My generation – the Baby Boomers, the “Me Generation” – has flushed this country into a fetid toilet. Whereas our parents, coming out of the Depression, believed in save and invest, we embraced borrow and spend (or simply charge everything on a credit card (or two or three or four)), both personally and publicly, we wore t-shirts that championed carpe diem, we subscribed to the rock-and-roll and drug philosophy of “if it feels good, do it,” and we listened to songs that implored us to “Sha-la-la-la live for today/And don’t worry ‘bout tomorrow.” Emerson wrote that America “is the country of the Future. . . . We plant trees, we build stone houses, we redeem the waste, we make prospective laws, we found colleges and hospitals, for remote generations. We should be mortified to learn that the little benefit in our own persons to receive was the utmost they would yield.”
There used to be a word for collective action for the benefit of the whole – commonweal, meaning simply the good of the community, or the public good, or the “general welfare” (Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution). It’s a word that’s archaic now, but shouldn’t be. If our politicians (or what pass absurdly as politicians these days and not special interest suckups) would all agree to start their dialogue on the foundation of the commonweal, how much better things might be. But I don’t hold out hope for this generation. My only hope is that we as a nation can hang on long enough for the next generation to wake up and take over. And embrace once again the word and concept of the commonweal. It might be too late. Hopefully not.
