Who’s Your Hero?
I intended to write about two golfers, one who is not a golf hero and the other, Tiger Woods, who is considered a golf hero by many. I missed Tiger’s rise and heard much about his fall. I started playing golf in 2015 but don’t remember watching Woods until the 2019 Masters where I saw and loved Woods’ recovery shots. I find good recovery shots more gratifying than the best drives. So, I watched “Tiger,” the HBO documentary that reveals Tiger as a flawed hero in the tradition of Greek drama. Like Achilles, Tiger was rendered vulnerable by his parents’ efforts to shape him not to be. The HBO series is worth a watch or two.
Tiger Woods
As I write this, I just watched the President Joe Biden’s inauguration. I’m feeling recovered and still thinking about heroes. Who’s my hero? Who’s not? My first thought is that St. Augustine is not my hero. I have read a lot about Augustine’s influence in the Roman Catholic Church whose teachings governed much of my early life. History also credits Augustine for the moral strictness that manifests in Calvinism and the other rigid sects. Augustine viewed sexuality in a negative light, which meant he viewed women in a negative light. He described three stages of sin occurring first “when the carnal sense offers a bait;” next “when one is satisfied with the mere pleasure of thought;” and then, “when consent is given to the deed.” Lies, manipulation and physical domination should be inherent Augustine’s list, but aren’t specified. Carnal sins are usually thought of as sexual sins although violence always involves the body.
St. Augustine
I am only thinking of Augustine because President Joseph Biden quoted Augustine in his inaugural speech. President Biden says Augustine said a “people” are defined by the common objects of their love. This wonderful definition of a “people” comes from “City of God,” in which Augustine writes, “A people is the association of a multitude of rational beings united by a common agreement on the objects of their love, then it follows that to observe the character of a particular people we must examine the objects of its love.”
What are the objects of the American people’s love?
Most of the multitude of beings that call themselves Americans pledge to the flag that they desire liberty and justice for all, but for some, liberty means the ability to impose their views on others and justice means using physical force imposing those views. President Biden said we need truth. One truth about presidential elections is every election is won and lost by someone. Another truth is that in the past two elections the same candidate lost the popular vote. A third truth is that the losing candidate’s more devoted followers attacked the Capitol because their beloved hero insisted that he had won the 2020 election: that his and thus their victory was stolen.
The Preamble to the Constitution states, “We the People, in Order to form a more perfect Union…do ordain and establish this Constitution…” President Biden focused on the words “a more perfect Union.” There is no perfection in our physical world, a world subject to the rules of space and time. Everything changes. Did the “people” who wrote Constitution imagine that by the 21st Century, there would be 50 states? Did the founders who designed Congress imagine that the people of the states in which the founders themselves lived would eventually have less representation than numerous newer states with far fewer people?
Our Republic is governed by a representative democracy of the people.
Who are the people?
Whoever the people are, can the people be considered rational when they can have their bodies and minds manipulated by power seekers? The same body mind connections than lead people to love lead people to hate. Consciousness develops in context. President Biden said there should be no manufacturing of facts. Coded language, euphemism and deflection can hide or twist the facts. Facts without context are not necessarily truth. We might be surprised at how often we’ve learned to think thoughts someone else taught us to think. With our cultural differences and expansive geography, the United States is certainly no less perfect than any other nation.
And, assuming that we the people of the United States are, as Augustine defined, and Biden paraphrased “people,” “an association of a multitude of rational beings united by a common agreement on the objects of their love,” perhaps when we look at the flag or listen to our leaders speak, we can ask ourselves what it is that our leaders seem to love and are those leaders rational?
What do we love? 
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