How You Should Vote

26 October 2008

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

PRAYER:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be significant, formidable, powerful? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

– Nelson Mandela, 1994 Inaugural Speech – words adapted from Marianne Williamson

SERMON: How You Should Vote

So many conservative preachers have been telling their people how to vote for so long that I began to wonder if I was being derelict in my duty. After all, we’re trying to do honest religion here. And surely honest religion also has some light to shed on the upcoming election.

So that’s what I want to do this morning. I want to bring this election – and I mean this presidential election – home to you in a way that might make it more clear just how you should vote on November 4th.

It’s a complex subject, and I first need to sketch a much bigger picture before I can then bring this election – or any- important election – into it.

Many of you know the story about two wolves that comes from our Native American tradition. A young boy who was the strongest and most popular boy in the tribe went to see his grandfather for some wisdom. He was strong and clever enough to take whatever he wanted from others, and one voice within him said he should do it. On the other hand, he felt it wasn’t fair, taking things from others that they needed, just because he could get away with it. His grandfather nodded, and said yes, he had the same two voices within him. He thought of them as two wolves. One always urged him to take what he could get away with, to use his advantages over others to his own advantage, not theirs. The other wolf always wanted him to be decent, compassionate, someone who was a blessing to all around him rather than just to himself.

I want to talk about these two wolves this morning, because they are in all of us. We are not all the strongest, cleverest and most popular, but we have other advantages. Maybe we have more education than the majority of others, or we attended elite schools, and both expect and know that just the fact that we attended an elite school will open doors for us that aren’t opened for others, and we like it. It seems only fair. Or perhaps we’ve made or inherited more money than most others – I’m convinced that the ability to make money is a gift that a few have but most don’t – and righteously cling to the advantages and security that brings. Or we’re more attractive than most, and have learned how to use that to our advantage. But let’s not get so fuzzy that we fail to see the obvious. And what’s obvious is that, while we have lots of individual traits that give us an advantage over others, the differences that really make the most difference in the world have always been differences in power: the ability to get and keep power.

The wolf with power has a different view of power and its privileges than the wolves without power have, and a different plan for How Things Should Work. I’m going to call this Plan A, or Plan Alpha, for it is the scheme of things as designed by the Alpha males and females.

The other wolf favors Plan Beta, or Plan B. It’s about weaker, squishier things, like empathy, compassion, reciprocity, caring almost as much for others as for ourselves, and so on. It is certainly the weaker wolf.

Plan B serves the people who aren’t an alpha. They are, in every species, the overwhelming majority, yet throughout history they have almost always been successfully subdued, disempowered and ruled by the alphas. It may seem amazing that so few can rule over so many for so long – but it looks like Nature’s Way. And in fact, we have millions of years of history showing that is Nature’s Way. Alphas have always written the rules for their groups – in dolphins, dogs, elephants and apes, including human apes.

The strongest take what they want, the weaker submit as they must, or they will be put in their place through violence or threats of violence. You can see it in a hundred nature films, or read about it in the daily news.

In at least two species, the art of politics has developed as a more subtle and effective expression and transmission of power. I’ve brought you some descriptions from a well-known book on politics. They are pretty blunt, but see if you can’t recognize them:

“… politics is all about getting and keeping power, by the few over the many, and by any means necessary. Alpha males form alliances with influential males and females – or subordinate males form coalitions to overpower the alpha male, and then consolidate their power by forming alliances with influential females. Males seldom maintain the alpha rank for more than four years.” Then there’s another round of opportunistic alliances and vicious fighting to crown a new leader – or as we call them, elections.

The two mottoes of politics are “One good turn deserves another,” and “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” (Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics, p. 202)

And political alliances are not personal, but functional – not with friends, but with those who can, at the moment, be useful. Yesterday’s enemy may be today’s ally, and we may attack today’s friend tomorrow.

Staying on top is a balancing act between forcefully asserting dominance, keeping supporters happy, and avoiding mass revolt. (Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape, p. 43)

As I said, that’s a little blunt, but most of us would say yes, that’s our species, and it is. However, most of these observations came from a book called Chimpanzee Politics, written in 1982 and now a minor classic. The author, who has spent his life studying apes, was describing chimpanzees. And he says humans and chimpanzees are the only two species who do politics this way.

So you can understand why Newt Gingrich put the book Chimpanzee Politics on the recommended reading list for freshmen representatives, back in 1994. (Frans de Waal, The Ape and the Sushi Master, p. 307)

It’s another way of saying our political style evolved by three million years ago, and perhaps the only major way in which our species has advanced beyond chimpanzees since then is through our invention of money, media and lobbyists. Not everyone would consider that an advance.

Why seek power? In any species, why seek power? It’s not for the sake of power, but for the entitlement that power brings – entitlement to food, mates and pretty much whatever else the top dogs want.

The alpha male chimpanzees, who do about 95% of the breeding in their troops, would think our alpha males have a severe testosterone deficiency, but we know that isn’t always true either. There are stories going all the way back to George Washington, saying he was father of this country in more ways than one – though you only have to turn on the news to see that we do have some modern politicians trying to uphold that ancient tradition.

The observation that Rank Hath Its Privileges didn’t originate with our species. Thousands of species had been playing that out for tens of millions of years before we came along. And maybe if chimpanzees had invented boats or learned to ride horses and make really destructive weapons, they would have invented the idea of empire.

I don’t have to sketch out any more of this. You all know this movie because we’re in it. You can even take a half hour drive and go up the dominance alphabet from omega to alpha here in Austin just by starting out east of I-35 and driving west.

Power and Privilege for the Alphas and Obedience for the masses are the holy trinity of Plan A in thousands of species, always underwritten by violence and threats of violence. The benefits of Plan A are very appealing, at least if you’re up near the top of the alphabet.

In Plan B, the Betas, Gammas, Deltas on down the dominance alphabet are also concerned primarily with their own interests, and the political structure that would serve them best. Of course, they are the vast majority. But they have been subjugated and ruled in almost every species for tens of millions of years. They are the underdogs.

Plan B is certainly the weaker and less likely plan. And not surprisingly, most of those in favor of Plan B are those without much power or wealth.

Yet as powerful as the history and logic of Plan Alpha are, Plan B has also had many profound and enduring champions, including the key prophets and sages of almost every religion and philosophy in human history.

For starters, just think of the words “Do unto others as you would have them to unto you.” It’s called the Golden Rule because you can find a version of it in almost every religion. It is saying that the only Alpha people God recognizes are the moral Alpha people who show more empathy, compassion and courage than most around them – not those with more money or power. Jesus was even clear that those who get their rewards here will not get them in heaven, where things run according to God’s values.

The Plan B sentiments may be terribly unlikely, but they are among the most famous and endearing teachings of almost every religion on earth.

The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu, written five centuries before Jesus lived, is so explicit it sounds like an op-ed piece from yesterday’s news. It says, “When rich speculators prosper while farmers lose their land; when government officials spend money on weapons instead of cures; when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible while the poor have nowhere to turn – all this is robbery and chaos. It is not in keeping with the Tao.” (#53, Stephen Mitchell translation)

A quick Google search will show you unambiguous quotations supporting Plan B from Bahá’í, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Native American Spirituality, Shinto, Sikhism, Sufism, Taoism, and dozens of others. All the religions seem to agree that the fundamental law that helps us become most fully human is reciprocity: not doing things to others that we wouldn’t want them to do to us. Most people would see this as the polar opposite of Plan Alpha, Nature’s Plan that has dominated biological evolution forever.

These two plans, these two wolves, are the diametrically opposed philosophies of life that have polarized us throughout human history. Even in this country, they go all the way back to our founding fathers.

Alexander Hamilton declared that the people are “a great beast” that must be tamed. Rebellious and independent farmers had to be taught, sometimes by force, that the ideals of the revolutionary pamphlets were not to be taken too seriously. (Noam Chomsky, Profits Over People, p. 46).

Or as John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, put it, “The people who own the country ought to govern it.” (Chomsky, 46) Others among the founding fathers agreed wholeheartedly. The primary responsibility of government is “to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority,” said James Madison. (Chomsky, 47) Those “without property, or the hope of acquiring it, cannot be expected to sympathize sufficiently with its rights,” Madison explained. His solution was to keep political power in the hands of those who “come from and represent the wealth of the nation,” the “more capable set of men.” (Chomsky, 48) That’s Nature’s Way, expressed in a language of our species.

Now let’s bring the picture into a little sharper focus. Here’s where the differences between the Alpha and Beta plans shape and misshape our nation today.

Plan A: For Plan Alpha, if privilege and empowerment rightfully belong only to the winners, to those with a lot of money and power – as Mother Nature seems to say it does – then if you are poor or powerless, it’s probably because you deserve to be. You lack discipline, haven’t worked as hard or as smart as the Alphas. You don’t deserve things like health care or a good education if you can’t afford them, because health care and education are commodities like other commodities, and you’re being not only out of line but also selfish pretending you have a right to things you can’t pay for.

By the same logic, worker unions are against Nature’s Plan – Plan A. It doesn’t matter that there are twenty to forty times more non-Alphas. They don’t have, haven’t earned or bought effective power, and this is about power and its privileges. Asking the powerful to share their money – through higher taxes and fewer privileges – just to keep the weak alive, or even to strengthen them so they might actually become able to threaten the privileged position to which the Alphas feel entitled – well, as you can hear, it’s unnatural and immoral. And if God is the voice of the natural and moral order, then God is also against it.

The free market also has a moral imperative, because it enables those with power to keep it. It isn’t a fair fight, but it’s not supposed to be. The fight’s over. It’s about maintaining privilege. Even chimpanzees know that.

Plan B. Plan B people see these things very differently. They want to measure society by different currencies – by compassion, empathy, empowerment of the many rather than what they see as the unholy trinity of power and privilege for the few and fearful obedience for the rest.

They look at data saying that 18,000 Americans die every year because of inadequate health care, and they see health care as protection, just as police and fire protection, food safety, and adequately tested drugs are protection of our citizens. And this changes it from a mere individual commodity to part of the moral mission of government, part of the compassion we owe one another, even to what God demands of us.

(NOTE: I’m grateful to George Lakoff for the understanding of healthcare as protection rather than commodity. See his book The Political Mind.)

If they’re Christian, they may quote Jesus’ saying “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me,” then connect it not only to the 18,000 of us dying each year, but also to the more than 40 million of us without health care, and they say “Jesus would hate this.”

They can see worker unions in the same way, as necessary protection of the weaker many against the powerful few, who seem so easily tempted to a kind of greed that Plan B folks see as selfish and brutal.

The “free market” looks very different, too. For one thing, it isn’t free. Without government protection, our lawmakers have allowed or encouraged rapacious people to rob us of well over a trillion dollars, while making huge personal profits. Bloomberg News columnist Jonathan Weil figures that since the start of fiscal year 2004, the once Mighty Five of Wall Street – Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill-Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns – lost around $83 billion in stock market value. But they reported employee compensation of around $239 billion. In other words, the engineers who dug this disastrous hole paid themselves almost three dollars for every dollar they lost. To the Betas, this looks like socialism for the rich and a vicious kind of capitalism for the rest of us. (Taken from “For Whom the Bailout Tolls,” Saturday 25 October 2008, by Michael Winship, Truthout/Perspective.)

This latest trillion-dollar bailout will cost every U.S. household close to $9,000. (As calculated by the Internet investigative newsroom ProPublica.org) It has transferred the private debt of a few to all of us by making us pay for it with our taxes.

“The ‘free market’ doesn’t free us from government; it just gives us unaccountable government without a moral mission.” (George Lakoff, The Political Mind, p. 63)

You could say this is just a reminder of the real-world power of the Alpha Plan, and that the rest of us need to grow up and accept our natural place. But to the majority of humans, even if they are afraid to speak up, it just sounds greedy and brutal, lacking even the most basic compassion all of our religions have always taught.

This brings me to the coming election. As citizens, we need to practice speaking up. Voting is practice in speaking up. It’s not much, and it’s certainly not enough, but it’s practice.

Here’s one more fact that can be seen in at least a couple ways. Three years ago, the ratio of lobbyists to lawmakers in Washington D.C. was 65:1. I couldn’t find more recent statistics online, though did find one other seeker making the same complaint. While that can sound hopelessly lopsided, there’s another way to see it. It is also saying that elected politicians’ inclinations to serve the majority of people who elected them may be so deep and strong that it can take up to sixty-five times as much energy to persuade them to betray us. Though here in Texas, the ratio of lobbyists to lawmakers is only 8:1, so the lawmakers in Washington can also just look like higher-priced rentals.

I began with a story of the two wolves, but I didn’t finish it. The boy was frustrated by his grandfather’s admission that he too had always had these two wolves fighting to control his soul. “But grandfather,” he finally said, “which wolf wins?” His grandfather looked deep into his eyes – one of those looks that can connect two souls – and said, “The one that I feed, grandson, the one that I feed.”

Voting is throwing food to these wolves. Plan A has been and will probably always be the dominant plan for almost every animal species on earth. And as much as prophets like Jesus, Mohammad, Lao Tzu and the rest preach about Plan B as the highest human path, or as Jesus’ definition of the kingdom of God, I don’t know that Plan B has ever defined a U.S. government, though some have been much closer to it than others.

There has probably never been a presidential candidate who was a pure example of either Plan Alpha or Plan Beta. All are mixtures; there are no unadulterated angels or demons here. But they all lean more toward one than the other, and the direction of their leaning is important.

I started to tell you how you should vote, and I want to finish that. To me as a minister, voting is above all else a spiritual activity, where we can speak up for our deepest and most cherished values and beliefs. When we vote, we are standing before our God, before all that is holy to us.

When you stand before that little touch-screen voting machine, I want you to know that you are not alone. There are two wolves there with you, each singing “Stand by Me”. Don’t try to face them alone. Take with you the image of those whose love has meant the most of you, those for whom you have the deepest respect. Take the spiritual teachings that have most deeply touched your soul. Take the mental image of all the people in your whole life who expected only the very best from you, and who knew you were capable of it. Look at them, and let them look you straight in the eye – that look that connects your souls. Then, in front of that audience, push only the buttons that you can be most proud to have pushed.

That’s how you should vote.