Ask candidates for public office: What do you revere?
By Michael Brosnan
I’ve been working my way through Paul Woodruff’s 2001 book, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue. And it seems to me that this is another one of those good — and instructive — books for our times.
At the start, Woodruff — a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin, who died in 2023 — makes the essential point about the importance of reverence for our lives in general, but especially for those who want to lead:
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“Reverence begins in a deep understanding of human limitations; from this grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our control — God, truth, justice, nature, even death….
“Reverence is the virtue that keeps leaders from trying to take tight control of other people’s lives. Simply put, reverence is the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like gods.
“To forget that you are only human, to think you can act like a god — this is the opposite of reverence. Ancient Greeks thought that tyranny was the height of irreverence, and they gave the famous name of hubris to the crimes of tyranny.
“…[p]ower without reverence — that is a catastrophe for all.”
Maybe when we see candidates for public office in the mid-term elections this fall (and again in 2028 for the president election), we should ask each candidate: What do you revere, and why? It will tell us more about their character than any question on policy.
As Woodruff’s subtitle makes clear, reverence is a virtue we should nurture more consciously. Without reverence, Woodruff says, things fall apart. Without reverence, we don’t have a clear reason to protect the natural world, or care for the poor, or work for justice, or contribute to our communities and families.
Reverence is not the same as respect. As Woodruff points out, under the umbrella of reverence, it is sometimes right to be respectful and somethings wrong. To pay respect to a tyrant, for instance, would not be reverent. It would be more akin to cowardice. At its core, reverence asks that we have “a well-developed capacity to have the feelings of awe, respect, and shame when these are the right feelings to have.”
A clear sense of reverence will help us work collectively for a well-functioning democracy led by people who respect the rule of law and work with others for the greater good. It will help us rein in AI so that it serves our shared needs, not corporate profits or the power hunger of corrupt politicians. Reverence will help us understand the value in all religious practices while discouraging engaging in discrimination, exclusion, violence, and war based on some poorly imagined idea of God and his/her will. It will help all who find themselves in leadership positions in any field to do the right thing in any given situation. It will help us reshape immigration policies, farming practices, use of natural resources, and our perspective on war. It will help us create educational programs that brings out the best in each child — academically, emotionally, spiritually, physically.
Of course, I love that Woodruff says he found a greater understanding of reverence among poets than philosophers — but he also makes it clear that what matters most is how each of us understands the virtue and applies it to our private and public lives.
“If you desire peace in the world,” Woodruff writes, “do not pray that everyone share your beliefs. Pray instead that all may be reverent.”