Whatever happened to the common good? How during my lifetime did it disintegrate from an article of faith into an impotent pipedream?
Aristotle first expressed the idea (to koinei sympheron, in Greek). Good governments focus on the welfare of citizens, bad governments on the advantage of rulers. Aquinas, John Locke, David Hume, Rousseau, our Founding Fathers, and Marx, weighed in on the topic. These names may mean nothing to Musk and the Nameless One – all except their bogeyman, Marx; but even simpletons understand that you need an idea to construct a government, just as you need a plan to build a house.
Our newly elected – and unelected – leaders do not believe in the common good. The aim of life in their view is more for me. Grab all you can – it’s a war of all against all. Punish your opponents, so they don’t dare to challenge you. Human worth equals net worth, might equals right.
Such punks are common in any community, but rarely are they picked to lead. These are the bad guys folks combine to thwart, the sources of dread and disturbers of the peace. From kindergarten on, we are taught to share, heed, take turns. These reprobates won’t.
From the start, the Nameless One made no secret of his contempt for communal constraints. He lied, cheated, bullied without a qualm. He inveighed against the government he’d been chosen to head. His example in all respects was the opposite of what any parent would call good. Yet we selected him as chief a second time. How could we?
Stupidity. Everyone who voted for this abomination acted stupidly – and we all will pay the price.
Such an assertion, uttered aloud, offends. What an arrogant, elitist, unsociable thing to say! What gives me the right! In a democracy isn’t everyone entitled to their opinion?
Our stupidity takes two forms: ignorance and obduracy.
The ignorant don’t know because they’ve never been taught. For this omission, the community’s to blame. Fifty years ago, few would have dreamed of raising such a punk to power. We’d just won a war against his sort – at a mind-boggling cost. Civics were taught then, allegiance was pledged, institutions were honored, rules were obeyed. We the people behaved better, not because we were better, but because we knew – in our bones – disorder could lead to disaster.
During my lifetime, we lost confidence in institutions. We tested rules to see how far they’d bend. More and more decent people eschewed public service as grimy, tedious, unprofitable. We deputed others to govern for us and quit monitoring their performance. Thugs took advantage of our distraction to grab more and more. The idea of the common good insensibly evaporated. The Nameless One, anathema when we were young, became, to many, acceptable, what difference could he make?
Obdurate stupidity is more culpable. Smart people who voted for the Nameless One opted for individual advantage over the common good. They sought more for themselves and less for the rest, whom they deemed undeserving. To hell with the Constitution or that most ludicrous of documents, the Sermon on the Mount. Deluded by avarice, they refused to admit what they knew – that bad leaders produce bad results.
What’s the cure for stupidity? Pain. We cannot be talked into sense, we must be shocked into it. “For nothing can be sole or whole,” wrote Yeats, “that has not been rent.” Nations, no less than individuals, must endure the dark night of the soul to emerge into the light.
Will we emerge? Will the common good pummel the punks?
My heart’s in my throat.