The Tribune

US President Theodore Roosevelt  was a militarist and adventurist who used the bullying might of the American Colossus to advance his country’s imperialist stratagems in Latin and Central America.

Intent on the completion of a canal through the Central American isthmus to offer a quicker maritime route between the Atlantic and the Pacific, Roosevelt aided the separatist movement in the then-Columbian department of Panama, which, with American connivance, broke with Columbia to form an independent state.

At home, Roosevelt was a progressive during a bygone era when the Republican Party was a broad political church. He busted monopolies and cartels through vigorous anti-trust legislation. In 1906 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering the end of the Russo-Japanese War.

A bold progressive leader, he championed his Square Deal, domestic policies promoting the regulation of food and drugs, the regulation of railroads and numerous environmental policies, including greatly expanding his country’s National Park System.

An ardent conservationist, he assumed office at age 42 and proved throughout his 60 years of life to be a man of boundless energy, an intrepid traveller and voracious reader who delighted in the virtue and joy of service in the arena.

Post-presidency, Roosevelt embarked on an international tour. On April 23, 1910, 110 years ago this month, he delivered a speech entitled, “Citizenship in a Republic” at the Sorbonne (University of Paris).

The “Citizenship in a Republic” address described some of the duties of citizens in a democracy and distilled Roosevelt’s philosophical views on government.

A part of the speech was reserved for the cynics, the intellectually pompous with little life achievements, the sideline carpers, the inveterate naysayers and the shallow critics who offer little but trite and asinine asides and judgements.

Roosevelt’s famous speech is better known as “The Man in The Arena”. In it, he described the virtue and joy of service in the arena and the quality of character required to offer oneself in the service of humanity.

A less well-known but compelling excerpt from his remarks is a powerful response to those, who though afraid to enter the arena, are nonetheless typically the loudest and most ardent critics.

Roosevelt knew well the kind of individuals throughout history, including during these times in The Bahamas, who are well-groomed in the art of lamenting all that is wrong but who rarely enter the arena to help repair the breach.

Thoughtful and considered criticisms are as essential for personal growth as they are for the improvement and flourishing of a society. Religious leaders have a moral obligation to offer ethical reflections and critiques on public policy.

The best journalists and commentators are informed and intellectually curious who offer valuable reporting, criticism and insights on a range of matters in the public domain including about and beyond politics.

Academics, who offer cogent, informed and intelligent analysis, as opposed to reflexively inane and poorly informed gobbledygook, play a particular role in areas they have carefully studied and/or in which they enjoy special expertise.

Citizen engagement, including through advice, ideas and suggestions, are essential in cultivating the common good and dialogue in the public square.

But as in all times, there are the empty, shallow, ill-informed denigrators and hacks who poison the public dialogue, typically through the prism of their conceits, prejudices, limited thinking and incapacity for deeper thought and reflection.

In his 1910 lecture Roosevelt reminds us of those here at home who have much to say but little to constructively add to national dialogue.

Quite a number of these are Facebook and WhatsApp warriors and bourgeois, pretentious pseudo-intellectuals often filled with insidious envy, who are addicted to whining, moaning, complaining, bitching and kvetching from the narcissistic echo chambers of their limited minds and within certain social media groups.

Their battlegrounds are mostly in the digital sphere. They mostly refuse to lend their bodies, souls, hearts and minds in the arena, which is larger than politics and government, though these arenas are among the more challenging and consequential in human society.

Roosevelt lampooned:

“Let the man of learning, the man of lettered leisure, beware of that queer and cheap temptation to pose to himself and to others as a cynic, as the man who has outgrown emotions and beliefs, the man to whom good and evil are as one. The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer.

“There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt.

“There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes second to achievement.”

Roosevelt bemoaned:

“A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities—all these are marks, not as the possessor would feign to think, of superiority, but of weakness.

“They mark the men unfit to bear their part painfully in the stern strife of living, who seek, in the affectation of contempt for the achievement of others, to hide from others and from themselves their own weakness.”

Prior to the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa, chronicled in the film Invictus, Nelson Mandela gave a copy of Roosevelt’s call to service and action to the captain of the South African rugby team which prevailed as victors in the arena in the final match.

One of those who helped formed the first Majority Rule government experienced the joy of service in the public arena alongside the deprivations and difficulties of giving his life for his principles and his country.

He too bemoans today’s shallow critics, including some in the media, who have little constructive to offer but who spew endless invective.

He offers that these contemporary critics remind him of those, including some in the black middle class of the day, who refused to lend their talents and help to the movement for Majority Rule.

They refused to enter the arena to serve in party branches, to run for office, to help spread the message of change through the media of the day, to canvass voters, to help organize rallies, to hold house meetings, to raise funds, to help petition colonial officials and international agencies, to serve on committees, to offer clerical and other professional help, to register voters, to cook food for events.

Though they reaped the benefits of Majority Rule, many hedged their bets and remained on the sidelines endlessly criticizing and complaining. They considered themselves too “good” and pristine to soil themselves in the heat of battle for the greater good.

As the country battles the health and economic challenges posed by the COVID-19 virus there are many in the arena and on the frontlines as health care professionals, helping to feed others or in public service.

Others are offering service on public committees, proffering advice and constructive ideas, even as some attack the generous of heart and spirit.

Yet, as always, there are the shallow, often nasty critics, the Facebook warriors who charge in with trite analyses or memes, the belligerently negative, all of whom rarely offer substance, hope or goodwill.

The late Monsignor Preston Moss often said those who history remembers well are those who answered the call of service, not those who gave plenty advice on what could be done better but who could never bring themselves to actually serve in the arena.

Next Week: Bahamian Patriots in the Arena.