“The growth of modern constitutional government compels for its successful practice the exercise of reason and considerate judgment by the individual citizens who constitute the electorate.” — Elihu Root
When I was a child I was fascinated by many programmes aired on television. They frequently fired my imagination — spurring me on with images towards such transitory ambitions of becoming a policeman, a fireman, a soldier, a lawyer and yes, even a doctor. I remember, for example, a television serial named Ben Casey, starring, Vince Edwards, in the titular role, and the renowned actor Sam Jaffe, who some might remember for his role in the 1960 Oscar award-winning movie Ben-Hur.
Ben Casey, as I recall, was a very passionate and skilled surgeon. I wanted to be like him, and everything that I encountered that seemed sick or injured — plants or otherwise — the only solution that I saw was “to operate”, which meant slicing and dicing or cutting things open.
Although I am a grown man, the years have not tamped down on, nor have they squelched nor extinguished the imagination that I had as a child, possessed by so many individuals in their adolescence. I found that it has informed so many of my productive endeavours in life. And so today, please join me, dear reader, as I use my active imagination to assess politics in the U.S., in Jamaica and, indeed, elsewhere in the world where the attitude of mankind towards their involvement in such issues as they affect their own welfare is often adverse.
Today I am a research psychologist who is going to outline three theories which I believe describe, at the barest minimum — even if they do not explain their source or cause — the adverse attitude of many to their very own welfare in the world of politics.
The citizenry in the United States, where I reside, and in the land of my birth, Jamaica, and also in other nations of the world — whether democracies, oligarchies or totalitarian regimes — are suffering from one, two or all three of the maladies formulated from my imaginary world. Please be warned that I will be using biblical references and terminologies in this escapist psychiatric trek of mine, and the “data” from such “groundbreaking” research. (To be honest, they are actually plagiarisms).
Do the populace in the U.S., in Jamaica and elsewhere in the world suffer from “The Adam and Eve Syndrome” — when the best is never good enough; or from the “Judas Iscariot Syndrome” — when less is seen as more; or from the “They Chose Barabbas Syndrome” — when the wrong people are given credit and placed in positions of authority not suited to their abilities or the lack thereof? Are they suffering from one, from two, or from all of them? Let us think this through or see if these will evoke the need for further studies. Let us begin with Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve, according to the Bible, were both created perfect, by God. They were free of the taint of sin, corruption and death. They were placed in a paradise environment — literally. The place was so secure and so free that no clothes were needed. They had fruit trees in abundance with a variety to choose from that was, simply, staggering. The icing on the cake, an item that was placed centrally in that paradise, was “The Tree of Life”. The individuals in question had unrestricted access to that tree which required no forms of I.D. cards, no security key pads to punch-in passwords, nor any laser beams that one had to crawl under or over.
Should there have been a genuine mishap or accident, of an existential nature, they would have been able to eat of it and to never experience the ravages of death. But, apart from “The Tree of Life” and the plethora of other fruit trees that they were able to partake of — with no backbreaking work to keep things going — was yet another tree that was also centrally located, and that was the “Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil”.
With respect to that tree, it was the only one that came with a warning and a prohibition with a rational and a reasonable explanation. If they had eaten of that tree then they would have experienced a life of and an awareness of both problems and peace, of both poverty and prosperity, and of both despair and of hope — coexisting at the same time and space — within an arch which would have ended only in death. Contrary to popular opinion about them being treated as minions, or as mindless automatons, who had no say about what their Creator had done, or about what they thought of Him, or about themselves, and who felt duty bound to listen to and to obey Him, that tree was a symbol of an alternative to all of that. With all that provision and the wisdom behind it they chose to cast their votes in favour of a serpentine philosophy, against their better judgement and one that was also against their own self interests. As we observe people both at home and abroad does that behaviour sound familiar to you dear reader?
Judas, one of Christ’s disciples, was sent out on two occasions, with his colleagues, on evangelistic missions with a special endowment from God’s Spirit to heal the sick and to raise the dead. They returned from their crusades and recounted, excitedly, what God had done through them. And please remember, dear reader, Judas was among them. He had been a partaker of and a witness to the great things done through the power of God. And yet, at first opportunity, Judas chose 30 pieces of silver over a life which was imbued with power that was enough to raise the dead.
Does that sound or does it look familiar to you, dear reader, especially at election time? The irony is that many years after Judas hung himself, out of guilt for having betrayed his Master to the authorities for 30 pieces of silver, there was another man who was so impressed by that same power, as it was displayed through Jesus’ disciples, that he offered to obtain it with money. Are these good specimens — as a result of mankind’s unfortunate encounter with the proverbial “Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil”, which allowed mankind to experience good and evil at the very same time?
The Good book also records a time when a group of people, after having experienced being miraculously fed on different occasions, and after having experienced healing and witnessing their loved ones being raised from the dead to life again, shouted: “Give us Barabbas, who did nothing of the sort for us, and let that other fellow who had actually accomplished them be crucified! Yes! Yes! Yes! Take him away and let him be ignominiously and brutally crucified! And as for Barabbas, who is a proven insurrectionist and a murderer, please set him free so that he can do as he was doing before and thus incur the wrath of the Roman Empire upon us, to take vengeance against us where and when it wills!”
Those people got exactly as they desired because in A.D. 70 a Roman General by the name of Titus annihilated their city and their temple, fighting men like Barabbas. I do not know about you, my dear readers, but these biblical accounts, whether you deem them as facts or fables, are instructive of the heart and minds of the populace of the world as they have been viewed through the prism of world history.
As this writer began this column with a quotation from Elihu Root, who was an American lawyer and an Republican politician, he ends it with a quotation from the late American writer, intellectual and political activist, a Democrat, he ends with the same quotation which not only underscores the points that he tried to make, citing ancient examples from other eras, but from a credible and a contemporary witness from our own era, when he wrote that:
“Persuading the people to vote against their own best interests has been the awesome genius of the American political elite from the beginning.”
This is an axiom that is true not only of the U.S. or of Jamaica, but also of other peoples from other climes and from other times. Whether we are white or Black, rich or poor, uptown or downtown, saint or sinner we all seem to be infected with this fatal flaw. Nobody is exempt. Ah soh wi tan. But this is not an argument towards cynicism and hopelessness, it is a clarion call to be ever watchful and to be ever critical of a weakness that must be monitored and controlled, using education from objective, proven and reliable sources — with an open willingness to learn and to be civil to others. This is our only hope in the political process.
