Bowling With Others

Let us assume that morality arises in part from sympathy among like-minded persons: first the family, then friends and colleagues. Rights grow from convictions about how we ought to manage relations with people not like us, convictions that are nourished by education, religion, and experience. As such, assimilation to cultural, societal, and political norms are desirable for the continued health of a community. James Q. Wilson has an illuminating piece about Robert Putnam’s study of community, which was just recently released years

after its completion.

There is much that is attractive about civic virtue in its Aristotelian sense: the good man is a good citizen when present in a good society. Included in such a society would be temperance, agreeableness, modesty, courage, and an appreciation of beauty and accomplishment. Virtue in this classical sense is goodness, principle, and high moral character. Yet people of any background are plagued by mediocrity and vice. And what if non-homogeneous populations have difficulty coming together for the common good? There is powerful evidence that to protect your “tribe” is in a way the advancement of the genes of your family, a deeply powerful evolutionary impulse that has served humanity and the development of civilization well. This is a difficult and complex issue made even more so by the quick and easy charge of xenophobia or racism constantly threatening our discourse. But they are important to think through for anyone who values community.