Another look at the parable of the Good Samaritan

The night is cold and empty. A man is running for his life. But he is felled on the ground by a single bullet. The assailants approach him, seeing him gasping for his last breath. He makes his final prayer. Soon, he will be gone. We expect human society to be there and respond, but there’s just nobody. We pray that our academic institutions, being the last bastion of freedom and truth, to express indignation for every life that is lost, but many among us are wanting. We have been looking for men and women of integrity to call for this brutality to stop, but there are only a few voices in the wilderness, for the majority of the flock are just too afraid to speak up.

The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, in his enriching interpretation of the “Parable of the Good Samaritan,” expounds for us the profound meaning of human existence. The man whose life has been taken down by unknown assassins may not be, in terms of character, the same man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, but our society’s deepening silence manifests the same attitude of the priest and the Levite who simply passed by, and did nothing to help the victim. In Luke 10, Jesus asks an important question: Which of these men, in your opinion, was a neighbor to him that fell among the thieves?

The priest and the Levite represent the social dimension of human existence. Their inability to act, so astonished by what was before them, speaks of the fact that both are preoccupied by their social roles. Ricoeur explains that the social aspect of our lives proceeds from the organization of society. There are goals that social cooperation determines for everyone. The person, in this sense, is subsumed in the role that he/she has to play in order to achieve the ends set forth by society. Ending the suffering of a people, and even calling for justice for those murdered in front of the eyes of their own children, is already beyond any man’s duty.

In contrast, the Good Samaritan, Ricoeur says, is that person who is detached from any form of social mediation. The Samaritan, who is seen as an outcast in Jewish society, goes beyond any categorization. He is, according to Ricoeur, “the category of the non-category.” There are no rules that will define for the Good Samaritan how he is supposed to act. He acts in the first person. Thus, he reminds us that the “act [of] a neighbor lies in the habit of making oneself available.” As such, Ricoeur explains, “the conduct that he invents is that of man to man.” But the same man, perhaps, now cows in fear, and understandably so. The State’s machinery of violence is too great an enemy.

Yet, we might miss the whole point of the parable if we do not give the Priest and the Levite their due recognition. Our institutions determine the meaning of social mediation by means of the instrumentality of the State. The performance of one’s function is the basis of our social standards. Our law enforcers are only doing their job, we might say. It is wrong to immediately cast the blame on them. There are procedures to follow, rules of engagement to obey.

Without the rule of law, there is no public order. We need not condemn our authorities, but call them out to act with a sense of respect for the dignity of persons. Indeed, without the respect for life, killing some person is simply reduced to the mechanical. This is something that we must not, as a civilized society, accept. Those in positions of power have to be more considerate, even to the point of discernment.

Still, the theme of the Good Samaritan is an appeal to awaken our consciousness. It stands as a permanent critique of every modern democracy. There are moments when laws make persons invisible, an indifference that often reduces the other into that nameless victim. Sometimes, our attitude is bereft of the love for justice. But lest we forget, in the absence of a moral conscience, all human action is nothing short of hypocrisy.

Christopher Ryan Maboloc is assistant professor of philosophy at Ateneo de Davao University.