Values Stimulus

By Curtis Ogden

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of hearing and talking with Juan Williams, the accomplished journalist, writer, and producer. The opportunity arose because my father-in-law helps to organize a Celebrated Speaker Series in Vero Beach, Florida for which Mr. Williams was the scheduled presenter while my wife, daughter and I were on our annual spring break pilgrimage south.

During his talk, Williams engaged the audience in an exercise where he invited us to imagine a somewhat flustered eighty-something African-American man bursting into the conference hall claiming to be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The self-proclaimed Dr. King comes to find a seat next to you (or me) and starts a lively conversation about what is going on, or has been going on since he was last seen in public. Having helped us to work through our disbelief that this man is who he said he is, Williams went on to illustrate a conversation with this visitor about all of the advances that had occurred since King's (supposed) assassination on the front of race. Much to be celebrated here, acknowledges the good Reverend Doctor. Then the conversation turns to poverty, including mention of the fact that today's poverty rate in the US is the same that it was in King's day, and outrageously high for children of color. On next to violence, to television (with King flipping through hundreds of available cable channels), to pop culture, to single parent households. What started as a celebratory conversation about progress, ends with Dr. King completely distraught and in tears over the depths to which this country has apparently stooped.

Williams' talk was very effective in both content and delivery in challenging any complacency that we listeners might have had about progress in this country, and indeed around the world, on the fronts of race, poverty, peace making, and community building. During the car ride to drop him off at the airport, I asked Williams, based on all that he has seen and heard in his travels, what he saw as the major challenge moving forward. His simple answer was, "We have to move to shared values." He made it clear that he was not talking about liberal or conservative values - after all, he splits his time between NPR and FOX. It really comes down to grounding ourselves in some deeper human truths and commitments that have lost their grip in our world.

A few weeks later I heard a sermon by one of my favorite preachers, the Reverend Roger Paine of the First Parish in Lincoln, that featured the research of Dr. Jonathan Haight at the University of Virginia. Dr. Haight, a psychologist, has done research on the nature and source of moral values, and claims that there are five moral rules that are shared around the globe - care, fairness, loyalty, respect for authority, and sanctity (note the mixture of what might be considered liberal and conservative values). Haight claims that these values have historically served the function of promoting common good over and against selfishness. Clearly these values, if they are ingrained, have been overridden by other forces - rampant individualism, greed, addiction to titillation, and an overwhelming lack of responsibility. It seems that there has been a dramatic disconnect or distancing from our deeper roots, and that we are in the midst of a clear wake-up call to remember who we are and what is in our best interest.

Visions of Dr. King, our genes, and a global financial crisis (oh my); all reminding us that in the end we can't get something for nothing, or perhaps that we get what we pay for. So what will bring us fully back to our senses? A depression, through which we will have no choice but to turn to one another? A global environmental catastrophe? A messianic return of some kind? Or perhaps a new story that we start telling ourselves now and share widely that deep down we know the way forward is not the way we have been living. That nature, including our own, has a wisdom that merits much closer attention.

To the talk about and rush to build our financial foundation, I repeat (reTweet?) these welcome words of Roger Paine - "The stimulus package I propose is the re-claiming of our character, as individuals and as a nation."