Humility in Democratic Life. An Essay.

I am inspired to add some value to the current conversation between Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and our Second Gentleman of The United States Doug Emhoff. Sarah expressed disquieting aspersion at a political rally that our Vice President Kamala Harris may not ascend to high enough humility on account she does not have children, to which Doug counseled consideration and humility against occult yardsticks for women in the matter of scales of morality.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Not only do my kids serve as a permanent reminder of what's important they also keep me humble. You can walk into a room like this where people cheer when you step onto the stage, and you might think for a second that you're kind of special. Then you go home, and your kids remind you very quickly you're actually not that big of a deal. And ours are pretty good at it. So my kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble.

Doug Emhoff: We know that all parents, no matter how you become one, make the same sacrifices and revel in the same joys of raising children as any parent anywhere, as if keeping women humble, whether you have children or not, is something we should strive for. It is not.

In Augustus' Macedonia, pride, privilege, and prejudice was codified into Roman law after the Philipians and Macedonia were conquered and added to the Roman Empire's burgeoning fortunes. In that battle, many lives were lost. Women in the middle of childbirth had to either abort their children, die while giving birth, and or lose their children from the trauma of the war of conquest. From the loot, and on the heels of murderous conquest, Augustus sought to engender fervor for greater imperial expansion by extending to the bereaved and broken Macedonians, the rights and privileges of Roman citizenship. At the time, equaled in temperament only by the Renaissance, monotheistic theology was in great flux, and a groundswell of resistance to polytheistic empire had taken hold. Pride and prejudice of empire was being countered by the self-deprecating humility of Christ Jesus, as counseled by Paul. Incidentally, Paul was pilloried and banished from Macedonia for his wise counsel. It reminds me of the sort of the Right Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from the Birmingham Jail.

To ascribe to our fellow, and a woman, scorn and disdain for incapacity to attain an adequate measure of humility by and to cast aspersion on our fellow who is importuned, voluntarily or involuntarily, with parenting inexperience, is the height of conceit, pride, prejudice, and a puerile sense of entitlement as could have been exhibited by the culprits of Jesus' crucifiction.

The important lesson to be gained from our opportunities at humility is that we must take advantage of teachable moments in our lives, to twin pride and prejudice with humility and consideration, the latter being gradients in the greater knowledge of oneself, in order to maintain the intrinsic equilibrium of steady state democratic life, even amid gaudy and vainglorious pinafore. In the area of steady state, humility is counterpoise to degenerative pride and prejudice.

Parenting, either of our own children, or the children of our fellow who are in our custody, offers us all an opportunity at enormous joy and pride (not prejudice), as well as a healthy balance of responsibility and care for life outside of our own. In that endeavor, all mankind and our children are special, despite the latters' oft youthful indiscretions and exuberance otherwise.

Haruna