Commonwealth.... Time to Reprise?

So what unites us as a nation? Obviously, there is no "one" thing, but my point in raising the question is to think about how we as people of faith think about the key values that we hold dear and believe connect us as a people. Politically, our current political debate seems to focus on the value of the free individual over any common wealth or success. Either one has successfully been an individual (and deserves the wealth and status that he/she made) or has failed, and thus deserves to be poor. I think this individualism is one of the most divisive myths within the American worldview, as it pervades so much of our debate.

And it is this individual focus that needs to be reassessed as we debate cutting education, job programs and health care. I think we should develop a more robust idea of Commonwealth, a term that has its English etymological roots in the idea of "common well-being" (wealth = well-being). What happened to "United We Stand"? Can't we unite to fight hunger, poverty and poor education?

Within our context, where religion and faith divide, rather than unite, the Christian tradition offers an ambiguous resource for political thinking. But there are several important thinkers that might help us reframe the political debate. In particular, I am thinking of Augustine. In City of God, he connects commonwealth with peoplehood: "A people is an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love, then, in order to discover the character of any people, we have only to observe what they love. Yet whatever it loves, if only it is an assemblage of reasonable beings and not of beasts, and is bound together by an agreement as to the objects of love, it is reasonably called a people; and it will be a superior people in proportion as it is bound together by higher interests, inferior in proportion as it is bound together by lower. According to this definition of ours, the Roman people is a people, and its weal is without doubt a commonwealth or republic."(19.24)

He believes that a true commonwealth is united under the rule of Christ. As we are modern political liberals, valuing freedom of religion, this view is untenable, as giving each person religious freedom (as a formal right) is an important part of our social contract. But a lovely question to think about is: what do we love? Is our love of individual rights greater than our love of helping others? Shouldn't we as Christians be united in our love of God and love of neighbor such that our actions are focused on common well-being?

And with this line of reasoning, I think that underneath the right of the individual over the community as a whole is the more pervasive mythos is the belief that each individual can "create" something from nothing; that we don't need any help/luck in becoming a wealthy, successful individual. In short, that the teachers, family of origin, community, class and race that form the life that we are thrown into (quoting Heidegger) don't play a part in shaping who we become. To accept the premise that our common life impacts each of us as an individual makes a commonwealth much more important. We should be united in common for the well being of all.