We the People: Believing in Ourselves

We’re never too old to learn or to be reminded about truths and principles that have been forgotten along the way. Oftentimes, they were originally picked up or gleaned from pithy lines in stories from our youth. One about personal power and action comes from the classic film, The Empire Strikes Back.

Recall the scene in which Luke Skywalker crash-lands into a swamp on Dagobah and meets Yoda. At first, Luke is dismissive of Yoda, thinking him to be little more than an irritant. But as events unfold, Luke learns the truth of Yoda. He’s a Jedi master, of course, and begins teaching Luke the ways of the Jedi. But Luke, for all his skills and intelligence—he is, after all, a starfighter pilot—is not a patient learner. That character flaw, however, is rooted in something far deeper than his skillset: He doesn’t truly believe in himself.

The big test comes when Luke tries to raise his ship from the swamp. When he sputters, he tries to justify his failure by saying the task—the ship—is too big, but Yoda has none of that and retorts that size matters not. When Luke shrugs and says that he’ll give it another try, rather than giving him an atta-boy, you-got-this encouraging word, Yoda pointedly tells him, “Do or do not, there is no try.”

On the surface, that doesn’t seem reasonable because doing first requires trying. That’s true about a specific act itself, but Yoda is getting at something far deeper. It’s the principles of personal power, self-belief, and the negation of self-doubt. A hard truth is that every human has power or agency, but far too many cede theirs to others. And when they do, they feel helpless.

But feeling helpless doesn’t mean that one is helpless. It just means that they have either lost sight of—forgotten about—their personal power or that they are either unwilling or afraid to reclaim and exercise it.  

That principle is applicable beyond the personal to society itself. People today are increasingly feeling helpless in the face of the power of The Man, which is the personification of a strongman who believes there are no limits on his power and of powerful systems that pervade every nook and cranny of our lives. That feeling is now directed toward both outsized, too-big-to-fail corporations and government largely because the boundary between them has increasingly become blurred. But feeling powerless and at the mercy of forces is not the same as being powerless or at the mercy of them.

An intrinsic aspect of the human spirit that is indomitable in individuals who refuse to cede their power is the desire to be free. It’s expressed in tantrums when kids yell, “Don’t tell me what to do.” It was expressed in the Revolutionary War flag that said, “Don’t Tread on Me.” It’s expressed in the line, “You talkin’ to me?” And non-verbally with the one-finger salute.

Our history is replete with Americans standing up and saying “No!” to The Man. Imagine if oddsmakers lived at the time of the Revolution and gave odds about whether Americans would succeed in breaking away from the most powerful empire since the Roman Empire. What would have they been?

Apply that odds-making notion to others: the abolition of slavery, women suffrage, labor unions, the civil rights movement, same-sex marriage, and so on. Each of them began with an idea, specific to a cause, but unifying among them were dignity of the individual, self-empowerment, and freedom.  

It’s important to remember that something is all-powerful and invincible until it’s not. In the Bible, David slew Goliath. The Roman Empire rose and fell. Napoleon met his fate at Waterloo. The Thousand Year Third Reich was a smoldering ruin within a decade. In the sports world, team dynasties rule until they don’t.

Yes, there are Goliaths out there, but in the end, we the people have the ultimate power. Our vehicle is democracy, which is fueled by our indefatigable yearning to live freely. But even though it’s a natural right, it doesn’t come easily because there are always scoundrels wanting to impose their will on a people.

Raising our nation, like Luke’s starfighter, from the morass it’s mired in won’t be easy, but then nothing in life worth having is easily gotten or done.

After he witnesses Yoda raise the ship from the swamp, Luke is awestruck and says he can’t believe it. It’s then Yoda’s drives home the most important lesson for Luke to learn. He simply says, “That is why you fail.”

Which prompts the most critical question facing Americans as we approach the 250^th anniversary of our republic’s birth: Do we still believe in ourselves?