The common good

While driving across town the other day, I was listening to a radio show with several “experts” speaking about the state of our country and the political sparring currently taking place in Washington. The speakers seemed discouraged. And when the host asked if the guests thought the democracy of our nation was going to survive these times, I was surprised to hear one of them reply, “I think our political system is on life support in these days.”

The consensus, to the extent there was one, seemed to be that our political leaders were having difficulty putting aside partisan differences in order to work together for the common good. Working together for the common good requires that one put aside one’s own interests for the sake of the needs of the broader community. “Yes,” I thought. This seems to be a key issue. And I wondered why this was so elusive for our political leaders to accomplish.

We have all seen the interviews and read the stories in the press in which each side is speaking negatively about the other. The demonization of the other has served to obscure the issues and has replaced the purpose for which they were elected to office. As a result, the common good is being forsaken for what seems to be for them a higher value: the ability to score hits against the other side. In this mind-set there are no winners, and the needs of the people continue to remain forsaken.

At the risk of adding another negative pile-on, I wonder out loud how these dynamics are currently being reflected in our broader culture and what antidotes there may be for improvement. Here are some thoughts.

It seems to me that there are fewer absolute moral values like respect and honesty. These have been relativized with personal qualifiers. Consequently, one’s respect for the other is not defined by the fundamental belief in the God-given inherent dignity of each person; rather it is defined by one’s personal choice as to whether or not the other is deemed to be deserving of one’s respect. Projecting this out across a landscape of political action, the common good is easily threatened unless it conforms to one’s personal idea of what is best. And honesty … well, I think that more often than not, it too has become qualified by a multitude of spins to support one’s personal views.

Along with this exaggerated individualism comes a type of righteousness in which one feels justified in dismissing another point of view, and usually to discount (and maybe demonize) the one who holds a contrary idea. But righteousness of any kind (left or right, liberal or conservative) leaves little or no room to work for the common good.

What can be done to get our relationships, both political and personal, on track?  How do we create a way of being that truly embodies the values of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and other religions which call us to respect and love one another without any precondition and is grounded in a communal rather than individualistic way of being?

Perhaps the only way forward in this moment in our communities and in Washington is the way back—back to a teaching we all once knew that insisted on mutual respect, in spite of personal opinions, self-interest or the desire for political advancement. A way back to where family, not finances was the cornerstone of our society, and the vision was to create a land of opportunity for all not just for some—a most noble vision s till beyond our reach.

The common good—it’s a way of being where despite differences, all work together for the benefit of all. We know how to do it.  We see evidence of it every time our country suffers a tragedy either from natural disasters or such unimaginable and appalling events as 9/11, Columbine, Sandy Hook, the Boston Marathon bombings, and other killings that have occurred in various parts of our country.  It seems that these times cause us to stop and ponder the fragility of life and the value of life. The goodness in each of us and the realization that we are all in this together surfaces and we reach out to one another, we care about one another and we suffer each other’s misfortunes—at least for a time.

And so unlike the radio show speakers, I have hope. I have hope in the goodness of God and in the goodness God has placed in all of us. I have hope that we can turn this around and get back on course—a course in which we realize that we have more in common than we think and in which the awareness that we are all in this together can be sustained. In doing so, we will make our voices heard and demand no less from our political leaders so that we can indeed work together towards the creation of a society and a world where there is liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness for all and in which we all work together for the common good.

Fr. James J. Ronan, Pastor

jronan@stmarystcatherine.org