Monday, October 1, 2018

What character qualities are necessary for a judge to manifest?

There is a morality play being performed before the American audience, and the audience around the world, with the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court justice confirmation process. The morality play operates on two levels: did he do it and is he lying about whether he did it?

Considering the play on two levels allows the spectator to watch the story on the path of the ego and on the path of the spirit. The path of the ego is a story about bodies and the path of spirit is about authenticity, genuineness, responsibility, and truth.

Here at UU A Way Of Life ministries we are helping people turn from the path of the ego to the path of the spirit so they can become holy and sanctify the world. The path of the ego involves drama generated by deceit, denial, minimization, avoidance of negative consequences, and hypocrisy. The path of the spirit involves peace, grace, blessings generated by truthfulness, recognition and acknowledgment, acceptance of responsibility, willingness to repair the harm that was done, and a genuine apology.

The failure of Judge Kavanaugh to acknowledge the role that alcohol may have played in the alleged harmful behavior contributes to a story characterized by minimization and denial which is unbecoming and disqualifying for a person who aspires to judge others with consequences for a whole nation.

Substance misuse, compromising judgement and awareness, is a major concern for the individual influenced by those substances and those in relationship with him. Judge Kavanaugh has testified under oath, “I drank beer with my friends. Almost everyone did. Sometimes I had too many beers. Sometimes others did. I liked beer. I still like beer.”


The problem in confirming this candidate as a Supreme Court Justice is not his behavior, but rather his lack of self knowledge and awareness. In order to render judgement on other people, it is imperative that the judge know himself. Socrates tells us that an unexamined life is not worth living, and as Polonius tells Hamlet "To thine own self be true." It would be advisable if the same standard were applied to the candidate in this confirmation process. A person in denial who minimizes problematic behavior is not fit to judge others.


1 comment:

  1. That is as good a statement of the crux of the problems plaguing Judge Kavanaugh and the nation as I have read anywhere. Thank you for your clear statement of the key issue.

    ReplyDelete

Print Friendly and PDF