Theft at the Public Till
plea for change -- for a redirection of the system. Jim Wallis in his The Soul of Politics argues that it is our inability to assert a common good that has caused our government’s paralysis. In his view if each of us took respon- sibility for living in the community of others we could begin the needed transformation. In his Arrogant Capital Kevin Phillips identifies the prob- lem as the other worldliness of a Washington caught up in its own milleau unable to relate to the true needs of the rest of us. In their own way each of these authors has echoed Jimmy Carter’s farewell address in 1981 where he urged each of us to invest in the common good, in a sense of community if we wished to continue to prosper and live in peace. My belief in the need for a unifying pattern underlying the actions of our government is not only based on a moral desire for “community” -- indeed enough others have written about such a desire -- but on the pragmatic observation that the only way we can deal with our complex world is to simplify it. Simplification can occur in two totally separate directions. We could be like the scientist, asserting that the whole is made up of parts and as the world gets more complex, the key is to study each part in greater depth so that collectively we will have greater understanding. The alternative is to assert that a grand synthesis can inform our individual path finding through the complexity. Our system of government has followed the first course with ever decreasing efficacy. We stand at the crossroads of a grand transition into a world of information and thought and away a world of things and places. It is time to recognize that the scientific approach no longer works - we simply will drown in a sea of unprocessed unconnected data. We require the syn- thesis approach if we are to prevent the drowning. Given its dangers and its opportunities, life in a grand transition entails responsibility. If we maintain obsolete values and beliefs, we also maintain outdated behaviors. If such failed behaviors are widespread, they can block the entire transition toward creating a better world for our children. Our own persistence in outdated modes of thinking and acting contributes to such an unfortunate outcome. There is both a moral and a practical obliga- tion for each of us to look beyond the surface of events, beyond the plots and polemics of practical policies, the sensationalist headlines of the mass media,
23
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online