Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times

Abstract

If reviewing a book by Jonathan Sacks was not humbling enough, doing justice to his last major work before his passing proves doubly daunting. Living a life of ethical leadership and scholarship of blessed memory, Rabbi Sacks passed away in November 2020 at a time when the world needed his voice most. Despite his passing in a year marked by global pandemic, geopolitical tensions, economic collapse, and an increasing risk of street violence, Rabbi Sacks left us with a gift of a book that cuts to the heart of the chaos. Sacks's last work, Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Time (New York: Basic Books, 2020), offers a guide to a fracturing West, and how to begin morally saving a society that seems to be cracking before our eyes.Sacks's Morality attempts to diagnose the West's civilizational malaise by asserting we have evolved from a “we” based society to an “I” based society, and that we must urgently seek to rebuild a sense of common goodness and morality in our society if liberal democracy is to survive. Structured in five parts, the book covers the gamut of Britain and America's core sociopolitical ills. Part 1 discusses the overall fragmentation of the West's social fabric, particularly the social pandemic of loneliness, the effects of social media, and the erosion of the family in the wake of divorce trends. Part 2 covers the societal shift from a “we” society to an “I” society, and the evolution of happiness from a moral metric to a sensory one. Part 3 shifts to discuss the devolution of civic discourse, while part 4 moves to address the sources and changes of morality in the public sphere. The last section, part 5, broadly discusses pathways forward for moving away from the selfishness a “contract”-based society toward one based upon “covenant” (313–14).Substantively, the book is nothing less than an intellectual and philosophical feast, and a work that only a scholar of Sacks's caliber could produce. In the preface, Sacks acknowledges that the book did not emerge out of the Covid-19 crisis, but that the pandemic worsened already chronic sociopolitical and economic problems (xi). Instead, Sacks describes the origins of the book grew out of the problem posed by moral relativism that he encountered as a student at Cambridge and Oxford (ix). In this regard, Sacks's addressing the central issue of the book indicates a problem that may have motivated much of his career. Indeed, Sacks draws from a vista of thinkers and a panorama of sources ranging from the Hebrew Bible and Aristotle, to numerous Enlightenment philosophers, history, Talmudic references, and modern thinkers and scientists leading into the present.The book is far from a history of ideas, and the work is not a history of moral thought. On the first page, Sacks reads almost like a doctor providing a dangerous medical diagnosis when he makes the dual declarations that “a free society is a moral achievement” and that “liberal democracy is at risk” as the result of the West's loss of morality (1). While the book is a tour de force not only of philosophy, intellectual history, and also contemporary political science and sociology, its core diagnosis of the West's problem is simple: we have become self-centered and focused on “self-esteem” rather than focused on “making life better for others” (1). Sacks's work is classy and honest in that its vantage point is ideologically neutral, but that the West is currently under threat from a right wing that seeks to restore “a golden age that never was” and a left wing that seeks a “utopia that never will be” (1). Sacks attacks our moral crisis without getting too mired in zeitgeist. For that, the book is something of a whisper in a noisy wilderness of polarization, materialism, and amorality.The body of Sacks's book illustrates his argument that we face a moral and philosophical crisis, rather than one linked to a single social or economic phenomenon. Sacks takes the time to make the rounds, and covers the decline of civil society, the decline of the family, and deleterious effects of social media and lack of non-marketized time off on our social fabric. Like the concerned doctor summing up a medical condition to his patient, Sacks asserts, “Marriage is not a transaction. Parenthood is not a form of ownership. Universities are not intellectual vending machines. Health care is distinct from wealth care. Neighborhoods should not be gilded ghettoes. Politics should not be a form of power for sale” (115). In short, Sacks argues that states and markets cannot replicate the need for community or fulfillment.In the absence of a strong civil society, Sacks worries that we will be left with nothing more than states and markets. Contrary to what many politicians promise and activists demand, Sacks points out that states cannot “create strong families” or “generate the work ethic, self-control, and resilience that are vital if individuals are to escape the vicious circle of poverty and unemployment” (123–24). At the individual level itself, Sacks explains how the ancient Western conceptions of happiness in the Judaic tradition and Aristotle differ from the pleasure-seeking meaning of the idea that permeates our contemporary culture (100-103). For the former, happiness derived from someone's pursuit of virtue and righteousness. Sacks warns that we have largely abandoned this notion, or are dangerously close to forgetting it.Sacks carefully explains that in cultivating a sense of “we,” he is not referring to the identity politics that is increasingly popular in the West. Sacks notes that the risk of identity politics is that it can Balkanize “society into self-segregating, noncommunicating ghettoes” that create no diversity within a shared national identity so much as greater fragmentation (137–40). Sacks warns that in addition to becoming atomized individuals we have lost a sense of “shared truth.” In academia, Sacks cautions that universities have ceased be a “community in pursuit of truth; instead, it has become a system of power” based around “narratives” and ultimately, infallible identity (179–82).These are only snippets of the some of the areas where Sacks highlights the fragmenting sociopolitical and cultural world in which we are currently living. Indeed, Sacks declares that his analysis may be “pessimistic about the future of liberal democracies” (296). Surely, by late in the book a picture emerges of a society characterized by lonely individuals, unfeeling markets, an imposing state, and hostile identity groups bound only by a sense of competing power dynamics. Evoking the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, Sacks implores us to pursue a matrix of “I-Thou” relationships rather than those of an “I-It” nature based upon utility. Sacks asserts that “families and communities, and voluntary associations” need rebuilding (305). Relationships of “kinship and friendship” must come to the forefront for this to occur and for a common morality to begin reemerging (305). Yet, Sacks acknowledges that a common morality is often viewed with suspicion as something invading the private sphere and something that infringes on private lives (301).In Sacks's desire for a common morality to unite a “we” in society, two questions emerge. The first is from where a universal morality can emerge in the contemporary West, particularly given the all-time-high levels of distrust in its many institutions and alienation or hostility toward its norms. The second looming question that a reader will likely hold from early on in the book regards what role religion should play in cultivating a shared morality.One key question that arises amid Sacks's whisper in the storm is from where a common morality can arise. He provides the example of spontaneous mass “re-moralization” of society, such as the Canadian town of Gander, which mobilized to accommodate thousands of stranded air travelers forced to land there due to the 9/11 attacks (295–96). For widespread and lasting re-moralization, Sacks notes that we require “repeated face to face interactions” and the acknowledgment of an objective morality beyond the self. As one reads through the work, the signs add up that point to faith, as almost nothing else can point to an objective moral North beyond the self while also being large enough to accommodate a wide diversity of people within it. Toward the end of the book, Sacks provides the example of the Second Great Awakening in America, and how it was led by religious groups to guide society to a general moral consciousness (308–9). This leads to the question of faith in the public sphere.If you read the book seeking Sacks to wag his finger and implore people to rejoin religious congregations, you will not find it. That said, Sacks upholds the importance of faith to uphold and feed a common subscription of morality for society. Here, Sacks discusses his work as Britain's leading rabbi and his work across different faith communities for common cause (139). In his prescription for a covenantal society united by morality and diverse with the religious affiliations within it, one is left imagining the possibility of traditional Judaism rallying other faiths to work back to back against emergent Western anomie and nihilism.Sacks does not offer a central strategy to accomplish this, nor does he outright offer it as definitive path forward. However, explicitly or not, Sacks's call for a covenantal society has parallels with the moral equilibrium shown by his Cambridge tutor Roger Scruton years earlier. In his The Face of God, Scruton describes communities of faith as “preparation for the experience of God” and transcendence, while the communal aspect can foster the recognition of personhood between different people.1 Agreement upon transcendent morality amid communally divergent theologies provides a path forward for resurrecting a new ethical compass for the West. Sacks does mention the frequent occurrence within the Judaic tradition of individuals arguing with God, and arguing with one another. Sacks notes, “Other people have conversations. Jews have arguments” (186). He does not explicitly state it, but Sacks shows the unique position of the Jewish community to foster acknowledgment of a universal morality despite theological dispute. The idea of the need for an ethical monotheism permeates the book.If any criticism is to be levied against the book, it is not the fault of Sacks so much as it is the timing of the book and the inability to ask follow-up questions in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Written before the pandemic entered full swing outside of China, a reader is tempted to query Sacks on his thoughts about the role of the state in light of governmental responses to the crisis. Sacks has faith in the state, to a degree. In the epilogue of the book, and in the context of national lockdowns in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Sacks castigates the case of northern Italy, where thousands of Italians flaunted stay-at-home orders and moved to the southern part of the country (323–24). Sacks highlights the Italian example as one of the “I” centered mindset of extreme liberalism lacking “self-restraint” and its negative impact on society. Earlier in the book, Sacks juxtaposes the Anglo-American and French models of the state vs. the individual in liberal democracy, and notes that the former held an exalted place for civil society while the latter dangerously emphasized the individual and the state. While Sacks cautions that Britain and America have shifted toward a French model of the individual demanding rights, or “entitlements” from the state, one has to ponder how he would react to cases of government officials not following their own lockdown guidelines, and the elimination of all civil associations in such circumstances (123–24).In California, Michigan, New York, and elsewhere, numerous officials have been caught not following their orders of social distancing.2 Few cases could capture the overlapping elements of the West's moral crisis more than California governor Gavin Newsom's visit to a high-end restaurant to celebrate the birthday of a lobbyist while forcibly closing other restaurants, schools, and religious congregations.3 The lockdowns pose a serious ethical question to Sacks's assessments and his call for rebuilding morality in the public sphere; namely, by raising the question of how voluntary associations can occur when there is no social, religious, or much economic life taking place face-to-face. Unlike Sacks's WWII example of Britain pulling together as a cohesive body to defeat a common enemy and assert a common moral identity, there is no mass mobilization or moral locus in the pandemic (325–26). We have no equivalent of assembly lines or military units to join; indeed, we have few voluntarily associative means of fighting this crisis. Similarly, we lack the stark relief of Judeo-Christian morality pitted against neo-pagan Nazism. Instead, we are faced with an even more impersonal state supporting isolated individuals, and a ruthless market destroying the disposable time and income needed for voluntary association to grow. In short, we are left with some of the worst elements of totalitarian statism and laissez-faire economics at the same time. To be clear, the book's timing explains why this looming question of social and political morality is left unanswered. However, as the book acts in sorts as Sacks's ethical will to the rest of us, we have a needed light to move forward and confront this question ourselves.