As we draw ever closer to the 2024 U.S. presidential election on November 5th, my thoughts are very much about public morality.

Public morality – what some call civic virtue — refers to ethical standards for public behavior. The survival of democracy depends on it.

Public morality governs everyday life: how we treat ourselves and others, and what we think about the world — about nature, business, culture, religion, family life, and so on. Openness is essential as well as serious reflection and engagement. We observe. We judge. Then, we act.

Without a healthy public morality, democracy collapses into either chaos or authoritarian dictatorship.

Those dangers are very real today. Public morality is often casr aside in authoritarian dictatorships because social order is maintained not by adherence to shared public values but by fidelity to the dictates and wishes of the authoritarian ruler. Authoritarian “leaders” like chaotic situations in which people living in fear can be kept obedient and dependent on the leader.

There are three big characteristics of authoritarian rulers. They behave without accountability. They have zero tolerance for criticism or questions. They display unreasonable fears about the outside world that often involve evil conspiracies and persecutions.

In a healthy democracy there are certain generally held moral principles. Key primary values, for example, are that murder is immoral, theft is immoral, harming innocent people is immoral, and lying is immoral. When these immoral actions are turned into social virtues or social normalities, society is in trouble. I recall the words of the French philosopher and writer Voltaire (1694 – 1778): “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

Public morality insures, in effect, the survival of the human spirit. By the “human spirit” I mean those positive aspects of humanity that people show toward one another: empathy, respect, generosity, connection, emotional bonding, and identifying with the other. These elements require a sense of equality and a demand for human rights and justice in all domains of life, especially social and economic justice. Extremely self-centered righteousness leads to conflict, not cooperation; to fear, not hope; to aggression, not mutual respect; and to suspicion, not trust.

People set and adjust their public morality through interaction with family and friends, and with social, religious, political, and educational groups with whom they identify.

After the next presidential election, regardless of who wins and becomes president in January, we will still need to safeguard our democracy based on shared common-good public morality. Maintaining the common good means caring not just for ourselves but taking responsibility for the well-being of others.

As the American cognitive linguist and philosopher, George Lakoff (1941) stressed in his book, The Little Blue Book: Talking and Thinking Democratic, “Houses fall apart if they are not maintained, so do democracy and the gifts of democracy that we barely notice and take for granted: the right to vote, public education, human rights, due process, unbiased news, clean water, clean air, national parks, safe food, good jobs, ethical banking practices, affordable mortgages, fair elections.”

It is all part of public morality and avoiding polarization and chaos.

• Jack

Dr. John A. Dick—Historical Theologian