Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right. –Jane Goodall
It seems that today more than ever before governments – whether democratic, socialistic, authoritarian – are reluctant to enact a vision for the common good. Why? One reason is that there is little, if any, agreement as to how the ‘common good’ is defined. We are too different and too diverse. But are we?
In our country those we elect seem to believe this for it appears that the best they can do is to deliver the maximum possible freedom to individuals to make their own choices. The individual trumps (no pun intended; or is there one to be intended) the community and the common good.
Historically in our country our elected officials believe that the means best suited to this is the unfettered market where you and I can buy whatever lifestyle we can afford; a lifestyle that suits us – this month or this year.
Beyond this individual freedom to do what we like and what we can afford, contemporary politics, politicians, economics and economists have little to say about the human condition.
Our politicians and our economists give us inadequate guidance in knowing what to do in the face of the random brutalities of life. They, like us, are rooted in the technological, financial and mechanical metaphors. The Technological, Financial and Mechanical Worlds are inorganic worlds and cannot respond to our humanity and human needs. At minimum, they distract us and at maximum they deplete our humanity and dehumanize us.
We need to engage a conversation that helps us recover an older tradition; an older set of metaphors – essentially a set of religious traditions – which include philosophic and humanistic traditions. These ancient traditions spoke and speak to us of human solidarity, of justice, of compassion, of empathy, of love, and of common boundaries (think: our common humanity).
They speak to us of the non-negotiable dignity of each human life. Because the technological and mechanical and financial metaphors are inorganic they, by their very essence find it easy to negotiate away each human life – to negotiate away our humanity.
Globalization, exponentially, adds to this. As a friend of mine remarked a number of years ago: This is too complicated! Because all of this is, indeed, too complicated it is easy for us to surrender or resign ourselves to our ‘fate’ – this is, by the by, Gentle Reader, not a ‘good fate.’
What then can a religious-philosophic-humanistic perspective contribute? For one, they can contribute an organic-humanistic metaphor that counters the inorganic metaphors that we have embraced and integrated. ‘What else?’ you ask?
Dialogue…can help free our hearts from the impulse toward the intolerance and rejection of others. –Daisaku Ikeda
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