Our Problem Politically: We No Longer Focus On The Greater Good

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As I started reading Steve Hanley’s latest article, the first paragraph hit me. “The same insurance companies that are refusing to insure homes in many areas of the US because of climate related risks are doubling down on insuring LNG terminals that will make global heating worse,” he wrote. It triggered a kind of light-bulb moment in me. It just hit me that our core problem politically is we don’t have appropriate oversight for the greater good.

As I got to thinking about it more, I saw some flaws in the idea, but I still think this is really our core problem.

First of all, on the initial thought, yes, it’s ridiculous and horrible that these insurance companies see what’s happening, know what’s happening, and then go and insure fossil fuel companies and projects. However, it immediately made me think that society at large should be well aware of the problems as well and should be overseeing all of this. It’s society, through the self-created role of government, that should be saying, “Hey, we can’t do this anymore. We need to get off of fossil fuels.” Unfortunately, “government” is now a bad word to most people, and it’s very hard to get significant things done on the US government level — and the state level in many states.

More broadly, it just seems that we’ve gotten less and less concerned about the greater good, and more and more selfish. Maybe that’s how it’s always been, but it feels like this has gotten worse. For some reason, I thought about the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. Clearly, that move was made out of a concern that we as a society were losing touch with the greater good, with helping everyone, not just selfishly looking out for our own bank account. However, I feel like that movie couldn’t even be made today. People would trash it as commie, as left-wing woke nonsense. People would not find the message so compelling that we should be looking out for each other much more than we do. We have become so obsessed with “getting what’s ours,” and society as a whole is suffering as a result.

Yes, there are many people working tirelessly every day to try to protect the world from climate collapse, to try to lift up the base of society and help people in the lower classes. There are many people in politics who are trying to help society at large — on both sides of the aisle even, just with different ideologies. However, for the most part, it’s again about getting what’s ours and climbing the ladder of power, reputation, and wealth.

Again, that’s surely how it’s always been to some extent, but it feels like the pendulum has swung far too far in the direction of selfishness and greed. When I think back on the WWII era, on the Civil Rights Movement, on creation of the United States, on the women’s suffrage movement, on the oil crisis of the 1970s, I think about how much of the US population worked together for the greater good — to help others and to help society at large.

Now, how much of US political discourse is simply fear and scapegoating of immigrants (as if this whole country isn’t a country of immigrants, and as if immigration doesn’t help our economy), belittling and bullying of “weird others,” just wanting tax cuts while the core of the country rots and crumbles? How much of political discourse is “how do we help each other?#8221;

How do we actually help society as a whole? That should be the starting point, the common-ground question that we start these discussions from. But it’s not. The starting point seems to be, “What’s in it for me?#8221; Perhaps we need to work more on making sure we are on the same starting point.