Pop 89: Bringing Back Humility
By Madonna Hamel
Trump says he’d “love to be the pope.” Hahaha. Even his jokes belie arrogance and hyper-inflated pride. Why do we laugh? Because a) they’re the only predictable thing about him? b) we have normalized his absurd and disturbing behaviour? or c) we are afraid to critique him because we could be next on his hit-list?
Forget Trump’s behaviour; we are slowly acting strange by accepting his dictatorial language and gestures. Who do I blame for this? a) Our own lack of moral muscle? b) The media or c) The tech-bros who gave us social media? All of the above.
According to a 2008 MIT study, lies spread 6x faster than truth. This means that fear, anger and hate make for good business. When did our values, morals, and quest for truth get replaced by a slavish fascination for “how low can you go?” a) We’ve always been this way b) Our fears feed our compulsion to strike quickly, preventing us from discerning the truth? c) We like it this way.
From Alexander Pope, who said: “Lame Truth limps after, too tardily to prevent the winged progress of her adversary,” to Winston Churchill, who said, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on,” we humans seem to prefer slander over facts.
I worked in broadcast journalism back when fact-checking mattered. And my opinions, no matter how clever or cutting, were not solicited. The focus remained on the truth, not on the personality of the broadcaster. Leave your ego at the door.
But those days are gone. Social media generates lies at exponential speeds. Hate runs riot and untethered because technology remains the most unregulated industry in the world. This kind of free-for-all isa threat to freedom.
Nobel prize-winning Maria Reesa, author of “How to Stand Up to A Dictator,” explains that “ if you don’t have the facts, you can’t have the truth, and if you don’t have the truth, you don’t have trust and if you don’t have trust you don’t have a shared reality. And then, you can’t solve problems and, ultimately, you don’t have a democracy.”
If ideas of right and wrong, true and false, are irrelevant, why bother with fact-checking? Tech bros manipulate our information system so profitably that they are about to become the world’s first trillionaires. Are we decent enough NOT to respond with admiration? Does truth matter more to us than trashing others for cash?
If you are one of the millions spending hours on social media, building your own little reality relative only to you and your likes, where you invite others in only if they’re nice and say nice things about you, even if they’re made up, you don’t live in reality. You live in an insane asylum. And the truth is irrelevant.
Truth requires humility - an understanding that we are mere humans - and, ultimately, humus, the soil from which we came and shall return. And who wants to be humble? Where’s the cache in that? All the more reason to thank our new Prime Minster for entering the word into the cultural vocabulary. Let’s keep the word alive. And let’s hold Carney to his word when he says he will conduct himself with “humility.”
In a letter marking the pope’s passing Carney referred to a challenge the Francis gave him directly: “He likened humanity to wine – rich, diverse, full of spirit – and the market to grappa – distilled, intense, and at times disconnected. He called on us to ‘turn grappa back into wine,’ to reintegrate human values into our economic lives.”
In his acceptance speech the new PM also used the word “ambitious”. Ambition without humility is pride. If Francis were still here he might remind him: The number one vice in Catholic doctrine is pride. Pride goeth before every fall, the proverb goes.
Morality is a spiritual muscle; we must exercise virtues daily. Running a country (or a newscast) is neither a game nor a game show. In a moral universe, sucking all the air out of the room, grabbing all the attention, and modelling rude behaviour would not be described as “genius,” “charismatic,” or “skilled.” But, in a ratings-grabbing, star-enthralled, profit-churning, click-baiting universe, it is.
We all know people who are aggressive, noisy bullies who manage to harass and threaten less powerful people into silence. It’s hard to walk away from one when he’s a world leader. “You’ve got nothing I need,” claims Trump. So why be humble? Never mind that it’s the core tenet of every religion: treat others how you’d like them to treat you.
Trump’s transactional approach to relationships sadly reflects a strange new type of Christian who assumes the same transactional relationship with their God and whose gospel is not that of the mendicant rabbi Christ but the Gospel of Wealth as preached by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie.
While the pope insisted that we feed and comfort the poor and marginalized, Trump deported them south of his border. At the same time, he looked north of the border for more people to insult. Yes, he’s a blowhard. Yes, it’s a game. But, Canadians, on the whole, don’t find the bombast of American gameshows and reality shows entertaining except as fodder for parody. We wonder why more Americans aren’t embarrassed by such ignoble comportment. Why do they play along?
Trump continues to inflate his ego to the size of a hot-air balloon - but, inevitably, his incendiary language will cause an explosion, leaving a stunned administration - and media hounds - to pick up the pieces and wipe the mud from their faces.
Because, in the end, words matter, manners matter, morality matters. How we express concern for each other, address each other and represent ourselves to the world matters. Americans have grown used to trash talk; it’s American as apple pie. By voting in Trump they sent the world the message that such behaviour is befitting a world leader. Maybe it’s time to eat some humble pie.