Announcing a new statute and regulations, the Minister of the Environment said, “With this Act, we will be able to manage the air, land, and water of this great province.”
Though he went on at some length to tout the many advantages this would bring, I was fixated on the prideful arrogance of that first statement. That this man thought he could manage the air, land, and water of an entire province was astounding.
In that one sentence, I saw the arrogance of the elite governmental class and the unspoken, perhaps unconscious, divine aspirations and beliefs. He was saying that they could control the air, the rain, and even the land’s topography and geology.
He did not say he could prevent or punish activities that might affect these things. He did not say he could influence them. He was quite clear: he could “manage” them. He could, in his wisdom, see the correct result and, with his new power, bring it into being.
This was a spiritual parapraxis, a revealing Freudian slip.
A little humility would be in order.