I think this was a good first draft in the most important sense: it got your ideas out where you can read them. The next draft should have reached a more confident understanding of the issues and your approach to them, so you are ready to present an idea.

I don't see the relationship between "faith" and pursuit of justice. Religious ideas can have powerful effects on peoples' willingness to risk and sacrifice, but they're not the only such powerful ideas. Without having believed in God for a nanosecond, or abandoned a view of the universe as wholly material and knowable by the method we call "science," I have managed to devote myself to learning and teaching about, as well as doing, justice. I don't know why the inquiry into "faith" is more than tangentially related to the subject. An essay that speaks to me needn't share my view, but it should explain the difference.

I don't understand the relationships between suicide and faith and justice that you have constructed. Nor did I understand "Confucianism" as a relevant category. Chinese suicide practices were not part of your argument. Korea and Japan are shame cultures, not guilt cultures, and I think the issue can be placed squarely there, though I still don't understand why in the context of your argument it matters. So perhaps, if it is important to the argument, you could clarify it in the next draft.

What role, if any, will faith play in my pursuit for justice?

-- By JessicaRo - 11 Mar 2017

In our recent discussions concerning John Brown, we briefly touched upon the role of faith in the religious sense. Brown’s faith shaped him and his every action, enabling him to fervently fight for freedom, even if it meant going through with an Abraham-like sacrifice of his son and the forfeiture of his own life. MLK was introduced into the conversation as another individual who was killed in furtherance of the pursuit for justice and equality. Like Brown, MLK was also a man of devout faith, explaining in a sermon that “actually all that I do in civil rights I do because I consider it a part of my ministry.” I was also reminded of figures like Joan of Arc, who engaged in battle after receiving divine visions, and Yu Kwan-soon, another teenage girl who became a renowned Christian activist in her protests against Japanese occupation, a cause she died for at seventeen. History has long told stories of heroes who died for the greater good, with their causes necessarily intertwined with their religious convictions.

Reflecting on these individuals’ tenacity in the face of incredible backlash, it appears that their unwavering faith in an almighty higher power, and perhaps the corresponding belief of an afterlife, acted as a major source of fuel for their actions. But in the present state of our country, where injustice still reigns but, unlike generations prior, religious nonbelief is concurrently rising, what role, if any, will faith play in my and my peers’ pursuit for justice?

Not unlike many first- and second-generation Korean-Americans, I grew up in a moderately religious Protestant household. I dissociated from my church, however, at a fairly young age (I believe I was in the fifth grade). I did not particularly like my youth pastor nor did I believe 90% of what came out of his mouth. I was told I needed to have “faith.” I have since claimed neither faith nor disbelief in God, a mindset that is more prevalent among Millennials than it has been for previous American generations. Dr. Jean Twenge of San Diego State University attributes this waning interest in religion to a growing emphasis on individualism in U.S. culture.

But as faith has for so long played a leading role in how the individual conducts her life, especially in acts that are nested in the realm of morality, it seems fallacious to presume that faith will dissipate altogether in the individual’s pursuit of justice, even with increasing secularity. Yet if not in religion, where does one devote her faith? And where do we derive the conviction to act outside ourselves?

My immediate thought was directed at this growing phenomenon we call “mindfulness.” Mindfulness has become very fashionable. It is the most common quasi-exception I see among my otherwise irreligious peers, aligning with the also popular “spiritual but not religious” stance. I have practiced mindfulness meditation myself but admittedly not with any consistency. As law students, we are frequently exposed to the word “mindfulness,” from the emails detailing the weekly mindfulness meditation sessions held on Wednesdays and signs advocating mental health support posted on the toilet stalls. For several months, the 14th Street subway passage featured a lengthy stretch of ads promoting Headspace, a guided mindfulness meditation phone app with a valuation estimated by Forbes of about $250 million.

Mindfulness, however, is often publicized and/or marketed in a manner that is linked to the concept of self-care. It is a self-centered tool that allows one to become more in touch with the self, supporting Dr. Twenge’s observation of our country’s increasing emphasis on individualism. This is in stark contrast, however, to the faith of our Browns and Kings which was expansive and pervaded far beyond the individual. Where in mindfulness does the individual place her faith? In herself?

But perhaps the practice of mindfulness leads the individual to become so self-aware so as to elevate to a state of Maslowian self-transcendence where she ultimately acts towards goals outside the self, in the pursuit of justice and prevention of injustice. Yet I am skeptical of this goal for two reasons primarily. One, mindfulness, like most things that achieve trendiness, is becoming more and more something to be consumed in the marketplace, a phenomenon I find incongruent with the attainment of self-transcendence. Secondly, the United States thrives off a highly individualistic culture. Religion has seemingly remained one of the county’s few stable institutions that foster the type of moral community described by Durkheim.

Collectivist cultures, on the other hand, feature a process of socialization (and one not necessarily tied to religion) that can become so psychologically ingrained in the individual that it can induce the individual to end her life. Confucian-based collectivist countries in East Asia have some of the highest suicide rates among OECD countries, a statistic that is not so alarming given the longstanding history of honor and altruistic suicides in Japan and South Korea. Of course I am not advocating for suicide. But I question whether the social forces at work in these collectivist countries can be turned on their head to spur the progression of social justice instead. Yet, seeing that our country’s individualism-centered culture is unlikely to undergo a drastic change anytime soon, I wonder if this question is moot.

I did not start writing this essay with an answer to my question in mind and at this point, I do not feel as if I have one. My skepticism toward mindfulness as the grand solution remains even greater than my lack of religious faith. Yet I also realize that I do have faith. Even among my relatively small social circle, I place much faith in my friends and peers that they will do right by me as well as others and I would hope that they think similarly of me. Whether this faith will possess the lasting power of religious faith or is merely an ephemeral product of naiveté, I do not know. But perhaps that’s exactly the point.

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