There are several different conclusions we could draw from George Bush's recent refusal to notice the will of the people he represents.
Most of those conclusions have to do with Bush, himself, or with his advisers, or other factors that are recent and fleeting.
There is, however, a bigger picture—several, in fact, but I am only interested in one this morning.
As I have pointed out before, the human race has been side-tracked, for about twelve thousand years—no time at all in terms of our existence as a species—by a powerful combination of royalty and religion.
The ancient kings supported, and, in turn, were supported by, their nation's priesthood. The god or gods formed an idealized royal court, modeled on earthly kings. The king had a divine right to rule, because the gods of the country had put him there, for that purpose. The people were mere extensions of the king.
All of this is not just ancient history. As little as three hundred years ago—and for all I know, maybe still, in some circles—the British king was called, simply, England. That is to say, he was not just a leader of the country; he was the country.
This way of thinking was not restricted to the country as a whole. The prince of Wales, for example, was Wales, and so on down the line. Finally, of course, the husband was the family. So the wife, or the children had no say, because they existed only as extensions of him. There were many practical outcomes of this, including, in the early days of our country, the inability of women to vote.
During those last three hundred years, the human race has been struggling to turn this world-view around. This has involved the recovery, and systemization, of our natural human approach to knowledge (more on that another time), the development of representative government, and the separation of church and state.
And, although twelve thousand years is no time at all in terms of human existence, it is long enough to form some very strong cultural habits. We are not finding this transition easy—either as nations, or as individuals.
Many of our concepts of ethics, work structures, economics, law, and personal relationships are still tainted by these ancient world-views, designed to keep the bulk of us under the thumbs of a lucky few. And so the struggle is not only a matter of finding new institutions and a new and reality-based world view, but also an internal, spiritual struggle to disentangle our experience from the assumptions that have been passed down to us.
All of us are involved in this process, in one way or another. Most of us are trying to hold on to the King/Priest tradition in some ways, while trying to break free in others. The process can be very subtle, and very difficult, and cuts across lines of politics and religion.
I have liberal friends who have very hierarchical world-views. I have pastor friends whose churches are on the forefront of democracy and justice for the marginalized.
And I have both forces struggling in myself.
I'm sure the same is true of George Bush. But in his role as president, he has taken, for the most part, the side of our twelve thousand year detour. He has sided against science, against the separation of church and state, and against representative government.
He has said, like the kings of old, that he doesn't have to explain himself, that God has put him there, and that God tells him what to do. He apparently believes that God is silent to the rest of us, who are, after all, only extensions of "The Decider".
He has said, through his press secretary, that he will not allow public opinion to sway his decisions about the war. Rather, the public needs to change its opinions, in order to get behind the war.
This is not the philosophy of a president—a representative of the people. It is the philosophy of a king, which George Bush is not. (It is no coincidence that the neo-cons he has surrounded himself with want to create an American Empire.)
This is, in the fleeting present, a critical issue. We must not let him get away with it.
But in the larger, historic, context it is only one symptom of the transition we are all going through. And it remains to be seen whether we will manage to find our roots as humans and move forward, or whether we will find ourselves trapped once more.
It's a fight worth fighting—politically and spiritually.
At least, that's what I think today.
