The Price of Civilization_ Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity - Jeffrey D. Sachs [67]
Ancient ethics, therefore, begins with a sense of fragility—of our psyches and our search for happiness. Each of us is thrust into a world of temptation, desire, and illusion, and we must find a lifelong path in the midst of these allures and traps. All of these insights were already necessary two millennia before TV and Mr. Bernays’s powerful methods of propaganda. How much more vital these messages are today, when much of the economy is organized precisely to set those traps.
The middle path of Buddha and Aristotle is currently challenged by the crude libertarianism of the free-market Right, which holds that the freedom of the individual is the only valid aim of ethics and government. In this crude view, individuals know what is best for themselves and should be left alone, untaxed by the state and unbothered by ethical responsibilities toward others, as long as they don’t cause direct harm to others. These ideas are expressed by the Tea Party movement and by many of America’s richest citizens, who would absolve themselves of any ethical responsibility toward the rest of society.
There are many errors in libertarian philosophy, but the biggest of all is its starting point: that individuals can truly find happiness by being left alone, unburdened by ethical or political responsibilities to others. Buddha and Aristotle knew better. Without accepting social and political responsibilities, the individual cannot actually find fulfillment. Happiness arises not only through the individual’s relationship with his wealth, as some economists simplistically assume, but through his relations with others. A society of compassion, mutual help, and collective decision making is not good just for the poor, who may receive help, but also for the rich, who may give it.
Politics provides an integral part of each individual’s sense of purpose. Remove the role of government, and the individual loses his bearings. There can be no lasting happiness in anarchy. Take away an individual’s moral responsibility, and he or she descends into loneliness and disorientation. Compassion, cooperation, and altruism are essential to human well-being. Being a responsible member of political society—by asking not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country—should therefore not be viewed as a coerced concession of the individual toward society, but as an essential way in which each individual finds personal fulfillment. Our well-being depends fundamentally on our recognizing and nurturing our basic duality: as individuals, with distinctive tastes and aspirations, and as members of a society, with responsibilities to and values shared with others.
America still has time to rescue itself, so great are its resources—human, technological, and natural. It has been running down its wealth, but the wealth remains very high, enough to sustain us with a very high quality of life as we prepare for the future, if we take care to look ahead collectively. For that, however, we will need to escape from the compulsions of the present. First, we will need to break free from the relentless and mindless propagandizing of the media, where the main message is that we should concentrate on shopping and our quest for higher personal income.
We will need, in short, to achieve a new mindfulness regarding our needs as individuals and as a society, to find a more solid path to well-being. Mindfulness, taught Buddha, is one of the eight steps on the way to self-awakening. It means an alertness and quiet contemplation of our circumstances, putting aside greed and distress. Through sustained effort, mindfulness leads to insight and to an escape from our useless cravings.
That mindfulness