John Locke
John Locke, name sound familiar?
John had everything going for him…affluent family that had all the connections he’d need for someone born in the 1600’s in England…went to prep school, then Oxford, wrote speeches for a Lord in Parliament, even had time and inclination to go to med school. He is known because his political writings turned the lights on a movement called The Enlightenment. Remember the context—Europe is emerging from 15 centuries of authoritarian rule, the Divine Right of Kings--when the King, whether he was a sociopath or an imbecile, spoke as if he were God and decided what was law and how it should be applied. The role of a citizen was to obey without question. Locke was fortunate because the printing press had been around for a couple centuries and was flourishing during the 17th Century. It was the internet of the times and immortalized Locke’s ideas. To his credit his writings were so controversial that he twice had to flee the wrath of the English King. How did Locke frost the King? It was what he wrote.
1. The power of the government should flow from the consent of the citizens. Novel idea….
2. The law must be applied equitably to all citizens. No playing favorites?
3. We are all connected by a social contract. Really, what agreement do we have with each other?
4. If the leaders do not adhere to that social contract, the citizens have the right to rebel. I could see how the King could take exception to that.
Listen to just one quote: “All mankind…being all equal and independent….no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possession.” No one should hurt us, control us, steal from us
Those are principles of conduct.Principle—from the Latin word meaning First. What should be the first thing in our minds when we interact with others? How far did Locke’s principles reach in his own life? To his discredit, his wealth was derived, in part, from investment in the slave trade. And when he had the chance to draft the Constitution of the Carolina Colonies, civil rights, religious tolerance, the right to vote were extended to the smallest constituency—landowners. Not to slaves who were considered property. Not to women, and not to men who were tenants.
72 years after Locke’s death, our founding fathers, to their undisputed credit, and thanks to the publication of Lock’s ideas, put his principles to the test as they exercised their right to rebel against another English King in order to create a social contract in which the government’s power came from its citizens and which law would be equitably applied to all. Listen to the echo of Locke’s principles in our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among those are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed.”
Again, to his credit, the man who wrote the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, and the men who edited that declaration, Robert Livingston, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Roger Sherman all pledged their lives, fortunes and personal honor to each other to make these principles the truth by virtue of declaring their reality. To their discredit, Jefferson had 120 slaves, Livingston 15, Franklin 2. Adams, our second president, hired slaves from those who owned them. Sherman, while he owned none, supported, as a Senator, pro-Slavery legislation to appease southern States.
Honestly, now, we can’t expect leaders to be perfect; they are human and must bend to the great social forces of their time. In fact, historians often detect tragic flaws, blind-spots in great leaders that undermine their many principles and achievements. The founding fathers did not see that ALL men or ANY woman needed a Social Contract that would guarantee them the right to determine their own destiny. When we look at governments can we find one where one man’s advantage of citizenship was not based on depriving others of some of their rights. Can we ever find ground rules that aren’t Zero-sum.
Our daily challenges beg the question, How far do our principles reach in our lives? When I think of these ideas, I ask myself--Am I in a social contract with a white nationalist who believes he is a patriot protecting the Constitution when I see him violating it…am I in a social contract with an East LA or Chicago gangbanger who believes he is a super-hero protecting his territory when I see him as a menace, am I in a social contract with a right-wing corporate billionaire who believes he can buy more unalienable rights than I can ever afford, am I in a social contract with the homeless, junkie under the bridge and the violent sociopath behind bars who believe that their own madness is justified and that my compliance is worth exploitation? All the way down to the close relatives I can’t stand and prefer to keep at a distance. My conscience answers, Yes! Although I saw their desperation, their arrogance, selfishness and need. I had no answer for them that could possibly keep us in the same field of play.
My conscience whispers to me that I am the leader, missing in action, who was unable to find and declare what is common to all of us, what each of us must share because each of us make up mankind…it also tells me that the genetic force that I bend to—that instinct to lie, cheat and harm others to gain advantage over others—is not part of a social contract agreeable to humanity’s future. Or even to its present.
I know you must believe as I do, that we CAN validate ourselves WITHOUT diminishing others.
I know you must believe as I do, that I can validate you and myself as members of the same household.