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[Woodstock Report, June 1996, No. 46]
Copyright © 1996 Woodstock Theological Center
All rights reserved
Father James L. Connor, S.J., director of the Woodstock Theological Center, recently interviewed Father R. Randall Rainey, S.J., about Woodstock's newest program area called "Public Discourse and the Common Good." Father Rainey coordinated the first day long conference of this program. The conference was entitled "Welfare Reform, Federalism, and the Common Good."
Can you tell us something about this new program at Woodstock called "Public Discourse and the Common Good?" What, for instance, does "public discourse" mean?
"Public discourse" refers to the communication, whether written or oral, that goes on all the time among citizens at every level of society. It is the continuing conversation that both expresses and shapes our civic and political life together. Topics of this conversation will vary. They might focus on issues on the local level, like the quality of our schools or neighborhood crime. They might be national, like welfare reform, health care, abortion, or national debt. Whatever the issue, people invariably base their arguments on what they take to be the facts of the matter and then go on to propose policies or actions that express and promote the values they cherish. So our conversations contain a "vision" of the way things stand and the way they ought to be.
And what has this "public discourse" got to do with the "common good"-the other expression in the title of this new program?
Explicitly or implicitly public discourse is always trying to answer the question, "What is the good life for us and our neighbors?" Endowed by God with freedom, we have to decide the answer to that question in an intelligent, reasonable, and responsible way. In so doing, we determine the meaning and quality of our common life and our experience of the common good. Public discourse, in other words, is the means by which we answer the question: What is the good life for us? It is a relationship of means to end.
Is public discourse simply talking about the common good or does it include action as well?
Public discourse is closely linked to action: discourse leads to deliberation, deliberation leads to decision, and a decision becomes real in action. These unfolding steps are fundamentally connected.
So public discourse and the common good are intimately related to one another?
Right. Moreover, when responsible discourse-that is, discourse in service of the common good-is absent, or distorted, you'll have a society that's in decline. German society during the Nazi regime would be a good example. People were forbidden to engage in public discourse that might challenge their leaders' values. The recent dissolution of the Soviet Union is also a good example of how the common good had become distorted and how "public discourse" can do its job of effecting social change. Greater freedom of discourse led to massive changes. So, public discourse is obviously more than "just talking."
I'd like to get clearer about just what "the common good" is.
Let me first say what the common good is not. It is not simply the sum of all the particular "goods" that each individual in society enjoys. By "goods" I mean things like food, shelter, clothing, particular joys and pleasures. You could "add up" all these goods and you still wouldn't have what we mean by "the common good." The common good is more than, deeper than, the "sum of the parts."
Well, if the common good is not the sum of particular goods, what in the world is it?
The common good is the concrete functioning structure of persons working together to produce what is best for the whole community, and therefore for the members of that community. The community might be a family, a basketball team, a symphony orchestra, a neighborhood, a city, a nation, a religious order, a business corporation, a law firm-any group of people that forms a community rooted in common interests, goals, convictions, commitments, loyalties, concerns, and so on.
Can you mention some features of this "common good?"
I'd like to, because it is not easy to understand the "common good." As I said, it's not the "sum of the parts of individual goods." You won't, for instance, get much of a rendition of Beethoven's Fifth (which is an orchestra's "common good") out of a group of musicians, each of whom decides to be the solo performer of the piece that he or she likes best. There is no "invisible hand" that's going to pull all of that together into Beethoven's Fifth! And even when they all play their parts from the same score the "common good" that results (Beethoven's Fifth) is far more than the sum of the individual sounds each musician makes on his or her horn or strings; it only works when each is concerned not only to listen to and perform with one another- essential as that is-but to perform that magnificent masterpiece which is greater than all of them together. They have to want Beethoven's Fifth! They have to strive for that "common good" if any single one of them is to be successful as a performer!
For the common good of society (city, state, nation) to be attained, people have to want the common good in which each one's particular good(s) become possible, attainable, and realized. In that process individual interests, desires, and even needs may have to be sacrificed for the good-of-all or the common good-just as a mother or father will sometimes forgo or modify a personal preference for the good of the family.
I know that in its social analysis Woodstock relies on philosopher/ theologian Bernard Lonergan, S.J. Does he have anything to say about the common good?
Yes. The language he uses for common good is "good of order." And he says that it is the "concrete manner, in which cooperation actually is working out. . . . It is distinct from instances of the particular good but it is not separate from them. . . . It is the ground whence recur or fail to recur whatever instances of the particular good are recurring or failing to recur. It has a basis in institutions [family, schools, businesses, church, etc.] but it is a product of much more, [i.e.,] of all the skill and know-how, all the industry and resourcefulness, all the ambition and fellow-feeling of a whole people, adapting to each change of circumstance, meeting each new emergency, struggling against every tendency to disorder." (This quote is taken from Lonergan's Method in Theology, pages 49-50.)
Well, what about when people disagree about the common good?
That's when the question of your basic values comes up, that is, your basic orientation and commitment. Children fight over particular goods; grown-ups fight over the good of order. And they do so in the light of their basic values. What's your basic set of values? Conservative or liberal? Democrat or Republican? Christian or secularist? Or a mixture of these? Our values determine our view of the common good and how it should be institutionalized.
What has all this got to do with the conference Woodstock ran last December on welfare reform?
The aim of that conference was to test out how much the "common good"-and concern for it-was entering into "public discourse" about welfare and welfare reform. In so doing, the conference also aimed, long term, to improve the quality of public discourse on this and other issues of public import.
Are you satisfied that your goals were achieved?
They were partially achieved, and in that sense the conference was a good start-up for the program area "Public Discourse and the Common Good." But the quality of discourse was uneven. Some participants made a clear effort to examine welfare policy in depth. But too much of the debate about welfare got linked, almost exclusively, to the budget reform controversy. As a result, some failed to give adequate attention to the deep issues of systemic poverty and the marginalization of the poor. These are basic value issues. Moreover, debate would have been better had speakers challenged one another to address more fully the proper roles of government, business, churches and other voluntary associations, as well as individuals, in contributing to the place of welfare within the common good.
What, in your judgment, would most contribute to an improvement of public discourse in this country?
A simple but important step would be for all of us to commit ourselves to raise and answer all of the relevant questions regarding any particular issue. As good citizens we should try to be more attentive to the types of questions that are being asked and answered in public discourse. Often the questions are superficial and the answers are non-responsive. We simply should not tolerate such conduct. We should demand of political discussions a much more rigorous investigation of the facts, of the policy proposals, and of the ethical presuppositions and consequences behind them.