Subject: A perennial conundrum
Date: Thu, Aug 14, 2014
Msg: 101079
When I think of the America I'd like to see, I find myself imagining an America whose major laws and institutions are shaped to respect core virtues and promote the national interest and the common good.
When I think of the America we have, I see a political system whose officials are rewarded for their self-righteousness.
Will the self-righteous produce laws that promote the common good? Hmm. Not too likely, it it? This disparity creates a huge clash between the civic culture that modernity requires, and the civic culture that self-righteous partisanship creates.
If there is to be any lasting cure to this tension, I think it will have to arise from within civil society. Those not locked into the self-righteousness of any particular -ism will be better at promoting a culture of virtue and national interest thinking.
And some of the key reforms will have to be driven by independents, those not beholden to the -isms of America's major partisan coalitions.
That's not to say that Americans caught up in the spirit of self-righteousness should not be listened to or engaged in dialogue. But it is to say that dialogues among the self-righteousness won't take us a very long way toward the healing of America. America won't work properly till policies born of self-righteousness have been replaced with policies rooted in virtue and enlightened self-interest.
What do these thoughts say to this process? Perhaps we should add a framing of the "transpartisan" mission as an exploration of the tension between partisan self-righteousness and the realization of America's full potential.
Best to all,
Steve Johnson
Steven Howard Johnson - Civic Futurist 410-562-0361 Book in Progress: Thoughtful Patriotism
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