Between the Lines XIII: Trump, fear and moral law
On November 30 and December 7, The Washington Post published two opinion articles by Robert Kagan, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and an editor at large at the Post. The first was titled, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending,” and the second, “The Trump dictatorship: How to stop it.” The articles produced a tsunami of reaction, both from those afraid that Kagan’s assessment of Trump as potentially dangerous if he gets elected President for a second time is true, and from those who disagree with Kagan and see Trump as a brutal but honest leader fighting to save the America his supporters understand and love from those they fear are intent on destroying it.
How do we break the grip of all this fear? Kagan is skeptical that a dictatorship can be prevented, and many others on both sides of the political divide believe America cannot be saved without serious, perhaps violent, intervention. But there’s another way to look at things: If we change the focus from personality and doom to a different, more enlightened approach to politics, the path to peace and good government may become visible.
The widely respected historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari, in his book, “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” sees the need for a globalization of thinking. That may be part of the answer. “In previous eras national identities were forged because humans faced problems and opportunities that were far beyond the scope of local tribes and that only countrywide cooperation could hope to handle,” he writes. “In the twenty-first century, nations find themselves in the same situation as the old tribes: they are no longer the right framework to manage the most important challenges of the age. We need a new global identity because national institutions are incapable of handling a set of unprecedented global predicaments… [T]he only real solution is to globalise politics.”
But is it enough just to think and act more globally? Both sides in the American political debate believe that the fear generated by Trump – and the hatred it instigates – have power. Fear and hatred don’t necessarily succumb to globalized thinking. Rather, they succumb to the determined practice of moral law and to an understanding of the spiritual law that underlies it. The saying used to be considered wise, “Think globally, act locally,” but now perhaps we should make it, “Think spiritually, act morally.”
In Holy War, David Darke became more global in his thinking and, with all good intentions, brought himself and his friend Tamar from America to Russia. But his professional and personal ambitions got in the way of his moral convictions and landed him in a Moscow jail and in the clutches of a Russian bureaucrat. Slowly, he is waking up, an awakening that will affect profoundly those around him.
The world doesn’t necessarily need more globalized human beings. What it needs is people who are deeply moral in their thinking and action, who understand and can prove something of the love and wisdom of God that is working in and through all of us by means of moral and spiritual law. This is a step beyond the global – perhaps many steps – but it’s where we need to be heading.
Hariri, in fact, edges toward religion as the answer to the problem he outlines. Religions think beyond the global. He asks, “Perhaps…we can rely on the universal religious traditions of humankind to help us unite the world?” But then he wonders, “…are traditional religions still relevant? Do they retain the power to shape the world, or are they just inert relics from our past, tossed here and there by the mighty forces of modern states, economies and technologies?”
The question as to whether religion is outdated or merely untapped to its fullest extent remains for each of us to answer in our lives. What we do know is that trying to reach our goals through fear and hate, or through blind loyalty to a nation, party or someone’s personal agenda, is not going to solve the big problems the world faces. The only way to reform countries and individuals is through repeated proof by each of us that understanding and demonstrating moral and spiritual law brings healing to the world. See Between the Lines V: Rules and Laws for more on this.
Former US Congresswoman Liz Cheney, a staunchly conservative Republican, and journalist Rachel Maddow, an equally committed liberal Democrat, recently had a discussion on Maddow’s MSNBC show that was remarkable in its civility and clarity (highlights here). They both showed how to rise above politics to truth. Each woman clearly understands that freedom and democracy are too valuable to drag through the mud of hate and fear. They united, not on political positions but on the importance of truth and moral law. It’s where we all should stand.
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