Politically, in many nations, they tend to describe themselves as ‘libertarian’. Economically, they are advocates of ‘laissez faire’ doctrines. They do not rely on a welfare state, nor do they want to support it, so they generally want their personal taxes to be reduced. They do not like ‘parasites’ and they despise the ‘needy’ - because they do not think that the strong should support the weak, nor the powerful extend generosity to the vulnerable.
They believe in herd immunity, they have faith in their own robust immune systems, and they advocate risk taking. They are investors, and taking chances in uncertain times makes them feel bold, and alive. They believe they are exceptional, and they believe they are immune from the ills that plague their fellow citizens. Not because they are cocooned by wealth or privilege, necessarily, although many of these kinds of people are economically protected by good financial planning, and tremendous assets, but because of their overwhelming self belief.
It’s a kind of modern day elite coalition. Those who do not want to be compliant, and mock those who act in more socially responsible ways as ‘craven’ or ‘puppet-like’ or ‘controlled by fear’, and therefore intrinsically less worthy and valuable than they and their ilk are.
Doctrines of self belief, self activation, self rule and sovereignty govern their lives. They pride themselves on being independent thinkers. In the U.S., they advocate the carrying of guns for personal use, and demand the right to free speech. They are often heard describing those who seek to restrain or restrict the damage their pursuit of their freedoms causes as ‘fascists’ or ‘the leftist mafia’.
The balance between individualism and recognition of social responsibility is created by constant tension between these dualities. If a society is able to manage this continuous underlying tension well, and with absence of lapses into extremism at either end of the spectrum, social progress is possible.
Until a ‘well heeled’ human being directly experiences personal loss and the deprivation, fear, humiliation and personal anguish caused by losing their social protections, they usually have very little empathy or concern for the less fortunate.
Back in the days of total feudal governance, it took a lot of personal suffering for a monarch to become aware of the life challenges endured by the common man: the daily wage earners, the unprotected, the untitled, the unresourced, the unentitled.
People become oblivious to the suffering of others because of the way they grow up, and the way people defer to them. They call themselves winners, but they lose their humility, which protects them from the dangers of greed and egoistic delusion.
Shakespeare’s King Lear, a monarch famous for his disastrously late recognition of his responsibilities as a leader of his country, and governed almost entirely by narcissism and vanity, expressed his abrupt awareness in some powerful dramatic poetry:
‘They flattered me like a dog; and told me I had white hairs in my beard ‘ere the black ones were there. To say “ay” and “no” to every thing that I said! “Ay” and “no” was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not leave at my bidding; there I found ‘em, there I smelt them out. Go to, they are not men o’their words: they told me I was every thing; ‘tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.’
As I read these words today, I think of the public anti-masking statements made by the now ex-President of the U.S., of the laxness of protocol he advocated, and the refusal to heed or comply with the advice of medical experts which he modeled for his followers. The way he seemed to recover so rapidly from the illness, himself, which seemed to prove his own personal cult of exceptionalism, and the defiant way he removed his mask as he made the announcement he was now ‘immune’ to the virus. In fact, by doing so he was symbolically implying that he was ‘ague-proof’. This was in the face of the evidence coming in that the virus was mutating, that many people seemed to be getting sick twice or even three times, and that no human being can truly be 100% sure to be safe from a globally transmissible infection.
King Lear, in contrast, had experienced actual homelessness, had made bad errors of judgment, made fatal assumptions as a result of which he thought his foes were his friends, and banished those who were truly loyal to him, had been hunted down by two of his own ungrateful children, and had realized that power is arbitrary: ‘a dog’s obeyed in office’. He had - for the first time, and very late in his life - questioned his own views and learned experience of ‘the great image of authority’.
Because this play is a Tragedy, these realizations come too late to save Lear’s family, his reign and his life. But we, the readers and witnesses to his downfall, can see in his story some compelling truths.
If we prefer surrounding ourselves with those who flatter and lie to us for their own short term gain, then we will eventually lose any moral judgment we have. To be able to recognise our true friends, and differentiate them from those who under their assumed masks do not wish us well, we need a personal moral compass in good working order.
Look at the early life of Prince Gautama Siddhartha, who was brought up to believe that there was no suffering in the world, and whose father created an airbrushed and sanitized world for him to inhabit. He walked away from this privileged and disconnected life to confront the experiences which all human being beings endure, to find truths that could enable all of us to transcend the fetters of suffering. Central to his awakening was the knowledge that we are mortal.
We are not ague-proof. Not one of us.
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