The Two Hypocrasies

(Underneath the Mask)

The word hypokrites is Greek and refers to an actor wearing a mask.  In the ancient Greek theater the actors wore masks that depicted the character they were playing.  Eventually, the word came to refer to creating a public appearance that was different from the real person – a deliberate deception – a hypocrite.

It seems to me that there are two kinds of hypocrites.  One who wears a mask to deliberately deceive and one who holds up a character persona as an ideal while acknowledging failure to live up to the ideal.  There is a vast moral difference between the two.  It is the difference between deliberate deceit and acknowledged failure.  One pretends to be what they are not while the other seeks to be what they are not.  One has a conscience that traffics on ignobility while the other has a conscience that traffics on nobility.

There were two consciences that dominated the colonies which rebelled against Great Britain to become America.  One made no bones about its commitment to economic imperialism and slavery and was largely ensconced in the so-called slave states.  The other knew that democracy espoused a citizenry equality that slavery violated and was largely ensconced in the so-called free states.  

There were two documents that announced the birth of America.  The first was a Declaration of Independence, largely written by Thomas Jefferson, that avowed the equality of worth of white men which was the first major step in announcing the  ground of democratic relating – equality of citizenry worth.  The second document was the Constitution, largely written by James Madison, which sought to create the governmental mechanism for processing democracy through a system of checks and balances.  It was deliberately flawed in order to entice the slave states and smaller populated states into committing to a united existence as a nation.  There were two major inequities of representation that gave the slave oriented and smaller populated states a voting edge over the larger and free states.  One was the creation of the senate which gave each state two votes irrespective of size along with exceptional decision-making powers.  The other was counting slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of representation while giving their owners the actual voting power.  It was these kinds of inequities that enticed the slave and smaller states into the union and created America. These compromises facilitated the continuation of a two conscience nation: One committed to democracy and the other committed to despotism.  The current America is the contentious child of these compromises.

The despotic conscience is as old as humankind: That of economic imperialism which was the motivation of all the great colonizing nations.  It was this conscience the colonies originally rebelled against.  Economic imperialism is committed to creating wealth without regard to human worth and favors rule by an economic oligarchy.

These two opposing consciences eventually led to the Civil War.  And even though the free states won the war the slave states continued to live by the conscience of despotism and invented all manner of laws and social controls to keep the black population in submission to the white population. The basis of these two opposing consciences was radically different.  The slave states were committed to slavery as a means of economic empowerment.  The free states represented a growing opposition to slavery as a violation of human worth.

Largely in the twentieth century, monuments were erected by both the original free and slave states to honor those who were the heroes of their brand.  The monuments to Washington and Jefferson were intended to honor the conscience of democracy.  The monuments to confederate heroes were intended to honor the conscience of economic imperialism.  The primary reason for disposing of Confederate monuments is because they glorify the suppression of human worth and despotic rule. 

There are many well-meaning citizens attempting to dishonor the monuments to Washington and Jefferson because of their slave ownership.  What these citizens fail to recognize is the heroic nature of these leaders attempt to institute a democracy despite their slave ownership.  They created a novel democratic model in a despotic world despite this ownership.  It is probable that there would be no present America without their leadership. They began a political process that has empowered America to get rid of slavery and continue to evolve toward a full democratic society.  Unfortunately, in recent years this has been thwarted by the re-empowerment of economic imperialism embodied in the Republican Party and politicians like Donald Trump with the goal of converting the structures of democracy into despotic governing.

Parallel with this re-empowerment is the surfacing of a wing of democratic minded citizens who refer to themselves as being Woke.  Supposedly, this wokeness indicates a raised conscience that acknowledges that if one is of the white race then one is automatically a racist.  This cynical contention demeans the heroism of all those white citizens who have fought the racism and suppressive brutalities of economic imperialism and its attempt to keep the black population in servitude to the white population – and that includes the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement.  In brief, it is an insult to all those white citizens who have given their lives to that grounding tenet of democracy which is the equality of worth of all humans irrespective of their skin color.

If it were not for these white people in partnership with citizens of color, the democratic experiment in America would have long ago Gone South.  Moreover, the so-called Woke people would not exist. Yet, many of these Wokers wish to tear down the monuments that extol the leadership of Jefferson and Washington because of their slave ownership.  They fail to recognize the educational brilliance and social heroism of these leaders in rebelling against the powerful arrogance of the British Empire and the imperialism that dominated world government.  They simply do not grasp that these leaders were on the very cutting edge of democratic creativity and became the seed bed of their own present privilege of being supposedly Woke.

What a pity that they cannot see that America would not exist in the democratic mode of its history if not for these leading minds that dared extoll the virtues of democracy.  And they did so knowing that it might cost them their lives. They were idealistic treasonists who founded a nation against all odds.  They held up a democratic conscience which the American citizenry has been trying to fully embody ever since.  And when I visit Washington, DC I will visit the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument and thrill to their heroic and monumental contribution to the existence of a democratic America.  And I will be humbled and grateful for the visionary nobility of their courageous devotion.

Even though I know they intend to hold high a democratic conscience, I reject the basic premise of the supposed Woke. I reject their puritanism. I reject their fundamentalism.  I reject their historical indifference. And I reject the condemnation of “being asleep and in bed with the enemy” they give to people of profound democratic conscience.  If these Wokers had even a minimal perception of the economic imperialist companies they daily support in their living that are the exponents of racist despotism in America it would take the edge off their sense of purity and smudge their vision with hypocrisy.  Minimally, they would have to revert to using horses as their primary mode of transportation and open campfires as their kitchen. I contend that having a real awakened conscience leads one to acknowledge a humbling self-hypocrisy.

What we desperately need at this moment is everyone committed to democracy to band together in mutual support to overcome the phenomenal progress economic imperialism has made in converting our democracy into a despotism.  A fundamentalist posture of purity does not invite such a bonding of empowerment.  While we are all hypocrites, some of us know it and strive to live up to our conscience, knowing that in our complex society we inevitably fail.

I know myself to be always striving without ever arriving.  And what I strive to be is a noble hypocrite rather than an ignoble one.

Robert

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