Abraham Lincoln trying to find a middle ground and attempting to hold the Union together proclaimed in his 1861 inaugural address that the “better angels of our nature” would help the country persevere. James Madison, writing in Federalist 51 said “if men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
We’ve always looked to angels, either to save ourselves from ourselves, or excuse ourselves from those parts of humanity we know exist within or alongside us. The countless cartoons of angels and devils sitting on opposite shoulders illustrate this duality quite well. Even so, those who see the world as the brutal place it can be and act accordingly can just as often be found in pulpits praying to those better angels for guidance and protection.
Which begs the question, if there are “better angels” what does that make the rest of us? Are they divided into good, better, best ratings? To say they are all demons and devils is a shortcut that typically has led those holier than thou turning their own plowshares into swords of retribution just as sharp as those they hope to defeat.
So, I’m not a fan of the metaphor. First, it implies some sort of fairy tale-like savior(s) from beyond, heavenly or no, to right wrongs and dole out punishment, or caring and consoling those less fortunate. Second, depending on which religious texts you cling to, angels haven’t all been the “angels” we fantasize about and commercialize. Biblical texts, some still sworn by (Genesis), and some not (The Book of Enoch), talk about Angels sexually cavorting with humans, although just like anything else you can pick your side of that theological debate.
I’m sure many of those finding their relationships with Jeffrey Epstein, who are now the subject of scrutiny they thought they’d avoided, didn’t think twice in the moment about brushing off the better angels on their shoulders.
So, it’s no wonder we dwell in our duality. Sticking to the biblical for the moment, theoretically and theologically there was only one rule in the beginning. “Don’t eat the damn apple.” We’ve been adding and breaking rules ever since. Insert something about them made to be broken here.
It doesn’t matter which sphere of life you wander through, that duality is going to exist. I happen to believe that the vast majority of people start out to do something they think is a good thing, and then perhaps find their morality or their principals challenged along the they way. At that fork in the road, some choose a path that doesn’t comprise their belief systems, others the opposite.
That’s the test. There may be many gray areas in life, but that test is only pass/fail. Some may try to erase the result from their permanent record, but I think they call it permanent for a reason. Even if they can be redacted, deleted, or discarded.
On a more earthly level than spirituality, in sports there are those who play by the rules and those who will do anything it takes to win. There are admirers and fans of both. The same is true in business. The language often used in either competitive arena certainly isn’t always what I would call better angel-ish.
And then there’s politics. As my grandmother used to say, “politics is a dirty business for dirty people.” She nailed that one.
Good friend and fellow gadfly, David Todd McCarty, recently wrote about our America’s Dual State, more specifically about the dual state theory of Ernst Frankel wherein we exist in two different realities, the Normative State and the Prerogative State. As David distills it,
He called the first reality, the Normative State, where everything felt normal, and people were protected by laws and courts, and life functioned as before. The other, he called the Prerogative State, which was governed entirely by the Party, outside of the rule of law, existing in an arbitrary state of violent oppression.
Frankel was speaking about Nazi Germany, and today’s parallels have been far too easy to see or avoid. Except for those living in the Normative State, or those relishing in the performance of those pushing us towards the Prerogative State.
While I’m not a fan of the dueling angels on opposite shoulders metaphor in and of itself, pair it up with Frankel’s theory and I think those cartoons lift the animated dilemma closer to our own reality than most want to admit, but find themselves increasingly coming to terms with as those two realities increasingly converge.
I freely admit there are days when I’m hearing more from my darker angels than I want to. I like to think those thoughts come from a place of good I can return to once this is all over. But then I’m reminded of Madison more than I am of Lincoln.
(image from Alexander_P on Shutterstock)
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 