The Dartmouth Beacon

Unfortunately, asking that of today’s minds is akin to that of asking blind men in the old Hindu tale what an elephant looked like. The answers come in parts, with great contradiction and little coherence. We hear of the justice of the Romans, the courage of the Vikings, the openness of the ancient Greeks, or the naturalism of the Native Americans. Tales are told of the efficiency of capitalism or the equality of socialism. The virtues promulgated by religion and the openness offered by secularism are sworn to with equal vehemence by their respective adherents.
Yet each of these societies has fervent modern critics who, rightly, have significant flaws to point out in each of these systems. The Vikings’ courage is more than destroyed by its harshness and barbarity. The Roman justice and Greek openness were applied unequally, while the naturalism of the Native Americans masked cruelty to humans. Modern attempts at socialism fell into totalitarianism and unbridled capitalism into greed. Applications of religious structures have both caused and prevented great ills.

To my first inclination, the lack of a prototype healthy society indicates a moral responsibility to throw off the traditional concepts that built these societies and seek a healthy society based on something more basic – perhaps the ‘natural’ human feelings. This line of argument suggests seeking an ethos of public virtue and private liberation, advocating a morality of license, as long as that license does not interfere with that of another.

This naturally follows into politics of universal provision of social services, demographic equality across ethnic groups, and liberation from seemingly arcane sexual taboos. Here, though, I run into an impasse. Unrestrained humanity has not been responsible for the glimmers of a healthy society we have seen. Historically, free passions are more likely to produce a Genghis Khan than a Mahatma Gandhi.

To a different way of thinking, the lack of health in every society does not reveal a dead-end – for within these societies we see the shadow of a healthy society within a few healthy individuals. If we cannot agree on places or ages of utopia, at least there are those individuals whose examples we can agree are worth heroically striving towards. Though somewhat reluctant to follow sterling examples set by great men and women, most at least acknowledge their virtue (or vice). Hearts are fired and nerves steeled by the love of Clara Barton, the gentleness of Dr. Martin Luther King, the courage of the World War II resistance, or the devotion of the many anonymous missionaries, doctors, and teachers who value service over profit. Monsters rise up, too, and we despise the hate, deceit, and selfishness that seem to poison individuals in every society.

This way of thinking advocates seeking private virtue through frugality, equality of opportunities across individuals, and societal rules that restrain powerful passions. This focus on private virtue expects that healthy parts will create a healthy whole – that a society made up of healthy individuals will become healthy in itself.

While debating between public and private virtue may seem like splitting hairs, the implications of the answer influence our most critical decisions. People who seek a public definition of virtue find it admirable that Sen. John Kerry supports a broader social services network and inconsequential that his positions change for political convenience, while those who focus on private virtue reverse those sentiments. People who seek a private definition of virtue value the consistent principles and leadership of George Bush, even if they often disagree with his public policy.

This question of whether to seek a private or a public ethos should be a priority for us at Dartmouth. At a time when the world is demonstrably ailing, at a time when we are choosing our values, and at a time when contentious decisions call for difficult choices, we must take stands of courage over convenience. Over the next fifty years, our classmates and we will be making decisions that affect the course of individuals, families, corporations, nonprofits, and governments.

My challenge, then, is this: if you want the society you surround yourself with to be healthy, choose virtue in yourself. The battle for society is won or lost in the individual, not the social order – and there is only one individual you have control over. When a London newspaper ran an essay contest with the topic, “What is wrong with the World?”, a noted author turned in this answer: “Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely yours, G.K. Chesterton.” While his observation is correct historically, that does not have to be the case for you, for me, or for Dartmouth College. To finally answer the Chaplain’s question, I ask another: what is your place in a healthy Dartmouth society?