America’s Common Wealth

Years ago, as a young landscape architect, I sang the praises of New England commons, those timeless green spaces at the heart of their community. Some are even called greens, an ancient usage. In their simple splendor of stately trees towering over a bandstand or monument or flagpole, they are iconic, they evoke nostalgia, sacrifice, patriotism and reconciliation. They are quintessentially American. And they are taken for granted.

I was concerned then about issues like the intrusion of paving and overhead wires. All the Litchfield Greens and Woodstock Commons and their offspring across the land, I wrote, should be revered and lovingly preserved. The slow erosion of their physical integrity should be firmly pushed back.

May it never be said, as it once was said in England when commons were fenced off for the private enjoyment of the landed gentry, that

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common,

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common from the goose. Recently I served on jury duty in Wrentham, Massachusetts. On our morning break, I left the county courthouse and strode across the common, musing on the privilege of serving on a jury—a privilege I admit I have sometimes overlooked—and the privilege of walking across a common, planted with majestic oaks, maples, sycamores and spruces, their fall colors today gently muted in autumn mist. I walked past a new bandstand, past a monument to Union soldiers and another to Vietnam veterans. Then I came across a monument to Helen Keller, “symbol of strength, courage and determination.” I had no idea that she had lived here. I closed my eyes and blocked my ears, to try to sense what she had sensed here a century before me. This remarkable woman was not so deaf and blind that she could not observe and know and share and speak for a society where the disadvantaged are given a chance to live a decent life and even inspire others, where the accused have the right to a public trial before a jury of their peers, and where Americans are free to walk across the common.

Wrentham Common and Courthouse are America in haiku.

These days we hear a lot about the erosion of common ground of a different sort. Americans have been diverse since the first colonists lived among indigenous peoples, and have only become more so. We now live in a world where to politicize is to polarize. Sadly, our diversity and polarization lull us into overlooking how much we share and agree on that we simply take for granted. Daily we crisscross the American Common without looking up at the canopy of lofty ideals that shelter us. These ideals did not just appear out of nowhere. They were planted. I feel profound gratitude for our predecessors whose actions created this sublime space. They did their work so well that they little realized how they were setting a high standard for the world. They were not egotistical, they were not exceptional people, but their collective handiwork has become known as American exceptionalism.

Let us review just how much we agree on. Not to the last person, of course, but by a vast majority.

We agree that we are bound together not by common ethnicity but by common ideals. That is, we share a civic definition of citizenship, not an ethnic one. We believe in the inherent goodness of most people. We believe that most of our fellow Americans are upstanding, moral citizens.

We hold in highest regard our unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We believe in the right to self-determination, which by definition is free of outside interference. We agree on the system of government enshrined in our sacred Constitution, including its checks and balances and provision for fair and open elections. The extraordinary legacy of constitutions around the world that were inspired by ours makes the case for American exceptionalism like nothing else.

We agree on the rule of law—and that no one is above the law.

We cherish our four freedoms—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. We agree that free speech includes freedom of the press. We cherish freedom of association, and the right of peaceful assembly. We agree on the right of non-violent protest.

We agree on the rights of the individual, among them the right to private property. We agree on the principles of fairness and equal opportunity although we may disagree on what that means. We—and this includes a strong majority of Republicans—are concerned that widening income inequality and plutocracy are bad for America.1

We believe in the American Dream: social mobility. We believe in the freedom to live where we want and how we want. We believe in family, although we disagree on the details. We believe that everyone deserves access to public education. We know these beliefs face challenges that test our collective will.

We agree on the right to a clean environment. Despite the loud protests of climate-change deniers, most of us agree that climate change is real, and that it is possible both to protect the environment and protect jobs.

We believe in patriotism, we honor heroism and military service, even if sometimes wars become quagmires.

We are proud of our global leadership in innovation across so many fields of endeavor. We believe in creating an economic environment where private enterprise can flourish. We believe that the economic environment should be mostly laissez-faire. We believe that no matter how imperfect government may be, government is not always the problem: some things that it does should not be left to the private sector, but the government should always strive to do a better job.

We agree that citizens in nations everywhere deserve the same, but we may disagree on how we try to advance that vision. We abhor terrorism, especially if it seeks to undermine our way of life. We agree that human rights matter in every nation.

These ideals are our common wealth.

How we should live up to these ideals? How do we choose between competing goods? How do we reconcile competing arguments? We may never agree on where the double standards are, or what were the mistakes made in our name, or which details bedevil us. And we will always agree on the right to disagree. Yet knowing how much we have in common, and mindful of that wonderful concept of the loyal opposition, the next time an argument comes up, let us walk across the American Common, cease with uttering false equivalencies and whataboutisms, hear each other out with empathy, talk to each other and not past each other, and give each other time to respond respectfully. If we do that, we will slowly rebuild lost trust. © 2017 Thomas M. Paine

[1] http://prospect.org/article/most-americans-are-liberal-even-if-they-don’t-know-it, November 29, 2017