Courtesy of google.com
Polonius, a statesman in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, gives his son the following advice: To thine own self be true. These sage words come from the play’s fool. Nonetheless, his warning against self-deception is wise, though it is difficult to follow. Frankly, if delusion were a commodity to be bought and sold, many of us would be wealthy.
I count myself among the fools, not because of feigned modesty, but because I have tried to strip away my misperceptions, and still they grow. Life’s vagaries are a reason. No sooner do I rid myself of one ignorance than another appears, as surely as the pimple at the end of my nose will migrate to my chin. The only solace I take from my folly is that it might be a degree different from the main.
I won’t be found among the 53% of polled Americans who didn’t know the 250th celebration commemorated our nation’s founding. I have an inkling of our country’s history and no fear of facts. Yet I can’t stand on my laurels because I also know that facts change. I accept that the earth is round, and not flat, for example. What’s more, I’m aware that people change, sometimes with the speed of a chameleon.
Tucker Carlson is a shining example. A newscaster and former Donald Trump sycophant, he’s become so disenchanted with his former master that he is calling for a new political party. Steve Bannon, a Trump advisor, doesn’t go as far in his rebellion, but like the oracle of Delphi, he predicts the MAGA movement is doomed. Meanwhile, James Carville, once a Bill Clinton advisor, senses a similar disaster for Democrats. For the movement to retain its intellectual purity, he proposes to throw out many members.
Thank heavens for Senator Bernie Sanders! He’s known where he stands his entire life…although he’s changed his view of women. He no longer sees them as preoccupied with a secret desire to be gang raped and enslaved and welcomes House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a colleague.
On another note, in the 1800s, the philosopher Joseph de Masters wrote that every country gets the government it deserves. There may be some truth to it. Citizens who do not vote or have the barest understanding of government are a danger to democracy. If the 90 million registered voters who skipped the 2024 election had cast their ballots, I doubt the U. S. Constitution would be on the endangered species list.
Despite our shortcomings, the American people no more deserve their current leaders than they deserved the Covid 19 pandemic. They are being punished for the inhumanity of a few. Megyn Kelly’s diatribe against Haitians does not reflect the country. Stephen Miller’s xenophobia is an embarrassment. Billionaire Joe Lonsdale’s dream of returning to public executions is an abomination.
What most of us see in the cruelty of these few is that they are the foreigners among us.
Even so, we cannot cast them away. They are our darker angels. And so we drag them behind us, like Marley’s chains, these troglodytes who exist for the purpose of warning the majority of what it might become.
I have never doubted that Americans are more than the sum of this lesser part. As a people, we are generous. I say this because my mother said it, a Costa Rican by birth, who harbored bitter memories of U. S. aggression in Latin America. Even so, she would admit with wonder that “Americans are kind people.”
Because she said it and did so grudgingly, I never doubted her. Yet, moments exist when I waver. And then I see the resistance to cruelty all about me, the iron courage of people who stand for decency. They make me proud.
I am prouder still to see their worth reflected in a foreigner’s eyes. A tourist to the country for the first time, arrived for the World Cup, speaks to a journalist about his experience. “America’s great,” he says, wiping tears from his eyes. Then, to assure us he is convinced of the fact, he says it again. “America’s great.”
Hearing him, I do not doubt his judgment. Nor do I doubt that America does not deserve its current leaders.
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