One valuable aspect of movies is that effective storytelling boils down to presenting a collection of events that allows us to see the individuals’ personalities and character. The various events constitute a thread running through their lives that gives identity and a unique persona to the individuals. Each moment contributes to the whole and plays a role in shaping the entire lifetime. Ironically, in order to produce drama, the playwright has to address reality and its consequences. In that sense, life is like a tree, and our roots are our history. The consequences of the past are carved into our psyche. For instance, when a tree is cut, the rings of the trunk reveal the good and bad years — all the events of its lifetime are incorporated into the trunk of that tree. Similarly, all of the past is there in a person’s life; the accumulated experiences mold and shape the personality and the character. When those experiences are negative and harmful to the person’s development, we speak of that person as “carrying baggage.” Sadly, many of today’s young people are carrying an awful lot of baggage at a very early age.
So, how can today’s presidential candidates communicate the importance of faith and morality for civil society in a culture that has repudiated the basic Judeo-Christian values? How can the candidates bring reality and common sense, much less character and integrity, into the chaotic state of modern thought and behavior?
If the conservatives win the 2008 presidential election, it will be as much a matter of the liberals losing as conservatives winning. In hindsight, the vaunted genius of Karl Rove in the two Bush victories is now questioned. Political analysts are reevaluating Rove’s vaunted brilliance. They claim that if the left had been more competent, the left would have annihilated the Bush effort.
Politics, like life, is full of contradictions. The liberals, for all their so-called respect for privacy, rely heavily on opposition research. Note Hillary’s information about Obama’s 3rd grade essay about wanting to be President! The concept of privacy appeals to modern people whose narcissism and self-indulgence requires a veil of privacy behind which to hide and avoid accountability.
Can a moral leader appeal to today’s amoral public? Probably not, unless reality intervenes. The British rejected Churchill’s warnings until Hitler’s invasion of Poland created a climate where realistic leadership was necessary. Then it became a fight for survival. Likewise, the American public won’t embrace a moral leader without necessity demanding a “savior.” Until such a time that a savior is needed, the public won’t turn to a moral leader.
There is hope, however, because the chaotic state of modern leadership provides that possibility — even though those willing to accept the boundaries of morality have never been, and probably never will be, a majority.