The bottom line here is that no listing or categorization can tell us who are the least among us. So what is the answer?
I believe the answer is functional. The answer best illuminating the critical importance of this measure of humanity is this: the least among us are the least able to resist the treatment given to, denied or imposed on them; least able to retaliate for negative treatment; or least able to reciprocate for positive treatment. The least among us are those who can neither resist, retaliate nor reciprocate.
Why is the inability to resist, retaliate or reciprocate the most functional and meaningful definition of the least among us? Because the way we treat someone who can resist or retaliate for negative treatment only reliably shows how we act in the face of fear or expedience. The way we treat someone who can reciprocate for positive treatment only reliably shows how we act when we expect or are hoping for something in return. The key word here is "reliably." We may very well act with love and respect to the richest person in town out of genuine humanity, but an outside observer cannot be sure we are not simply ingratiating ourselves in hopes of future favor. Only by seeing how we treat those who cannot resist, retaliate or reciprocate can we know how a person acts based purely on his or her own humanity, love, or morality.
Why Should The Mainstream Observe and Care How The Least Are Treated?
Politically the way the least among us are treated is crucial because, as we have seen many times throughout history, the categories included in those who cannot resist, retaliate or reciprocate can change, and sometimes rapidly. Who would have thought in the 1940's that successful, famous and wealthy movie directors and writers only a few year later would be rendered penniless untouchables just because of a rumor that they once belonged to a hated (least) political party?
But perhaps the best illustration of this principle is the famous poem written by Martin Niemoller, a Nazi concentration camp survivor. One popular version (of many) recites:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Viewed in Matthew's framing of the risen Jesus on judgment day, Neimoller informs us that the least among us can not only change with shifting political tides, but can grow and evolve as tyrants learn they must expand the circle of those they oppress to prolong and tighten their dominance of society and hasten their appropriation of its wealth and resources.
He instructs us not only that we must remain ever vigilant of the rights of temporally demonized, suspected, or scapegoated-lesser- groups to ensure the protection of our own rights. Niemoller also warns us to remain ever observant of how our leaders treat the least among us, for that shows us the true face of their humanity and teaches us how they will treat all others who find themselves for whatever reason unable to resist, retaliate or reciprocate. In short, how our leaders treat the least among us shows us how we will be treated if we become one of least. Few in history have ever known this reality better than Niemoller and his contemporaries who found themselves in German concentration camps after no one was left to speak for them. After, in other words, they could no longer resist or retaliate.
So the answer to my son-in-law and all other conservatives is that we must care how our government treats Muslims today because we may ourselves be among the hated and therefore least group one day in the future. Sometime in the next fifty years, whites will nolonger be a majority. What if all minorities cooperate and decide to oppress white people? What if you were a high-flying corporate CEO and suddenly found yourself in prison for fraud? How would you like the way we treat prisoners then? More importantly and probably, with our society's abject refusal to take care of the least among us economically, what if we are hit by an uninsured driver in a crosswalk and end up with a brain injury leaving us unable to earn a living and our savings are not sufficient to sustain us? Without a doubt in American today the unemployed and mentally challenged are clearly among our least. How will we want our society to treat us when we are forced to join their number?
Not to go all metaphysical on you, but if we are all one ignored red light away from becoming the least among us, we are all, in effect, among the least right now. Nothing actualizes that was not potential and potentiality is just latent reality. So we should pay attention to how our leaders and our society treat the least among us because we are, in fact, all the least among us.
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