I.
If there’s anything that can be gleaned from a thoughtful survey of the public discourse it’s that the word freedom cannot be defined one way for all people.

II.
A bit less than twenty years ago, the then-boyfriend and I and two friends went to an exhibit of fledgeling virtual reality technology, considered at the time so far out there that the exhibit station was gathering dust until we arrived. The artists had long since gotten bored and wandered away; there was no one to question about possible uses for VR. The guys I was with tried on the helmet and glasses and futzed around with different movements. I chose not to try walking and leaping because I could already walk and leap, but what I really liked were the ideas I had immediately for what could be done with VR tech. Right off the bat: wouldn’t it be fantastic if heterosexuals could switch bodies and learn what it was like to get sexy in – as opposed to against – the bodies of their lovers? Wouldn’t we learn everything worth knowing if we could learn to feel what other people feel?

What if men could feel for themselves what pregnancy and childbirth feel like? What if doctors could feel what patients feel? What if wealthy legislators could feel the anguish and helplessness of children who go to bed hungry? How different would we be if we could see life through other people’s eyes and could learn from their experiences?

As time passed and commercial technology developed, mostly it’s been used for video games in which white alpha males kill brown people. Indifference to suffering is desirable; nothing useful has been learned. Nothing has been contributed to the Common Good.

III.
It’s shitty timing to refer to a big blogger, seeing as how it’s Blogroll Amnesty Day, but Digby posted this video that set me off this morning.

One way to define freedom is to learn who you are and what you stand for. I want you to suspend for a moment your political cynicism and try out a new idea: what would happen if every Sunday talk show, every campaign stop and every speech included someone – maybe you – asking the question, “What does your proposal contribute to the Common Good?” What if you expected someone to ask this question, and what if you expected an answer? What if we all expected an answer? What if consideration the Common Good were what we expected from public discourse?

No one stands up on Sunday mornings and asks the audience why it’s watching Bill Kristol talk about endless war instead of the Common Good, but someone should. The pundits have lost their minds about deficit reduction, which will do nothing for the Common Good, but no one says mentions it. But what if you could? Because you can. Picture yourself standing up at a speech, standing up to say, “You keep talking about cutting domestic spending, but that will detract from the Common Good. What do you have to say for yourself?” Or: “This Pentagon budget fattens the wallets of defense contractors but contributes nothing to the Common Good. You will have to rewrite it.” What a day that would be!

Picture reporters asking questions about the Common Good because it matters and when we forget that, bridges fall down, hospitals fall apart, garbage collection fails, children don’t learn to read, fire departments close, neighborhoods empty and fall to ruin, food banks and soup kitchens close, homeless people sleep in the streets. The politics of selfishness have brought us to the brink of ruin as a country; poverty is what happens when we fail to consider the Common Good. Give this some thought, then: what if you asked politicians, “What does this proposal contribute to the Common Good?”

What if you deserved an answer? Consider this: you do.