There's this recurring argument in certain circles and especially on tumblr that posing a risk to someone actively victimizing you in some way is always unacceptable, but particularly if it's 'disproportionate.' If someone breaks into your house and gets shot, that's disproportionate because they 'probably' weren't going to physically injure you (worse if they weren't themselves armed with a firearm, how dare you engage in an 'unfair' fight). If a mugger gets killed because their victim fights back that's disproportionate because how dare you value someone's life over the contents of your wallet. If a woman stabs her would-be rapist and he bleeds to death that's disproportionate because 'rape lasts a few minutes, death is permanent.' If someone's harassing you by smashing your mailbox and wrecks their own arm after you reinforce it that's disproportionate because hey, it's not like they broke your arm, just your possessions.
And I feel like an alien every time I encounter this sort of thing, because it's so antithetical to any kind of logic or self-consistent ethical framework I can wrap my brain around. It's taking the genuine virtues of mercy and valuing human life and blowing them out of proportion into grotesque parodies of themselves. The victim here is not the one responsible for the ultimate outcome.
Does that mean that we should approach everything with infinite escalation forever? Hell no! But that doesn't change that almost all 'disproportionate' escalation the victim performs is dwarfed by the act of trying to harm an innocent victim in the first place! If I take the 'total violence' of a situation from a 1 to a 3, I've tripled it, but if I take a previously non-violent situation and amp it up from 0.00000000001 to 1, I've scaled it by an insane degree that makes that factor of three look minuscule despite technically being a lesser net increase.
And it's never even applied consistently! The victim has agency and is responsible for their role in escalating things, but the aggressor isn't held to the same standard. They're infantilized, they're treated like an automaton, the damage they do is treated like a foregone conclusion when the entire situation could have been avoided by them simply not going out of their way to hurt someone else. Is the victim's choice to react when backed into a corner somehow less predictable than the attacker's choice to harm someone unprovoked?
It's like that old line from Lewis about the errors coming in complimentary pairs to keep you bickering about which one is worse and so slowly nudge you towards the other. Yes, vengefulness and mercilessness are the enemies of justice and goodness, as are callousness and indulgence.
I think when people say necessary evil they are usually talking about “doing something wrong because it seems easier to try to counter the wrong that way” and I also think all you succeed in doing is. Creating more evil
The three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), each have a part where they list Jesus's twelve closest disciples, also known as the apostles. The lists are mostly the same, though the order and names vary slightly. Lets look at them!
Matthew 10:2-4
"The names of the twelve apostles are these: Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him."
Mark 3:16-19
"[He appointed the twelve:] Simon, whom he named Peter; James, son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James, whom he named Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder; Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus; Thaddeus, Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him."
Luke 6:13-15
"When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called a Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor."
Here's some things to note in the Biblical lists:
Simon-Peter is always first, and his new name, Peter, is always included. Meanwhile, Judas Iscariot is always last, and he's always specified as the one who would betray Jesus. Spoilers!
For Peter's father's name, I looked to Matthew 16:17, where Jesus calls him "Simon son of Jonah" or "Simon bar Jonah" ("bar" is just the Aramaic way of saying "son of").
Matthew and Luke list Andrew next to his brother Peter, but Mark lists Peter, John, and James first before listing Andrew, because the trio of Peter, James, and John is given special attention by Jesus.
James is called the son of Zebedee, and together with his brother John, Jesus calls them "Boanerges," or "Sons of Thunder," probably because of their boldness and zeal... or maybe just because they asked to nuke a Samaritan town (Luke 9:51-55).
Philip and Bartholomew are always listed together, because they seem to know each other before Jesus calls them, and Philip was the one who recognized Jesus was special and brought Bartholomew to Him.
Bartholomew shows up in the synoptic Gospels, but not in the Gospel of John. However, John mentions an apostle named Nathanael who doesn't show up in the synoptics. To reconcile this, scholars deduced that Nathanael must be another name for Bartholomew. This makes even more sense if you know about "bar" being an Aramaic name-prefix that means "son of." Suddenly, any name that starts with "bar" becomes a patronym (a name derived from the given name of one's father) rather than one's own given name. "Bartholomew" probably derives from "bar Tolmai" ("son of Tolmai") and so this apostle's name was probably "Nathanael bar Tolmai," but everyone called him "Bar-Tolmai," which became "Bartholomew."
"Thomas" and "Didymus" are the same name. Thomas comes from the Aramaic or Hebrew word for "twin," and Didymus comes from the Greek word for "twin." Because John's Gospel mentions both names, I mentioned them here.
In Matthew's Gospel, Matthew recounts how he was once a tax collector, but left his post after being called by Jesus (Matthew 9:9-13). In Mark and Luke's Gospels, the same story appears, but the tax collector is called "Levi" (Luke 5:27-32) or "Levi son of Alphaeus" (Mark 2:13-17). I skipped the Alphaeus part in this because it was too wordy, and might accidentally make people think he's the son of the same Alphaeus as James. I don't personally think they were actually blood-brothers, but it's possible!
Speaking of which, among the apostles who are explicitly related to each other, we have the brothers Peter and Andrew and the brothers James and John. Other apostles may be related to each other, and while many headcanons rage loudly in isolated corners of the Christian fandom, such speculations aren't super important for faith, history, typology, or fun. For example, I really like the case for Other James (son of Alphaeus) and Other Judas (Thaddeus) being related to each other, along with maybe Other Simon (the Zealot), but I wouldn't hold anyone to it.
On that note, Judas Thaddeus (also known as Jude or Judah) is called "Judas of James" in Luke's Gospel. Some translations say "son of James" and some say "brother of James," but the original is just something like "of James," which is very vague. What was his relationship to James? WHICH James are we even talking about? These questions are the gray area where headcanons fester and thrive.
Simon the Zealot is also called "Simon the Cananean." Some sources think "Cananean" is equal to "Canaanite" (or "from Cana"). Others think "Cananean" derives from the Aramaic word for the rebellious Jewish political movement called the "Zealots," which didn't necessarily have to do with the location called Cana. I skipped calling him "from Cana" in this cartoon because of this confusion, and simply called him "Simon the Zealot" for now. Here's a Wikipedia section on this: Simon the Zealot: Identity.
And then of course we have Judas, who's mentioned last in all three synoptic Gospels' cast lists, and who's always specified as the one who would betray Jesus. I swear, you betray your beloved teacher Who happens to be God incarnate and directly lead to His death ONE TIME and you NEVER hear the end of it!
In this cartoon, I basically just illustrate the list of the Twelve, combining the multiple synoptic accounts into one big cast list, except that, unlike in the Bible, the ending narration of Judas's betrayal is heard by the characters. They aren't supposed to hear it, of course, but it was funny to imagine Simon hearing that Judas would betray Jesus and preparing to react accordingly. Landing on a joke after such a technical comic is always nice, as it helps to soften the forced education. I did a lot of reading on this to make sure my list was as informative and accurate as it could be without leaning into any controversial or unhelpful interpretations. I certainly learned a lot while drawing it, and I hope you learned something while reading it! If I learn anything new after this point, maybe this comic will get a Tomics Resurrection when the cast list shows up in the reading schedule again.
people in fiction are always making plans like "how about tuesday?" and then leaving without elaborating. what time? where? do you even have each other's numbers? deeply stressful
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