The Common Good, not Greed, as the Root of Government
In the midst of crazy goings-on in our politics and government, led by a mad wannabe king and his sidekick Mad Hatter (MAGA hat of course), it is good to return to basics.
Let us talk and pray about the common good. The basics of society are not greed–even though greed plays big in the mindset of certain “leaders” in our country today.
The Tesla fellow who paid $188 billion to buy a place in the White House and $19 billion to buy Congress and is now shelling out over $10 million for a Supreme Court judge in Wisconsin and has become a poster boy for unfettered capitalism is missing something. And the man who hired him to take a chainsaw to the American government and is world famous for being “transactional,” i.e. reducing every relationship to an “I-am-making-a-profit” relationship is also missing something.
That something is the bottom line in a healthy politics: The common good. St. Thomas Aquinas has been given credit for this truth, and he acknowledges that he got the concept from Aristotle. Let us consider some of Aquinas’s teachings on the common good.
Here is one red flag Aquinas raises concerning those in leadership: In his commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics, he says: The common good of the state cannot flourish unless citizens are virtuous–at least those whose business it is to govern. I have written previously in the DM that character matters in our leaders. What we are experiencing as a nation today is the lack of character of many leaders who are more interested in their private good than in the common good or the good of the community.
Aquinas: The common good of many is more godlike than the good of an individual. Any individual? Even a billionaire? Or a billionaire many times over?
The words of Ambrose apply, ‘feed him that is dying of hunger; if you have not fed him, you have slain him.’ Does this apply to the starving people of Sudan for whom Musk/Trump shut down USAID shipments destined for Africa? Aid that we taxpayers and Congress had already paid for? Does it apply to the AIDS medicines that were also destined for Africa and paid for by Congress and then denied?
What about the Speaker of the House, Mr. Johnson, who is very showy about what a wonderful Christian he is? He smilingly approved of the DOGE shutting down of USAID and is cheering on the efforts to slash Medicaid and Social Security, support for the youngest and oldest and most vulnerable among us.
Perhaps he should meditate on what Aquinas teaches, namely that compassion links us to God as regards similarity of works….The sum total of the Christian religion consists of compassion as regards external works. Is the so-called Christian Speaker missing out on “the sum total of the Christian religion?” What about his fellow MAGA devotees?
In regard to the misfortune of our neighbors, we ought to have a heart that is suffering. The love of neighbor requires that not only should we be our neighbor’s well-wishers, but also their well-doers, according to 1 John 3:18: ‘Let us not love in word, nor in speech, but in deed and in truth.’ And in order to be a person’s well-wisher and well-doer, we ought to succor their needs.
To be continued.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 417, 396f.
See Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
And, Fox, “Warriors for Ecological and Economic Justice: Meister Eckhart Meets Dorothy Stang, Karl Marx, David Korten, Serge Latouche, Anita Roddick, and Howard Thurman,” in Fox, Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Times, pp. 221-230.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth.
Banner Image: Community members prepare sandbags against an impending flood in Quincy, IL, 2008. Photo by WBEZ-91.5 on Flickr
Queries for Contemplation
Do you agree with Aquinas that virtue among leaders is necessary for a society to flourish? And when it is lacking there, citizens in a democracy must step up and apply compassion and truth and justice to the political discourse and action?
Recommended Reading
Sheer Joy: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox renders Thomas Aquinas accessible by interviewing him and thus descholasticizing him. He also translated many of his works such as Biblical commentaries never before in English (or Italian or German of French). He gives Aquinas a forum so that he can be heard in our own time. He presents Thomas Aquinas entirely in his own words, but in a form designed to allow late 20th-century minds and hearts to hear him in a fresh way.
“The teaching of Aquinas comes through will a fullness and an insight that has never been present in English before and [with] a vital message for the world today.” ~ Fr. Bede Griffiths (Afterword).
Foreword by Rupert Sheldrake
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Time
While Matthew Fox recognizes that Meister Eckhart has influenced thinkers throughout history, he also wants to introduce Eckhart to today’s activists addressing contemporary crises. Toward that end, Fox creates dialogues between Eckhart and Carl Jung, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Heschel, Black Elk, Karl Marx, Rumi, Adrienne Rich, Dorothee Soelle, David Korten, Anita Roddick, Lily Yeh, M.C. Richards, and many others.
“Matthew Fox is perhaps the greatest writer on Meister Eckhart that has ever existed. (He) has successfully bridged a gap between Eckhart as a shamanistic personality and Eckhart as a post-modern mentor to the Inter-faith movement, to reveal just how cosmic Eckhart really is, and how remarkably relevant to today’s religious crisis! ” — Steven Herrmann, Author of Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.