Almost immediately after the news broke of the killing of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, most Americans knew it wasn’t a random murder.
Even without knowing about the shell casings that investigators discovered with the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” written on them, the targeted nature of the assault and the almost universal disdain for the nation’s healthcare system suggested the assailant had a personal or political vendetta, not just against Thompson, but what he represents.
What this vendetta is about remains to be seen. As of this writing, law enforcement officials have a suspect in custody in Pennsylvania, and we will likely learn more in the coming hours. His motive could have been from a tragic, personal experience with United Healthcare or a general political disdain for the nation’s insurance system. It could involve mental illness.
It is likely a combination of multiple factors.
Regardless, anyone with their ears tuned to the socio-political frequency of healthcare knew from the outset that this wasn’t going to be a random news story about a shooting in Midtown Manhattan.
When I heard the basic details of Thompson’s murder, my mind went to another story that has inundated our lives for the past fourteen months–Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza in response to the October 7 attacks.
The details are different but the dilemma is the same: After condemning enacted violence, when is it okay to talk about institutional violence?
By “enacted violence,” I mean the isolated, singular instances of violence that almost always find ways to catch our attention, including October 7 and the murder of Brian Thompson. Incidents of enacted violence sometimes, but not always, are response mechanisms to the more systemic, diffuse practices of institutional violence.
The anxiety and anger that may already be bubbling up in some readers in anticipation of how I may describe institutional violence highlight the complexities and, frankly, the strategy of that form of violence.
A system that ties basic healthcare with employment and whose success is measured by the return on investment of its shareholders rather than how well it serves its customers is violent.
Restricting the movement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is violent, as is continuing to build illegal Israeli settlements.
We have developed the capacity to understand that enacted violence is violence because that capacity is easily developed.
Seeing institutional violence for what it is requires deeper abilities to identify nuance and deception.
As a young adult studying theology, I remember someone telling me that if you want to understand that we are all born with a sinful nature, all you have to do is witness a toddler telling their parent “no” or hitting a sibling when they don’t get what they want. This is problematic on several levels. But even assuming Augustine was correct about the concept of original sin (which I don’t), I think the analogy is faulty.
From my experience, a better example of the sin that plagues us all is when a child, after learning they can’t get what they want from outbursts, figures out how to exert their will over others by manipulating the system in a way that either goes undetected or gains them praise. This can include bullying, cheating or conniving.
Depending on our perspective, these actions may be seen as strategic, problematic, or innocuous. However, it is difficult to see them as the violent acts they are because they are spread thin and over a large area.
The result is that isolated occurrences of enacted violence get rightly condemned, while institutional violence gets debated and dismissed as “very complex.”
While the debate gets moderated, more hospitals in Gaza get bombed and settlements in the West Bank are expanded. As we dig through the minutiae of “nuance,” lifesaving care is denied to patients at increasing rates.
When is it ok to talk about institutional violence?
The answer may lie in how much we benefit from it.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, many people began to ask the question, “Why do they hate us so much?”
Sometimes, the question was born from genuine historical curiosity. But often, it was a quasi-rhetorical question with few acceptable answers beyond “There is no reason” or “Their religion teaches them to.”
Any answer suggesting that the U.S. has been anything other than a virtuous actor on the world stage for all its history invited condemnation, accusations of complicity and not caring about the horrific acts of September 11. The few people with the stomach to reply with an alternate answer learned quickly to be quiet or be deemed a traitor.
More than twenty years later, after wars in Iraq and Afghanistan led to so much loss and devastation, many of us have woken up to the danger of remaining quiet.
People of good faith cannot let any act of violence go un-condemned. We must have the courage to speak out against institutional violence with the same full-throated intensity as we do for enacted violence, consequences be damned.
Brian Thompson carried within him the image of God, and the violence done against him was violence against that same image. He was a father and husband and had every right to return home to his family on the day he was murdered.
Every day, the system Thompson helped lead commits acts of violence against humans who carry within them the image of God. That system deserves the same level of scrutiny the U.S. legal system will assert on Thompson’s killer.
Senior Editor at Good Faith Media.
