Voices October 23, 2019
Securing the common good starts with protecting truth
By C.S. Morrissey – Global Theatre
Digital technologies enhance our lives so much, we can’t live without them.
Once you have bitten into the Apple of the smartphone, can you ever go back?
I remember when phones hung on walls. They had a curly cord that tied the receiver down to its nest: a box with a rotary dialer.
The point of no return happened when my personal computer (“PC”) jumped off my desktop and swallowed that phone on the wall. It gobbled up my camera too.
The whole thing shrunk into a tiny rectangle, which I can now carry around in my hand.
Pretty soon it will all be embedded in our body, or at least around our wrist. It’s already quite accurately tracking our every move, never out of hand or pocket.
The political development we should fear the most is a despotic government that turns these digital tools against us, to make us its slaves.
In our contemporary context, no doubt the most disturbing trend is the rising popularity of authoritarian politics.
Look around and see what’s happening: authoritarian leaders are using digital technology against democracy itself.
If you are not sure what an “authoritarian” leader is, let me make it easy for you: it’s someone who makes up their own rules, someone to whom the rule of law does not apply (although they still use it as a weapon against you).
You can spot them: their goals are more power and money. And digital technology is making their oligarchic efforts easier, because they can use smartphone technology to hack people’s minds.
Their daily digital injections feed people a steady diet of disinformation and propaganda.
Instead of news organizations that everyone can look to as a touchstone for truth and facts, niche market entertainments manufacture an alternative reality woven from prejudice.
Market forces are harnessed, not to serve the common good, but to radicalize peoples’ minds, by feeding them emotionally satisfying myths. Conveniently, the myths also serve oligarchic interests.
The number one political priority in this dangerous new environment is to make sure the rule of law prevails. Otherwise the gap between rich and poor will continue to widen.
Without the stability of the rule of law, the rich will simply rewrite the rules whenever it serves their fortunes. They will get away with their theft and corruption by doing whatever confuses or manipulates a citizenry into being unable to tell truth from lies.
The rule of law requires institutions and procedures grounded in facts and reality. The basic prerequisite to caring for the common good of our nation is thus the legal protection of truth.
Moreover, each nation is called to serve as an example to other nations. More important than economic growth is basic fairness established by equality before the law.
Each nation should gauge its flourishing in terms of how well it compares to others, but not simply in terms of wealth and the economy. The presence of justice and the absence of corruption is a better measure of prosperity.
Further, we can only hope to fully secure the common good of our nation by connecting it with the universal common good of all nations.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches (in paragraph 1927): “It is the role of the state to defend and promote the common good of civil society. The common good of the whole human family calls for an organization of society on the international level.”
Anything less will place the power of our new technologies into the hands of authoritarian oligarchs, who will happily use digital entertainments to dominate a new slave class.
Pope Francis himself recently observed how “it is possible, as never before, to circulate tendentious opinions and false data that could poison public debates and even manipulate the opinions of millions of people, to the point of endangering the very institutions that guarantee peaceful civil coexistence.”
He was speaking at the seminar on “The Common Good in the Digital Age,” held at the Vatican on September 27. He urgently exhorted us not to allow technology to become an enemy of the common good:
“If technological advancement became the cause of increasingly evident inequalities, it would not be true and real progress,” said the Pope. “If mankind’s so-called technological progress were to become an enemy of the common good, this would lead to an unfortunate regression to a form of barbarism dictated by the law of the strongest.”
To counter this disturbing trend, the Pope endorses the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. He thereby leads the way for us in how to care for the universal common good, which asks us first and foremost to care for the poor.
United Nations Member States: Sustainable Development Goals
Goal 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
Goal 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
Goal 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
Goal 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
Goal 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
Goal 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
Goal 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
Goal 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
Goal 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Goal 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Goal 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
Goal 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development