Nari Ward, We the People (black version) (2015), shoelaces, 96″ × 27′ (Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. photo by Cdward C. Robinson III)
I can’t say with certainty whether God exists or not. I tend to the latter because of the way I view the matter.
I’m skeptical. It’s the proof in the pudding kind of thing. I feel quizzical, quaint. I ask questions. I look for proof. I’m intrigued by the chain of evidence driven by rigorous inquiry. The deep look back to the past, or the dive into the infinitesimally small to know our present, predict our future, enthralls me. I find science answers so many questions while at the same time it opens beaucoup cans of worms at the potluck. Much like religion.
I was raised to believe a certain faith was the pathway to a communion with divinity. The sit-at-the-right-hand-of-the-Holy-Trinity sort of vibe. The belief that the capacity for human achievement and purpose derives from a spiritual fount, nourished by a disciplined practice. The moral journey. With bump rails to keep you on track, religion answers so many questions and then throws a ton of banana peels on the yellow-brick road. Much like government.
Two hundred and fifty years ago on July 4, 1776, a gathering of men holding variations, combinations, narrow or broad, of these two worldviews came together to declare their break from a system of governance that denied the capability of the people to craft their own forms of government. They held a conviction that the governed were capable and able of crafting a system of governance that worked to safeguard the main pillar of liberty, that all men are created equal.
And much like science and religion, self-governance solves a lot of problems but creates a dumpster load of others. Take the present situation, please. The founders were human. There is at the heart of many things the pesky human element. Damn, if not for those damn humans the things that we could do. The founders could not mask the inconsistency of a document that proclaimed all men are created equal yet demurred on the practice of slavery. George Washington was the wealthiest and largest slave holder in the colonies at the time of the Revolutionary War. He never freed his slaves.
That disconnect, that blind spot, fuels so much of the current attacks on the basic tenets versed in the Declaration of Independence. There is a particular breed with subsets that has divorced themselves from any attachment to real lived experience.
One set has crafted digital empires and bedazzled the equally banal power brokers with the promise of just about anything avarice, fear, hate or evil desires. They orchestrate scenarios by which power accumulates within a select groups of acolytes. They offer data, large amounts of data, data like nobody has ever seen, parched-to-the-bones data, better-than-beef-broth data, and it allows elections to be gerrymandered, and other troubling things.
Others have taken the levers of government and much like first-time manual transmission drivers are riding that clutch, lugging the engine, grinding the gears like three-year-olds on their training wheel bike. The childish response when things don’t go their way is venal, a mix of casual and violent aggression, cruelty masquerading as humor, with chaos the resulting order of the day. And on the margins the grift goes on. I marvel at the way corruption just flows unimpeded through the system like a downspout guiding a steady rain out of the swamp.
I look at the opposing elements that have shaped my worldview. I realize one is a rational attempt to reconcile serious questions about the nature of the world and my place in it. The other side is the spiritual dimension that continuously calls to our better angels, an almost instinctual belief that at the heart of everything is a benevolent structure.
And as time marches on, the realization hits that in all matters regarding human relations, it is very difficult to account and safeguard against the ability of people to gum up the works. We see the evidence of it clearly. Look at the founding document, the original declaration and ask yourself, what of the original rationales for a rebellion found in that declaration apply today? I would argue most of them reflect current examples of a democracy run amok.
The cry of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness runs smack into the belief that not only are we incapable of governing ourselves, but we are also incapable of defining what the pursuit of happiness is. Zealots inform us that only a life lived within the parameters of the holy books of organized religion is the way we should all live our lives. Some argue that the United States is a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. Separation of church and state is for weaklings.
Legal pundits argue over the founders’ intent and in their zealousness to make their point throw out the baby with the bathwater. Talk about wading into convoluted waters. No foray into the current climate is a safe meander. Even with the Constitution in hand it is nearly impossible to get a clear picture of the inconsistencies in the arguments that fill the debate stage. But very clearly, and not in the margins, it is an argument about who belongs and who gets to share in this experiment.
From the vitriol of the past year, the installation of a private army, the attempt to incorporate religious strictures into every governing institution, one can be excused for not recognizing the thing we are celebrating. A tired trope from the last election still poses the question behind this anniversary. Benjamin Franklin, when asked following the constitutional convention, “Well doctor — What have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” replied, “A republic if you can keep it.”
His worst fears are being realized. Up is down, left is right. Horses fly and pigs snort out pleasant melodies. I sound like someone annoyed at having to make a presence at a birthday party and being told how to act, what to bring, what to eat, what
to say. With all respect, you can understand why I choose to sit this one out.
