TWO-DIMENSIONAL MAN IN CONFLICT

 

[The use of man in this essay has two meanings- a particular male individual and a generalized humankind.]

 

Imagine an entitled young Jewish man, a daughter of Cuban immigrants, and a Haitian gang leader collaborating in Miami to create not one, but two tech start-ups in the Netflix series appropriately named Start-Up. That is the story of Nick, Isabella, and Ronald which my wife and I recently binged watched. The story line was excellent despite the gratuitous scenes of sex and violence as the trio deals with a corrupt FBI agent, flighty investors, unsupportive family and friends, Russian mobsters, quirky coders, a murderous CIA operative, among themselves, and within themselves.

We were particularly drawn to the character of Ronald, brilliantly played by the actor Edi Gathegi (you may remember as an assassin from the series The Blacklist). Raised in the Haitian ghetto of Miami, Ronald is married to his sweetheart and together they have a teenage son and a younger daughter. He is a very unusual gang leader- he avoids violence if he can and does so only at the last resort.

Ronald could have killed Nick in the first episode because his father stole $300,000 and gave it to Nick for safekeeping. Ronald decided instead to use the money to invest in the first start-up and become partners with Nick and Isabella. When a group of Russian mobsters shortchanges him on his share of the buyout when the Russians cheated the three partners out of the company, Ronald refused to kill them despite the taunts of his son to do so. When his son is murdered at a party by a jealous young man, Ronald also declines to kill him in revenge. In Ronald’s view most violence is senseless and achieves no useful purpose. He acts this way because he desires for himself and his family to leave the ghetto and become respectable middle-class.

But be not mistaken. Ronald does have his demons. He savagely attacked two strangers at his favorite bar because he felt they were there to see the wild side of town. He kills four Russian mobsters in self-defense. He beats up Nick in retaliation for reporting him to the police (it’s a long story so you just have to watch the series to get the details). And he has no problem with assisting his former gang “homeboys” in negotiating for better drug distribution deals.

The second tech start-up, ArakNet, leads to better things for Ronald. He becomes co-CEO and he and his family move to a better neighborhood. His wife even becomes the soccer coach at their daughter’s new school. Ronald is no longer a “rich thug” (as his wife put it) but is now a successful tech entrepreneur. Yet the dark side is still there. ArakNet is a “dark” website in which anyone can buy and sell anything without government interference. Then one day a federal agent arrives and tells them that terrorists have used ArakNet to facilitate the sale of poison gas for an attack inside the United States. The government needs their assistance in tracking information to ascertain the target and stop the attack.

What would they do in response? Ronald wants to share info with the Feds to save lives but the other partners and their chief investor desire nothing to do with it because assisting the government will hurt their business. Ronald acts but it is too late. (You need to see the series to discover the target.) At the end of the series Nick commits murder and Ronald and Isabella help him dispose of the body.

What are we to make of Ronald? Both good and evil live inside of him. He is in a struggle over which impulse will control him at any given moment. He is indeed a two-dimensional man in conflict.

But what are to make of Ronald is perhaps the wrong question. The right question is-What are we to make of ourselves? Look into the mirror- we are Ronald! Despite any goodness we may possess we can lie, cheat, steal, and betray others at a moment’s notice and even justify our evil actions to our “good” selves.

Ronald thought that success in the tech world would mean that he would not be considered a “rich thug” as opposed to just being mere thug. But even if one wins the “rat race” one is still a rat. As appealing and compelling is the story character of Ronald, he will not find redemption through his own efforts. And neither will we. We all need a redeemer and Jesus Christ fits that role perfectly.

[The four Gospels in the Christian New Testament offer four perspectives on this Redeemer in action. Start with Mark, then Matthew and Luke, and finally with John.]