The Need to Restore Dignity to Society  

I was transfixed recently by the ceremonies attendant to the burial of the late King Harald V of Norway and the assumption of the throne by his son, King Haakan VIII, all of this taking place in the capital city, Oslo.

Everything appears to be regulated by long standing traditions.  The citizenry who participated in the various ceremonies are all uniformly and impeccably dressed as dictated by the groups they represent.  Movement from place to place is accomplished with measured steps drawn out over a period of time to project solemnity.

The charge to the new king is read using words dictated by tradition, while the acceptance of the charge by the king is, likewise, carefully scripted, again according to tradition.  There is, in a word, precision in everything that occurred during this week of the transference of authority from one monarch, now deceased, to the new monarch, the son of the one no longer with us.

Yet the word that describes what I watched most accurately, is “dignity”.  Everything was done with dignity.  Everything occurred in a dignified manner.  Everything was approached with grace.  And with that dignity and grace came a seriousness as well, all projecting the feeling that those in charge were not only in charge, but actually had the capacity to carry out their responsibilities effectively  as well.

How I wish we here in Israel and around the world could restore a measure of dignity to a fractured globe.  In Israel, perhaps we don’t “do dignity” because there is simply no word in the Hebrew language for dignity.  On line translators will say that the Hebrew word for dignity is kovod.  But kovod is honor, or perhaps respect but it lacks the reassuring force that comes with dignity.  Truth be told, it may very well be that the absence of dignity in how the world conducts itself these days is exactly what makes people apprehensive about the future.

Margaret MacMillan, a historian and former warden of St. Antony’s College, Oxford, had an op ed in the New York Times recently where she posits that a new world order is coming and we aren’t ready.

She writes: “A new reality has arrived with startling speed. The world order that held together for most of our lives started to erode when those within it got too comfortable and complacent, and when there was too much acceptance — even approval — of bad behavior.  We have arrived in a new age of disorder. We must prepare ourselves, which begins with being honest about the seriousness of the moment we’re in, and accepting that our fragile system is faltering. That countries are already adjusting, for better and worse. And that any future of cooperation will have to look different.”

For sure the world has seen periods of disorder before, and chaos is often the norm when it comes to how people and nations interact with each other. Yet, we can see with our own eye’s angry populations worldwide, unelected elites with enormous wealth and the power to bend governments to their will and leaders who refuse to build consensus or take advice.

James Talarico, the Democratic candidate for Senate from Texas pointed out recently in a speech in Kerrville, a city in the Texas hill country, that the combined wealth of Mark Zuckerbeg, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos equals the combined wealth of all of America’s middle class.  I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the numbers but the feeling that all of us are being squeezed out of a reasonably comfortable way of life runs rampant through most liberal democratic societies these days.

Add to this, as MacMillan writes, “the realization that we live in a world of increasing unpredictability in which we are left, to a much greater extent than we expected, at the whims of our leaders, who are less bound by external frameworks and feel freer to make it up as they go along. We should be choosing those decision makers more carefully than ever — just when electorates seem less inclined to do so.”

Yet watching the proceedings in Oslo a few weeks ago, every move according to script, pomp and circumstance choreographed to the nth degree and the pride in the participant’s faces reflecting their belief in that system, makes one wonder whether the lack of dignity in daily life needs to be reinstated if we are to get past the current challenges to humanity.

Laura Hillenbrand, in her book, Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption writes: “Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man’s soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it.”

It is human dignity that allows us to operate on a plane above that of the rest of the animal world.  Yet, as importantly, extending dignity to others elevates them and is critical to restoring the values that seem to have been lost over recent years. Let us hope we can remember this as we move forward in this election season in Israel.   Doing so will go a long way toward restoring faith in our leadership.