Soldiers die -- but for Schiavo we cry

A society is often defined and shaped by the way it kills. By that measure, we’re one of the world’s most schizophrenic cultures.

On the one hand, we are immune to the deaths of thousands on the battlefields of Iraq, accepting as “residual damage” the innocents who lose their lives in the way of war.

On the other, we wail and pray for a woman who had been brain damaged for 15 years, moving like fools along a path determined by politicians seeking nothing more than the pleasure of the crowd.

I’m reasonably certain that it wasn’t Terri Schiavo’s life they alleged to be protecting but their own careers, tapping into the baseless need of a religious minority for a cause. Those who find justification in the savagery of war found none in the mercy of allowing an essentially dead woman to leave us in dignity.

To excuse our schizophrenia, we cite God as the ultimate determiner of who lives and who dies. God says kill, we kill. God says save, we save. All around are those who presume to be conduits of the holy word, contributing to the frenzy of the mob.

The evangelical right and the lock-step left found union in the empty shell of a woman whom prayer could not animate nor political activity save. And there, among the hordes, never failing to appear when cameras are rolling, was old Jesse Jackson, either running for office or running for God, but always visible.

The older I get the less I understand just exactly who we are. I have grown more cynical about the thrust of our mercy. Compassion has become a media event, the ultimate reality show in which we can all participate. We join the like-minded in restless prayer because we’re afraid not to. We march because we have little choice.

Oppose war and you’re unpatriotic. Oppose capital punishment and you’re pro-killer. Oppose the anti-abortionists and you’re pro-death. Oppose the feeding tube for Schiavo and you’re what, anti-God?

It used to be possible to oppose war and still be patriotic. It used to be possible to simultaneously hate both crime and state-sanctioned killings. It used to be possible to dislike abortion but still understand a woman’s right to chose. It used to be possible to cry over the fate of a Terri Schiavo but favor the mercy of letting her go.

As I thought about Schiavo and divisions created by our leaders for political gain, I came across a story certain to divide us still further. It’s the case of Army Capt. Rogelio Maynulet, on trial for a “mercy killing” that is sure to find backers. It’s war, they’ll say, and that’s different.

Maynulet killed a wounded Iraqi prisoner to “put him out of his misery,” according to published reports. He is further quoted as saying “it was the honorable thing to do.” This adds yet another level of contradiction to an already addled culture by introducing the notion of honor into the killing of a helpless man.

A tank company commander, Maynulet indicated that he had other matters to take care of and put the wounded Iraqi out of his misery only because a medic determined that the man was beyond help. It was a decision made in the field upon, one assumes, some kind of cursory examination of the victim’s wounds.

I suspect that among the militant right wing, there will be a sympathetic understanding of Maynulet’s decision to take a life. The pattern has repeated itself over and over again. And yet they can oppose a decision made by medical experts after years of testing to remove the feeding tube of a body devoid of humanity.

Yes, there are differences in the two situations, but at some point we are going to have to see through the miasma of our blurry attitudes. A psychologist I know suggests that civilization is trapped between cave and high-rise, still driven by ancient instincts in a world that increasingly demands a balance between intellectualism and compassion.

I am as troubled as anyone trying to understand the subtleties of emotionally charged situations that call upon us to take a stand, if only in our own attitudes. The atmosphere is clouded by self-serving demagogues who, like false leaders of the past, stir the masses to places beyond logic, where the god they worship makes decisions that they want him to make. It’s the gospel according to the mob.

We are a nation of contradictions, pushing or pulling as wild passions take us, looking into the abyss for answers and finding nothing but darkness. It’s a darkness, I fear, that might someday control us. Nietzsche said it better more than a century ago: “If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”

Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.