We Need A "Commonwealth" In Its Essence: We Have Drifted Away, and Look at The Result

The term "commonwealth" is not one often used to promote good governance. It's a token phrase best applied to states that claim it, such as Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

But if you notice, those are three of the most important of our original 13 colonies: Massachusetts, the starting point of our revolution; Pennsylvania, where our declaration of independence was signed and our first capital established; and Virginia, home of George Washington and four of our first five presidents.

So the phrase must mean more than it looks. I looked it up in the Oxford Dictionary, unabridged: "The body politic, in which everyone has an interest." Just a few more states refer to themselves as a "commonwealth," (I believe one of which is Kentucky) so it has to be more than just a substitute or synonym for "government." It has to be an attitude.

In The Free Society in Crisis: A History of Our Times, David Selbourne tries to get at that, meaning that it is now largely missing from our affairs and should be rethought. Selbourne is a British writer and refers a great deal to Great Britain in his references, but he splits the time very nicely with the United States, an obvious reference to what it once was: a moral leader of the world. He says we don't even know what that means anymore.

The book rambles unfocused, as he reaches for examples of people worried only whether they can afford something rather than dealing with the meaning of the act they wish to pay for: surrogate parenthood is a familiar refrain. But he comes up with so many examples along the fringes, you start to see what he means; if people can get away with all that and keep doing so, the meaning of what they do becomes more and more ephemeral. It sounds a bit like 45; just because he can, doesn't mean he should. Some control of power and justification of it is necessary.

But the idea of so much free choice isn't a new one. If the guardrails surrounding ethics disappear with enough dollars to take them down, what does any act mean? We float aimlessly and allow certain forces to intervene, to interfere with us, without focusing on what we're supposed to. If everything is "okay," what standards do we have left? And what does that mean?

So local governments are fond of saying that crime has gone down, except it hasn't. They wear the cloak of educational success without noticing that holes have worn through them. They say that they're a "Christian" nation, but Muslims are slowly ignoring freedom of religion and we are allowing them to walk over the political culture (Especially true in the U.K., but Christian fundamentalism is its own problem here.).

He wanders close to rigidity. He asks why schoolchildren can't do the daily pledge of allegiance, as a reminder of their civic responsibility. At least then, he says, they'll know that they have a country and that will help to bind them to the political culture. Indeed, Wisconsin has dictated for some time now that that exact act be repeated daily. As I pledge allegiance to the wall, sang Paul Simon in the song My Little Town: Children don't really know what they're doing, and teachers won't repeat its significance to them daily. Wouldn't it be better, though, to teach the act with a reminder here and there? Wouldn't it be better to begin public events with the pledge (which is often done, before sporting events, but I mean besides them), showing the kids that such an act of loyalty is appropriate by having the adults do it in front of them?

Would that alone establish a "commonwealth" over the body politic? No. But it might, momentarily, give us reason to understand that we're all in this thing together, and make it easier to step away from ourselves every so often and help someone who needed it instead of wondering whether our cars and other things are all that impressive.

Better, I think (and Selbourne doesn't mention it, which is amazing to me), that we adults get out to the polls a bit more and make that a statement about how we feel about the democracy in which we live, as a living legacy to the next generation, instead of relying on a pledge of allegiance that has little impact. The percentages by which we vote should be an endless national embarrassment. If we get 65 percent voting in November, that will be considered a particularly attentive electorate.

I wonder what Selbourne thinks about our present predicament. He did not evaluate 45 per se, but his comments about him (the book was published last year) indicate that he knows what he's up to. Maybe it triggered the book itself: Here we are, the country with the biggest chance to influence the rest of the world, and not only are we blowing the chance, we seem to be working at cross purposes. People are dying daily of this virus, and all the president really wants us to do is leave him alone and let him bark so he can be re-elected. He has the World Health Organization to scapegoat, though badly, so he cuts off the funding to it when it's most needed.

That is not a "commonwealth" kind of thinking. We need to consider ourselves part of humanity's whole, because this awful disease is going everywhere (it just hasn't gotten to certain places yet). The right and ability to make money, by itself, certainly won't do it, for that puts people back into their corners. "Without the practical renewal of the politics and ethics of the civic commonwealth," says Selbourne, "resting upon a social contract of reciprocal rights and duties, supported by sanction and upheld by a political class that can hear the bell tolling, our 'rending in pieces,' in Madison's words, will continue to its bitter end."

Indeed, the lack of it brought on 45 and his nihilism. He has no Constitution to guide him unless someone reminds him of it; he gets away with whatever he can because he thinks he can. Impeachment was only the largest example. He, and we because of him, now drift along without meaning. He thinks he can do that during this crisis. If he can and if he wins, it will be the end of our meaning in the world.

Maybe, in a perverse way, it is helpful and necessary for us to undergo social distancing, to allow us to think about whether we really want to become a "commonwealth" or whether we just feel like going back to the thinking that once was. The latter will now be difficult to do. We have yet to undergo real economic hardship; that's just around the corner. The last one helped mold what we now call The Greatest Generation, which managed to get through it and create the greatest economy and the nation the world has seen. But it took a world war to do so, remember; fascism ran rampant until we showed up. Now we are on the verge of letting fascism overrun us.

We will get closer to that moment as we go. It will be the true test of our democracy; will we lean in the direction of being a "commonwealth," with liberty and law roughly balanced, or will we submit to our troubles and allow ourselves to be smothered by meaningless forces out for only themselves?

That time is coming. Buckle up.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.


Mister Mark