he heard an exchange his wife was having with the canvasser and went for his gun.
He fired a warning shot, so he knew his gun was loaded. His next shot pierced Jacobson’s shoulder and, according to doctors who examined her, came very close to hitting her spine. Harvey has pleaded no-contest to charges of assault with a dangerous weapon, careless discharge of a firearm causing injury, and reckless use of a firearm. Jacobson drove herself to the hospital.
Harvey showed no remorse. “I didn’t shoot her on purpose,” he told the 911 dispatcher. “She was a right-wing nut.”
Such violence against a defenseless octogenarian is both criminal and inexcusable. It is a malevolent act that cries out for justice. But it raises the issue of the growing animosity against pro-life people in America and how they are unfairly categorized. Where does one get the idea that being “right-wing” identifies a person as unthinking? Does Mr. Harvey identify himself as a thinking member of the left?
When Fyodor Dostoevsky sent his manuscript Crime and Punishment to the publisher, he appended a note describing the essence of his novel. “This is the story,” he wrote, “of a university student whose mind is infected by incomplete ideas that float on the wind.” The novel was published and is regarded as one of the greatest novels ever written.
Dostoevsky’s note contains three important and illuminating ideas that can be applied to our present time. The first is the notion of the mind being “infected.” The mind’s proper function is to know and understand, not to be infected. An infection occurs apart from our will. It is something that happens to us without our awareness or consent. In medical terms, an infection takes place when a microorganism enters a person’s body and causes harm. Philosophically, a bad idea can enter a person’s mind and cause confusion and even erratic behavior.
Secondly, the term “incomplete ideas” captures the attitude that abortion advocates use to defend their position. No matter how much they try to disguise the truth of abortion, namely, that it ends the life of an innocent human being, the incompleteness of their ideas is evident. “Choice” is separated with the object of choice; “convenience” is isolated from responsibility; and “compassion” is unaccompanied by justice. Living by incomplete ideas is like trying to run on one leg. It is both impractical as well as unrealistic.
The third point relates to the expression, “floating on the wind.” We can catch a cold, for example, without having to do anything except being a passive recipient of something that is in the air. We can also catch bad and incomplete ideas just by absorbing ideas that happen to be popular, trendy, fashionable, or “liberal.” Ideas can get airborne when certain agencies, such as the media or the barons of political correctness circulate them. They are not the result of personal thinking. They happen to us akin to the way a colorless, odorless, gas can get into our system.
In the Harvey-Jacobson incident, the assailant was the victim of all three of the expressions that Dostoevsky noted in his letter to the publisher. Harvey’s notion of being pro-life was detached from a social justice movement that seeks to inform people that abortion kills another human being and harms the mother, marriage, and society in general. In other words, his mind was infected by incomplete ideas that float on the wind. This notion of being a sitting duck for any fragment of a more complete idea can be contrasted with how a civilized person should be educated in a civil society.
Our minds should be active in the pursuit of truth. We should understand ideas in their completeness. We should resist being manipulated by social trends. Violence makes sense to the ignoramus who sees no other way of dealing with that with which he happens to disagree.
We can confidently say that Harvey’s violent act was neither loving nor intelligent. His offense carries a possible prison term of four years. Incarceration, however, is a poor substitute for education. Ms. Jacobson intends to press charges. Suffering financial penalties is another way of “learning one’s lesson,” but it rarely succeeds.
In Gabriel Marcel’s book, Man Against Mass Society, the author, a philosopher who is particularly concerned about the welfare of society, states that “the masses exist and develop…only on a level far below that at which intelligence and love are possible.” He regards propaganda (we might add, “political correctness”) as rousing people not to life, “but to that appearance of life which particularly manifests itself in riots and revolutions.” A mass society suffocates intelligence and love, replacing them with impulsiveness and a propensity toward violence.
America is the only country that drew its authority from natural rights. All men, it is written, are created equal and are endowed with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
America is now moving from a philosophy that is well thought out to a mood which is not at all thought out but forms the prevailing atmosphere of impetuosity and a propensity toward violence.
Dostoevsky’s novel had a happy ending once Raskolnikov, the protagonist, understood the aberrations of his philosophy. Will America awaken to its noble foundation and regain its love for thinking and recognize once again the importance of human rights and the primacy of love, justice, and fraternity? It is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
