Right now, for example, I am focused on the idea of the common good - an ethic foundational to democracy and one from which we have strayed.
Years ago, Robert Bellah offered some pointed critiques at the Unitarian Universalist Association’s General Assembly, basically warning us of the dangers of rampant individualism. As a society and a culture, we in this country have lost sight of the common good. The current situation makes the motto “greed is good” of the 1980’s mere pabulum. Even in this economic crisis, when things are looking pretty dire and people utter the word “depression” and they’re not talking about Zoloft, it’s all about “me and my needs” and not “rescuing” all those undeserving people.
But as Mr. Spock would say: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one."
What's got my dander up is yesterday's anti-tax "Tea Parties". One sign read "My Money, My God, My Guns" or something. It had a slightly silly but rather dangerous anti-Obama feel, from what I saw. It was silly and shortsighted... the Gingrich-Limbaugh-sore loser Republicans grasping at straws. Don't they get it? We cannot continue that road of “what’s good for me is good for me, and that’s all that matters.”
Can we look back to some older notions of democracy and how government is "of, by and for” the people... and that the people serve one another?
I feel a little like Galadriel offering a warning: "The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true. The Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true."
Ah, the drama!
