A part of what happens to people who value the ideas and ideals of freedom and justice (over everything else) is that they often become too enamored with the romantic view of the individual persons heroic role in shaping reality and thriving in a hostile world and become inattentive to the responsibilities of individuals to each other in a society that can only thrive if the hero is protected, taught and nurtured by decidedly non-heroic ordinary folk who invest her with the value of freedom and justice in the first place. When we fail to appreciate the irony of the protectors need for protection the connection between freedom and justice is undermined, even destroyed by the toxicity of the willful ignorance and belligerent arrogance of people and institutions who achieve success by exploiting others tendency and willingness to sacrifice. This is almost ludicrously ridiculous because there has never been a hero story written, told, produced or remembered that does not have this very irony as its central theme. Every tragedy has its roots in the retelling of this warning. Every comedy celebrates this power of ordinary wise folk to save more glorious and gifted child-like, beautiful but misguided heroes from the idiocy of their illusions about what is important and possible, about love, itself or the noble selflessness of real love. The folly of our courts misunderstanding of the meaning of personhood (and therefore misinterpretation of the merits of our constitutions valorization of the importance of individual freedoms) is rooted in their misunderstanding of true heroism of ordinary people who are the source of the success and wealth of corporations and elected representatives and must by law be protected from the overweening power of democratically derived authority, artistically derived celebrity and economically accumulated wealth and influence if true democracy is to thrive. This seems like such a simple and fundamental notion. Its power and import is suffused in our art and history and faith traditions and still, we miss it completely. We are such an arrogant people.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 16:44:35 +0000
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