Conan, Haiti, & Judgment

By C.E. Moore

I recently got into a lively “Tweet Off” with author Jackson Pearce about, of all things, the $45 million payout Conan O’Brien is receiving in order to exit The Tonight Show. The debate didn’t center around the recently ended late night war between Conan and Leno. To be honest, I could care less about that. I prefer Letterman. Even then, I don’t watch late night television all that often.

Anyway…

Prior to finding out that Conan’s final stunts didn’t cost as much as he purported (by his own admission), I was indignant. Given the tragedy that had recently befallen Haiti and the ongoing problems in the world, it seemed to me, foolish and wrong to be spending a great deal of money on a flashy car to dress up like a giant rodent and a mink Snuggie for a horse. Whatever humorous point Conan was trying to make was drowned out by the staggering cares of the world. Then, he admitted that the stunts were fake and nowhere near as costly as he was making them out to be. He even poked fun at angry bloggers hitting their keyboards to write “Dear Internet” letters about just how angry they were. Of course, I had just released a slew of Tweets into the Twitterverse to that effect, so I felt a bit sheepish. Still…something didn’t quite sit right with me.

Forty-five million dollars is a bit excessive. Okay, well, it’s a lot excessive. When the President of the United States takes the time to sit down and write an article for Newsweek about “Why Haiti Matters,” hearing about some dude getting paid an ungodly amount of cash to exit a talk show seems like a lesson in misplaced priorities. Add to that the fact that the recent “Hope for Haiti Now” benefit (advertised heavily during Conan’s final telecast) raised 58 million dollars and it makes it seem downright sinful. NBC paid Conan O’Brien 45 million dollars. More than 33 million of that will go directly to O’Brien and the remaining 12 million will go to his staff. For those of you keeping score, that’s almost 60 thousand dollars a staffer. Take into consideration the seven months worked and that adds up to nearly nine thousand dollars a month per staff member. All total, the money paid to O’Brien and his 200 staffers is almost 78% of what was raised to help with the relief efforts for millions of suffering people. Let me put this into perspective for you, NBC paid 201 people 45 million dollars to leave a television program while others around the world pooled their resources in the midst of “the worst recession since the Great Depression” to raise money to help the poor and disenfranchised.

Ms. Pearce took issue with the judgmental tone my tweets took. “Aren’t you supposed to judge not?” was the initial question posed to me. From here, it spiraled into questions of excess versus poverty, luxury versus contentment, the nature of hypocrisy, and relative wealth. This is not the first time I have been called judgmental. And, to be honest, sometimes I have been pharisaical in how I go about dispensing grace (as if it were mine to dispense). That cannot be denied. My human frailty often puts me on the wrong side of judgment. So, I would like to thank Ms. Pearce for the reminder that I am an agent of grace, not condemnation.

Be that as it may, there is something troubling about the world we find ourselves in as Christians when it comes to the practice of judgment. Ms. Pearce’s response and many others like hers beg the question: Are Christians called to judge? What does it mean to judge? If I look at the situation and say, “That’s wrong on a fundamental level,” is that judgment, or it is something else?

Jesus says, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1-2, ESV) This is the verse that is often alluded to in order to bolster the argument for Christians not standing in a place of judgment over others. And rightly so. This is a great warning against Christians pronouncing other people guilty before God. Approaching other people’s lives and actions with a judgmental and harsh attitude results in God judging us in the same manner. But, it is not a proscription against judging altogether. Quite the contrary. Matthew 7:1-2 is the opening of Christ’s statements of how Christians are called to judge rightly.

The verse continues forward, “Why do you see the speck that is in brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Here, we find Jesus using hyperbole to get across a point about self-evaluation before evaluation of others. He doesn’t say, “Just judge yourself. Leave others be.” He says, “Judge yourself first that you may be in a better position to help another see where they might do better.”

But, “judgment” today is a far cry from what Christ was getting at. Better stated, any form of judgment—even necessary and good judgment—is viewed as unnecessary and harsh. Today’s culture operates with the unstated maxim that “fences make good neighbors/mind your own business.” We enjoy our autonomy, our vote, and our rightness in every decision we make. But, some decisions are wrong. Some priorities are misplaced.

When a multinational corporation like NBC pays out huge sums of money to a few people while simultaneously begging the world population (i.e. Americans) to “do their part” and give to the “Hope for Haiti” Benefit Fund, I grow a bit concerned that we have somehow missed the plot. When that same multinational corporation—owned by the elite few—is responsible for “developing” third world countries under the guise of “long term economic growth/investment” while simultaneously moving the urban poor further to the fringes, I grow a bit concerned. When multinational corporations cause conditions on a daily basis and then avoid filming it for fear of public outcry, I grow a bit concerned. Haiti has only been filmed and photographed and written about and blogged about because, currently, it is unavoidable. But, even now, the footage of Haiti is beginning to fade…

Last night, I live Tweeted the season premiere of LOST. A few days before that, it was the GRAMMYs.  So, while I write this to you, please understand that I write with a preacher’s heart to myself. I have missed the plot. I miss the plot every single day in some way shape or form. As I use my laptop to write this treatise, am I inadvertently supporting some conglomerate that causes the very problems I am shaking my fist at? As I attempt to “judge rightly,” do I really care?

So, yes, I am being judgmental. I do not fear being judgmental. But, in the process, I am indicting myself for my own lethargy in regards to the matter in hopes of shaking myself from slumber along with the sleeping giant. I want to remove the speck and the log. It is right for me to judge that “NBC does not really care about Haiti. They can do better.” It is even more right for me to judge that “I do not really care about Haiti. I can do better.”

So can you.

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