Karma and the LA Fires (Taylor's Version)
Investigating two different definitions of karma and the role of personal will power
As the destruction of Los Angeles rages on, people across the internet reveal their judgement by claiming that the fires are because of karma.
Anyone who has spent time in the City of Angels knows it is infinitely more diverse than awards shows, movie stars, fancy clothes, and high budget productions. Still, many around the world only know the version of Los Angeles they see on their screens.
Out of this narrow perspective, a vicious response has emerged. Those who believe LA to be only a place of glitz and glamor, celebrities and product placements, excess and superficiality, are watching homes burn with glee, commenting across the internet that this is karma—that the fires are happening because people in the city deserve it.
On the surface we see a classic case of the “haves” versus the “have nots,” with people perceiving a return to equilibrium. (They have more money, property, clothing, etc. than me… So this makes us even.) But below the surface, a deeper motivation rests in the psyches of those who rejoice in the face of another’s pain.
Why would anyone revel in such “karma” being placed upon another human being?One root cause is at play—and we can understand it once we unpack two different definitions of the word.
Our first definition of karma is cause and effect. More broadly put: the belief that every action, thought, or intention has an outcome.
If we take this definition at face value then, yes, the fires in Los Angeles are because of karma. The cause of rising temperatures, poor land stewardship, and rampant mental health crises has us led to the effect of fires flattening multiple neighborhoods and decimating thousands of homes.
This definition of karma has nothing to do with deserving. It is just math—certain causes have certain effects. Plain and simple.
People of all income brackets all over the world have lost everything due to the cause and effect of rising temperatures and poor land stewardship. Did Appalachia deserve to be destroyed? What about New Orleans? Pakistan? Australia? Or any number of other places devastated by cause and effect? Why then, when it comes to Los Angeles, is it suddenly a matter of “deserving”?
This leads us to our second definition of karma: cause and effect + moral judgement.
By calling the fires “karma” rooted in the belief of “deserving,” commentators reveal a different kind of karma that is more than just cause and effect. Where does this definition of karma come from and why is it so widespread today?
Important questions that deserve answers but first: Taylor Alison Swift.
On December 8th, 2024, Taylor Swift ended her record smashing multi-year Eras Tour with one final song—a song called “Karma.”
In the song, coming in at just under three and a half minutes, Swift sings the following lyrics over and over again,
…karma is my boyfriend
Karma is a god
Karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend
Karma's a relaxing thought
Aren't you envious that for you it's not?
On the remixed version of the song and in its music video, Taylor Swift’s collaborator Ice Spice raps the words,
Karma is your check’s [about to] bounce
Karma is the fire in your house
And she [is about to] pop up unannounced
Whomever Swift wrote the song about (fans have decided that “Karma” is in reference to either Scooter Braun, the man who bought and withheld her masters, leading her to re-record her first six albums, or Kanye West, the man who interrupted her at the VMAs in order to draw attention to Beyoncé), her lyrics suggest that she thinks they deserve to have their house catch on fire in retribution for the actions they took against her.
Just like commentators on the internet believe Hollywood actors deserve to lose their homes for… um, it’s not exactly clear, but let’s say for benefiting from an industry they perceive to be corrupt.
Now, let’s return to our two different definitions of karma:
One, cause and effect without moral judgement.
Two, cause and effect with moral judgement.
In the first definition, karma without judgement, cause and effect is mathematical. X + Y = Z. Specific weather conditions + sparks = widespread fire.
In the second, karma with judgement, cause and effect is moral. Which does not have a mathematical equation. We cannot do math with moral judgement because judgement is subjective.
Unless, of course, you subscribe to a religious doctrine. Within a religious belief system, judgement is objective. There are rules, and there are punishments for breaking those rules. An outsider may see that judgement as subjective, but an insider perceives judgement as the ground they stand upon.
This is where the line gets blurry. If judgement is the ground you stand on, someone’s house burning down would be the natural outcome of their bad or immoral behavior (as defined by you) and not the cause and effect of, say, downed power lines and high winds.
If judgement is not the ground you stand on, suggesting that a burned down house is the outcome of immoral behavior sounds like repackaged original sin ideology.
This is where our second definition of karma comes from: the church. It is the notion that you will be punished if you do not behave. It is the threat that you will go to hell if you do not fall in line. This is the most widespread definition of karma today: punishment for bad behavior. If you are bad, the fire will come for your house. But instead of following a set of rules handed down by God, people are making their own rules for who deserves to be punished and how.
Kind of like Taylor Swift. Swift does not wait for karma to take care of her enemies. No, she takes justice into her own hands by making herself the judge, jury, and executioner—and ensuring that anyone who crosses her pays.
Here we seem to move away from an impartial law or principle of cause and effect (with or without judgement baked in) and move into a matter of someone wielding their personal will power to achieve retribution and equilibrium.
Is that speeding up the process of karma or is it something else entirely?
The definition of karma as “punishment for sin” comes from a culture entrenched in separatism. We are detached from God just as we are detached from nature just as we are detached from each other. We live in fear of our inner divinity, cut off from our inherent power. Fear is the root cause behind all of this.
The people stating “karma,” in response to the LA fires, are terrified—so terrified and so completely unaware as to how terrified they are.
They lash out, cheering on the destruction of others’ homes, because they cannot bear to sit with the pain and anguish of the possibility of losing their own stability. Desperate to remain safe in world of increasing chaos, they laugh in the face of others’ suffering. They do this because they have not accepted their own experience of suffering. They have pushed down, suffocated, and otherwise disassociated from their own internal pain.
To be in touch with that pain would be to accept that these fires may one day reach their doors. This is why they jeer. If the fires they see on their screens are because of karmic retribution, and not natural cause and effect, then they will remain safe. And so they cling to the illusion safety, in an increasingly unstable world, believing that their righteousness will save them.
Taylor Swift would never. She puts her righteousness into action. She didn’t wait for karmic retribution to come to Scooter Braun for withholding her masters. She took karma into her own hands. With her personal will power, she caused the effects she wanted to see in the world. Indeed, she has made an entire career out of righting the scales against the people who do her wrong.
Whether or not that is karma is up to you to decide. Same as whether or not this behavior is right or wrong. The takeaway is this: We all have the same ability to effect our future. Our power lies in our ability to change our own behavior—and to put new and different causes into effect.
We can wait for karma to play out, with judgement or without, or we could, à la Ms. Swift, decide our own fate—and, perhaps, even, the fate of the entire world.