Don’t Celebrate Your Enemy’s Demise
King David after hearing of the death of his rebellious son Absalom. A painting by Frederic Leighton.
“Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him.” —Proverbs 24:17-18
One of my first lessons in morality—real morality, not crowd morality—arrived the morning after Osama bin Laden died. I was 16 and ready to party. I ran into my dad’s room as he was getting ready for work. The TV showed wild throngs in Times Square and at the White House, cheering like we just won the Super Bowl.
My dad gave me a sudden, fiery look. “Look at these people, they’re barbarians!” He said. “This is what barbarians do. Only a barbarian celebrates their enemy’s death.” Now, my dad wanted to see Osama bin Laden dead as much as any other patriot. But he also had a strong moral compass. He knew how debasing it is to celebrate the death of another human being, no matter who they are. How could we condemn the Muslims who danced at American deaths when we dance at their deaths?
We live in the age of the own. The dunk, the mog, the milkshake duck. We cheer when our enemies lose their jobs, their reputations, and their lives. I see memes of dead politicians burning in hell. I see online mobs humiliating those they’ve deemed bigots. I’ve seen popular writers tweeting things like “suffer, bitch” in response to the benzo addiction of a controversial psychologist. I see conservatives laugh when a pro-abortion activist dies after getting an abortion; I see liberals laugh when someone who refused to wear a mask dies of COVID-19.
First of all, anyone who does anything like that is fundamentally disconnected from the nature of life. We are all just one butterfly wing flap away from a hurricane destroying everything we own, one car crash away from horrific burns and scarring, one cancer diagnosis away from someone saying “suffer, bitch” to us. Being happy about another’s loss shows we know nothing about the fragility of our own lives.
I recently rewatched Obama’s speech about bin Laden’s death and noticed he didn’t smile once. It was rather dignified, I thought. Once, maybe, there were taboos about this sort of thing: don’t disrespect the dead, don’t celebrate your enemy’s defeat (unless, of course, your enemy is [REDACTED]). Now, we have whole hip-hop genres based on clowning the deceased. It might be entertaining, it might garner millions of views, but it doesn’t mean it’s right.
Back in the time of the Bible, King David’s thirdborn son Absalom grew jealous of his father. He declared himself king and raised an army of his own. Absalom and King David’s armies went to war; Absalom died in battle. A messenger arrived in Jerusalem to tell the King the news. King David was “deeply moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept. And as he went, he said thus: ‘O my son Absalom—my son, my son Absalom—if only I had died in your place! O Absalom my son, my son!’”
I remember my dad telling me that story as a kid, how profound and tragic and important it is to the story of ourselves. There shouldn’t be celebration at the death of those who wish death upon us—only a cold, sad silence. On Passover, Jewish people are instructed to drink overflowing cups of wine to celebrate their liberation from ancient slavery. Yet they are also instructed to spill ten drops of wine onto the table, as an acknowledgement of the suffering that the ancient Egyptians—their oppressors and captors—endured while the Jews fled Egypt. They, after all, were God’s children too.
I can’t say for certain, but I don’t think God celebrated when Osama bin Laden died. I think He might have wept—that one of His children could have gone so astray. I think that goes for any human who comes to represent evil. When an Absalom rises against God and is duly defeated—as all enemies of the Lord eventually are—I think God cries like David did.
I know this is an unpopular belief, especially today. One could easily twist my words into something they’re not: that I’m somehow justifying crimes against humanity, or siding with the villain, or indifferent about justice. That’s not what I’m saying. Justice should be enacted, the wicked should be punished, the opps should be defeated. But we should preserve our own dignity and refuse to gloat. And just like one-half of the yin-yang, we should save a drop of humanity, yes, for the perpetrator.
I watched the Derek Chauvin trial closely. Even though we live in a “society of the spectacle”—where single incidents are used by the media to inflame and control society—it felt good to throw my passions behind the masses on this one. My girlfriend is much more of a Democrat than me, but we bonded over the trial: talking about what an asshole Chauvin was, his cruelty, his transgressions. I wanted to see him convicted and given the harshest sentence.
My girlfriend was telling me how she felt about the verdict. “And you know, when they slapped those cuffs on him”—I was ready to fist pump—”I empathized with him,” she said.
Now, according to some, my girlfriend shouldn’t have that belief. She is a Black woman who cares deeply about police brutality. She told me that if Chauvin wasn’t convicted, she herself would march in the streets. But when the verdict was read, she wasn’t happy. She was stoic.
2000 years after the birth of Christ, forgiveness and compassion—even for the most wretched among us—is still a radical concept. Even after the scales of justice tip in the correct direction, there is still room for compassion for the perpetrator. The same people who wanted to see Chauvin acquitted, I would wager, are the same who give little care for the mass incarceration of Blacks in the United States. And the same people who want to see Chauvin executed with no trial, I reckon, are the same people who want leniency for other types of violent criminals.
For most people, morality is solely based on social pressure. People don’t even know what they stand for: 15 years ago, the majority of Americans were against gay marriage…the same people who signal their pronouns now are the same people who would have been homophobic when it was the norm. No, “morality” for these people is the politics of the moment. Their causes are strictly determined by the mainstream media’s incitement. They sacrifice nothing for their beliefs, they live in social circles where everyone mirrors their beliefs, and they would have followed the “morality” of any age: drowning witches, accusing supposed Satanists, killing Christ. All the mobs who did those things were convinced they were doing the right thing.
Real morality isn’t supposed to be easy and it’s definitely not popular. In every age—why would ours be any exception?—the most moral characters are censored, imprisoned, and crucified. It takes courage to hold fast to the belief that all people are innocent before being proven guilty, to show empathy for those you see as evil, to resist the temptation to celebrate over your enemy’s demise. Snarky gloating may be rewarded with clout in the short-term…at the long-term price of one’s soul.
The truly moral, I believe, accept victory with humility and defeat with grace. It’s not an ideal we always live up to—I certainly don’t—but it’s one we should strive towards. The joy of winning the Super Bowl is because your team won, not because the other team lost. Cheering bin Laden’s death is far easier than trying to make a point not to. But this value is worth it. It’s worth believing in and it’s worth fighting for. If only to teach our children.
Editor’s Note: This is the first in our series of “whitepills”—short essays on how to be a good person, how to live a good life, and how to do good in an upside-down world. If you have an idea for a whitepill, pitch us.
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