Speak Truth to Power

Even today (some would say especially today) in 21st century America, a great many of us shun the exploration of issues that challenge our comfortable political and societal paradigms. In retreat from unwelcome ideas, we dodge, weave and bluster to eschew painful fact, and then seek shelter behind consoling slogans and easy-to-digest illusions.

What then must we do to join the debate and exercise effective citizenship? First, never take as gospel anything anybody says until we’ve checked it out ourselves. Second, insist that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs. When the war protestor on the corner says, "In the 1970s, America conducted a murderous illegal three-year campaign of mass bombing in Cambodia that left millions dead in its wake," check it out, be skeptical and require extraordinary proof of that claim. When President Bush says, "Iraq is developing a nuclear weapons program, and the smoking gun may come to America in the form of a mushroom cloud," check that out, too and require extraordinary proof of that claim.

A good citizen is skeptical of the motivations of the powerful. She should scrutinize, question and criticize when necessary, and she should be free to do so without being branded unpatriotic or a traitor. Many Americans who criticize their government have recognized that the first duty of a patriot is to love her country all the time and criticize its leaders when they are wrong. According to Thomas Jefferson, "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." In pursuit of that model, dissidents in our nation not satisfied with what America is, look to what America could be and despair when its leaders put profit and the lust for power over the well being of the people.

Is it unpatriotic to question authority and speak truth to power? Many say so, but history doesn’t bear them out. Julius Caesar, absolute ruler of the known world two thousand years ago, spoke of the folly of blindly following leaders this way: "Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of war to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor. Patriotism emboldens the blood just as it narrows the mind. Citizens infused with fear and blinded by patriotism will offer up all their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this I have done. I am Caesar."

The danger of pledging unquestioned allegiance to people in power is summed up in these words by Rudolph Hess in 1934: "One man remains beyond all criticism, and that is The Fuhrer. This is because everyone senses and knows he is always right, and he will always be right. The National Socialism of all of us is anchored in uncritical loyalty and surrender to the Fuhrer." To which Hitler later replied, "What good fortune for those in power that the common people do not think!"

Critical thinking - questioning authority - demanding proof - ascertaining fact - holding leaders accountable - peeking behind the curtain to catch a glimpse of the wizard - are precisely the freedoms that make our country special. However, to be an enlightened critical thinker takes time away from the T.V. set and the cocktail hour. More significantly, it takes courage to look without illusion at where our nation is now and how it got there. No one likes being reminded that the United States, founded on the principles of freedom and liberty, was the last major nation to end chattel slavery, an institution of the wealthy, and legally protected racism continued for a century beyond that. Is it satisfying to learn that in the land of the free, women were granted the right to vote only after Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan and 22 other nations had accepted women into the affairs of government first? It’s certainly not pleasant to contemplate that the U.S. government violated hundreds of treaties and not counting the World Wars, conducted bloody armed incursions into scores of nations. Harsh reality has an ugly face, and persons who ignore or outright deny inconvenient fact cannot learn from it and can never be a reliable steward of today’s America. The citizen who knows something of our nation’s history and understands the motives and outcomes of past policy is much more likely to be skeptical of, for example, an unprovoked war in Iraq.

Critical thinking - questioning authority - demanding proof - ascertaining fact - holding leaders accountable - peeking behind the curtain - the cardinal virtues of citizenship, have been lauded since the time of Aristotle, and it is precisely this method of critical examination and evaluation intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and others purport. Chomsky often says that power centers - whether corporate or government - will always act in ways that protect and support their power positions. For them to do anything else, he says, would be illogical. That being the case, if the citizens of a functioning democracy seek to battle injustice, despotism, incompetence and superstition, if they wish for better schools and a respect for learning, science, scholarship and invention, if they wish their children to have a high standard of living and jobs that pay fair wages, then they need vigorously to challenge national institutions, policies and dogmas, however persuasively packaged and eloquently pitched to the public. The nation benefits not from illusory glorification of the past or from defending national icons. The nation benefits when its citizens question authority, face fact and devise and impose strategies to carry them through inevitable societal change. An informed, independent and active citizenry is what separates us from the totalitarian states. We should all speak truth to power.