Building, or rebuilding, a robust sense of the common good comes about in part by asking ourselves tough questions about the way we live.

---

Several years after a friend moved to Canada I asked how they were doing.

“One of the great, bittersweet things about Montreal is that, if you had asked me when I was a child what I thought the U.S. might be like by the time I was middle-aged . . . I would have said something quite like this (minus the French): a society which is broadly middle-class, science-based, forward-looking; with some racism, but nowhere near what the U.S. had when I was a child; with good healthcare, strong public safety, good environmental commitments, and a robust sense of the common good. And that would have been a hopeful vision, and a possible one. To see it realized here, just twenty miles over the border, and to know that the U.S. has chosen something quite different, is almost incomprehensible to me.”

As a child I would have seen much the same prospects for the U.S. But as I listen to what passes for political and rational thought today, my vision for what’s possible in the short term—as we move from one era to another—is not always optimistic.

---

RECOGNITION

It is helpful to be reminded of what we’ve lost as a country and how we might go about reclaiming the best of ourselves. Sometimes those reminders can come from an outside perspective, such as that provided by my friend. At other times writers help us make the necessary first step of recognition.

A recent post in The American Pamphleteer entitled The Most Underrated Freedom in America provides another perspective. The writer suggests that we did not give up basic freedoms by legislation or force. “These were quieter losses: ways of thinking, speaking and living that slowly became socially dangerous, morally suspect or simply too uncomfortable to practice.” Things like:

• the freedom to say, “I don’t know;”
• the freedom to disagree with your own side;
• the freedom to walk away from outrage;
• the freedom to forgive trespasses.

They suggest that somewhere along the line we learned that saying “I don’t know” is “to risk looking weak, uninformed or unprepared.” We wear our certainty as social armor. To say “I don’t know” used to be called humility, something we see very rarely in today’s political and even social discourse. They also write that we have confused outrage with caring and action.

As my friend in Montreal recognized, there are other ways to live. Other choices we can make.

---

INTENTIONALITY

While recognition of the problem is a necessary first step, intentionality is just as important. We all must take our own personal steps to help heal a broken nation.

I was reading Jane Bertch’s engaging memoir when the post on freedoms lost—and our ability to regain them—landed in my inbox. Both reminded me of an earlier book by my friend Janet Hulstrand that seeks to “demystify” the French. Janet captured wonderful life lessons from her observations about the country she’s come to love as a visitor and resident for more than 40 years.

Bertch’s memoir and Janet’s guide led me to agree with a number of the ways in which the French have decided to live their lives. And while neither writer tries to force the reader to accept that the French way is necessarily better, both made me stop to seriously consider why we do what we do. Why do we speak with such certainty? The French love to argue, but both writers noted they do so without an outrage that cuts off friendship. Why have we forgotten how to forgive?

Why not take an approach to living that, upon reflection, seems not only perfectly reasonable, but better for us, for our communities, and for our planet? The following came to mind as I read Janet’s “demystifying” manual:

• Why not greet each and every person with a kind word (bonjour) and leave them with a cheerful au revoir (until we see each other again)?
• Why not throw out our assumptions that everyone is just like us? 
• Why not treat strangers as we would want to be treated?
• Why not expect and support beauty in both our civic spaces and life?
• Why not lower our voice instead of speaking at a decibel level that ensures that everyone within 100 feet hears our conversation and that often gives the impression that we are angry? (My wife is raising her eyebrows right about now.)
• Why not take our time? What’s the rush?
• Why not, instead of being self-absorbed or all wrapped up in what we do or always being correct, work on simply being interesting?

This last one comes out of the chapter in Janet’s book entitled “The Importance of Being Interesting,” and she begins it with this short story.

“Years ago, a friend of mine had a dalliance with a Frenchwoman. When they went their separate ways, neither of them was truly terribly upset—it was a casual affair, and it was over. But she did make certain to tell him before going on her way, that to her, he and his friends were ‘not interesting.’ (‘I know many peoples who are more interesting zan you!’ were her precise words.)”

Janet goes into some depth about the ways and whys of being interesting, noting that the French have a general respect “for education, for intellect, and for the importance of learning how to think rationally.” They don’t talk about their work and tie their self-esteem up in their jobs. Instead, they build on the philosophy courses that are a staple of all French high school curricula in order to produce “enlightened citizens capable of intelligent criticism.”

The reflections on the freedoms we surrendered culturally, one small concession at a time, struck me as choices we have made without thinking and perhaps out of fear. In the process these choices have made us less interesting. Perhaps we surrendered them “because certainty feels safer than doubt. Loyalty fells safer than independence. Outrage feels more righteous than seeking the truth. Condemnation feels more powerful than mercy.”

But these are freedoms we can reclaim, if each of us are intentional about the way we live.

• Why not say “I don’t know enough yet?”
• Why not tell our allies when they are wrong?
• Why not refuse to react to every feed filled with fury?
• Why not hold people accountable without insisting that they remain forever trapped inside the worst thing they have done?

These are not inconsequential in the bigger scheme of things.

“A free society requires people who can think without permission, dissent without terror, pause without shame and forgive without surrendering their judgment.

Political freedom cannot survive for long without that kind of inner freedom. Perhaps that’s why recovering it matters now.”

Why not begin to see each other as fellow travelers along life’s very short highway? Why not keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable? Take time to dawdle and dream? Let yourself be bewildered?

Why not love your neighbor as yourself?

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo from Unsplash