Church services sometimes invite us to take inventory of our moral natures. Are we the best people we can be? Can we control our impulses to do wrong, or must we always fall short of the ideals we say that we hold? When we have been mean or spiteful, how do we live with ourselves?

One doesn’t have to be a Christian to explore these ideas, since other world religions also examine the question of what makes a good life. In fact, one doesn’t have to claim a spiritual identity at all. Wrestling with questions of right and wrong, and with moral gray areas — this is all part of maturing, of understanding the world, and of deciding what we are going to do in life, and who we are going to be.

Morality and goodness, therefore, are not synonymous with faith, though in the best traditions of spiritual practice, goodness is the goal.

Preachers, philosophers and poets return again and again to such questions because there are impulses and desires in our human natures that lead us not toward goodness, but in the opposite direction.

And the sad and terrifying truth is that in this year’s elections, these competing impulses are right there on the surface.

Arrogance

Arrogance is the presumption that we are right, and that our own experience defines what is “normal.” Because we are “right,” we expect everyone else to embrace our viewpoint. How does that play out politically?

Arrogance allows us to declare that there is no need for diversity, equity and inclusion in corporations because we don’t see hiring from the point of view of women or people of color.

Arrogance asserts that the police always treat everyone with respect because that’s how they treat us.

Arrogance allows heterosexual men and women to legislate rules that restrict the rights of LGBT+ people — preventing them from marrying, protecting businesses that won’t serve them, and dictating which bathrooms they use and what medical care they receive.

Arrogance feeds misogyny, by presuming that legislatures know better than physicians what the standard of care for pregnant women should be.

Arrogance asserts that it will protect women, so that they no longer have to worry about their fates, as Donald Trump promised in September.

Arrogance sees no need to work across the aisle in political disputes because arrogance believes that “I alone can fix it,” as Trump declared in 2016.

Fear

Fear is next. We tend to fear change, the unfamiliar, and people who look, dress or speak differently than we do. Psychologists might say that such fears are rooted in insecurity, or perhaps in a dark view of the world that sees threats around every corner.

Fear accounts for the endless drumbeat of blame directed at immigrants for eating pets, commandeering apartment complexes, running up housing prices and poisoning the blood of the nation (whatever that means).

Fear drives us to build literal walls, as well as figurative ones, between communities.

Fear condones warrantless searches and traffic stops, and creates roadblocks to legal immigration.

We fear that new energy sources like wind and solar will affect jobs because we focus only on jobs that might be lost rather than ones that might be created.

We fear people whose sexuality differs from our own and demonize what we don’t understand. We may never have met a drag queen, but fear lets us assume the worst about that person.

Fear leads to making voting harder for certain people: the urban poor, working people, the elderly and the disabled. It cuts down the number of polling places in areas that heavily favor the opponent.

Fear leads to censoring books that challenge our ideas about gender, or about racial history, or about sexual behavior.

Fear draws a line between ourselves and those we mistrust because we don’t engage with them.

Self-interest

Finally, there is self-interest. Self-interest always asks: “What’s in it for me?” and relegates other people’s problems to the back of the closet.

Self-interest can lead to a profound lack of empathy for other people. If you have never miscarried a baby, then it won’t matter to you if there’s no doctor to perform a D & C.

If you have never experienced political violence, how can you welcome a mother and child fleeing Central American gangs?

If you were never assaulted because of your gender identity, or because of how you dress, or because your English was halting, how can you stand up for the civil rights of such people?

Self-interest sees no problem in capitalizing on power. Insider trading? Why not? How about excessive speaking fees, kickbacks from lobbyists, vacations on yachts, or donations to your PAC? What about jailing political opponents or releasing from jail people who rioted to overthrow the election you lost? How about giving yourself a “get out of jail free” card for the felonies and crimes you have committed?

Self-interest is the opposite of service: It answers the needs of those in power, at the expense of the electorate that voted them into office.

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The monsters of arrogance, fear and self-interest are rampant in the 2024 election, and it’s pretty clear which side has embraced the monsters. Look who is promising to round up and deport 15-20 million people. Look who is spreading lies about FEMA’s response to the hurricanes, while vowing to “drill baby drill” for more fossil fuels. Who is scapegoating immigrants for an imagined rise in crime, for disease, for rape at the grocery store? Who calls their opponents deranged, mentally deficient, communist, and whatever else might stick if you throw it at the wall?

In this election year, think carefully about the ballot choices you make. If they are driven by the monsters within, consider what will be unleashed upon our neighbors, our communities, our country, and our world.

Turn away from the monsters, and make a better choice.

— Community Columnist Barbara Mezeske is a retired teacher and resident of Holland. She can be reached at bamezeske@gmail.com.