Thinking with your head AND your heart.
The post I wrote yesterday has been nagging me in the bottom of my gut since I clicked submit… At first I thought it was just a nagging worry I have about going full-bore to endorse John Edwards only to find that he is indeed just a smarmy trial lawyer behind a facade that convinced even my self-proclaimed-expert scrutiny. (Everyone thinks them the best at spotting a fake, no?) But I came back to re-read my post this morning and began to wonder if I actually believe some of the things I wrote.
I think its common sense to assume that people will ultimately make their decision regarding a candidate, or any other political decision, based to some extent on their emotions. But does this break democracy? Fear can break a democracy, that is certain. But fear and emotion are very different things. What about feelings, passions that come from the heart and from the gut. Are emotion and reason irreconcilable? My article yesterday notwithstanding, I believe the answer is a resounding no. In fact, I believe that without both we are crippled. I grew up with Kirk and Spock, after all.
Can anyone deny the emotion in these words of democracy:
As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right of it in question, (and in matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry,) and as the king of England hath undertaken in his own right, to support the parliament in what he calls theirs, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpations of either.
Or these words:
The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. ‘Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent- of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. ‘Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; The wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters.
(both by Thomas Paine, Common Sense)
Or these, last words of the Declaration of Independence, words of people making the ultimate commitment of kinship to one another:
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
What other purpose to capitalize the words Lives, Fortunes, and Honor?
A democracy, after all, purports to put its power in the hands of the people. And just as people are capable of reason, people also have hearts, souls, and emotions: good ones, bad ones, even ones that change back and forth such that they can never seem to reconcile. So if there is indeed potential in democracy, then it must be attached to how well we realize the full human social potential, not just through one aspect of our gods-given faculties but through a balanced use of all of them. If we allow our hearts to blind our reason, the worst we have done is made a bad decision. But if we allow our reason to turn our hearts cold, we have lost our humanity.
Given only equations and models for population density, how could one argue against the brutal slaughter of dolphins practiced on Japan’s shores, as long as appropriate quotas and limits were observed?
A president needs a lot more than just all the right answers to contemporary questions. After all, how many presidents can you remember that succeeded in implementing every last one of the policies they suggested during their campaign? A president can be a role model - something very emotional. Who knows what the emotional and psychological benefits might be for the children of African-American families living under discrimination and poverty, to see a black man finally become president? How many would gain just a fraction more self-esteem or imagine a potential for themselves greater than their parents had? How many old, racist hearts out there might it also finally change? Impossible to quantify, sure, but hard to deny.
I’m reminded of something Obama said in a speech on the role of religion in politics:
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.
This is the kind of balance between emotion and reason that I’m speaking of. The principles Barack speaks of are ethical principles, moral principles, rooted in emotion. And as he also says earlier in the same speech, the religious do not have a monopoly on ethics or morals.
I’ve never been able to get fired up about John Edwards. I can get fired up about many of the things he has said, because these are things I agree on both rationally and ethically. But while I might not agree with all of Obama’s ideas coming out of the gate, I can imagine myself getting fired up over him.
P.S. This by no means suggestst that I revoke my critique of Zakaria’s terrible article.
