Our Own Good

And The Emperor

For today’s meditation, I’m using the Templar Tarot by Richard Harris. It’s a major arcana only deck that I find to be quite good. If you are interested, I’ve written a review¹ of the deck and its guidebook that can be found here. The deck can be purchased here, and the guidebook is available separately here.

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I recently stumbled upon² the following quote from C.S. Lewis:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

To contemplate the quote more deeply with the Tarot, I shuffled my deck and drew The Emperor:

The Emperor - Templar Tarot

That certainly seems appropriate. Indeed, we all live under the power of a State, whether blessed with a good, limited, and benevolent State, or cursed with an oppressive, murderous, and totalitarian State.

While ideas like democracy may make the former much more likely than the later, they are not a guarantee of it. Indeed the tyranny addressed in the quote above can well thrive in a modern democracy. At least for a time.

That points us, citizens, voters, participants in civil society, to our duty. It is not the politicians or bureaucrats who will restrain their dictatorial impulses; that restraint must come from each of us. Through meaningful and knowledgeable participation within our political system. It is our duty to hold the line against tyranny, for the benefit of all those who will come after us, and it matters not if the impulse behind tyranny is thought to be motivated by the good or the bad.

This restraint of the Emperor’s power is an individual duty, but is most effectively carried out through the institutions and organizations that compose our civil society. By working together we can have far more positive impact than we can ever hope to have on our own.

But these institutions are rapidly crumbling in the United States today. Storied organizations like the Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions Club, Freemasons, and all the rest are collapsing for want of membership. All while we sit at home being fed partisan propaganda through our screens. Too many talking heads with massive followings today seek not to inform but to inflame and manipulate. Reasoned discussion and debate is replaced with insults flying from all directions.

There is a better way. Groups, large and small. Gatherings at which we can truly get to know others who might hold perspectives different from our own. Organizations that put us beside other people so that we can see that their true intentions and dreams are not all that dissimilar from our own. Circles of people who prevent us from being trapped in information silos.

We need to find that better way, lest our political life continue along its pathway to tyranny. If we do not, if we stay isolated, screaming at our television, we will leave a world to our children and grandchildren much degraded than that which we were blessed to encounter.

1. Templar Tarot

2. The quote was published here on Substack by Philosophors.