Written by Dennis Best
There was a time when we used to celebrate unity in society and not division or so-called diversity. While a certain amount of diversity is healthy, it becomes harmful when promoted at the expense of unity. That is part of our problem today: we lack the unity to get things done.
For society to function well in unity, certain prerequisites are necessary. The most important of these prerequisites is trust among society’s members. Trust comes when citizens are able to expect honesty, fairness, compassion, and support from their neighbors and merchants. This trust creates an interdependency that builds solidarity within the community and enables its members to work together towards common community goals – achieving results that can be simply amazing. Consider the marvelous cathedrals of Europe that arose from relatively humble medieval communities.
Contrast this to the mechanistic societies of present day where so much of this trust has eroded. Instead of trust, citizens rely on courts and police officials to enforce laws designed to keep our communities civil. Instead of working to build a spirit of unity, diversity is celebrated, which actually broadens divisions between race, creed, color, gender and political affiliation. The only emphasis for treating people equally is when they are part of a labor force – where we are expected to fit like unthinking cogs in a machine, or numbers in an equation.
Without communal trust, we turn ourselves over to be herded and worked as cattle. In this state, several critical components of humanity, and our ability to achieve happiness are curtailed.
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These components include:
Autonomy – the natural tendency for a person to decide his own future and exercise dominion over his own world.
Vital Flux – the exuberant human vitality and dynamism found in a true people in which unlocked talents and qualities are exhibited with tremendous bursts of energy and enthusiasm, which can in turn be channeled and refined to useful purposes for society as a whole.
Authority as Coordinator – the willingness of leaders to foster and leverage each citizen’s unique qualities and talents, and the capacity for citizens to work together harmoniously, recognizing and complimenting each other’s individual contributions.
Subsidiarity – our ability to be content with the contributions of each level of society, and to allow each its own freedom to contribute as it deems appropriate, across family, social and professional boundaries.
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These four components are natural products of an organic Christian society, and are critical to the overall happiness and prosperity of its people. In our struggle to return to a properly ordered society, we must be diligent to avoid focusing on our differences. We must see each other as fellow children under a common God, learn to trust and cherish each other as members of a single family, avoid bickering over our differences, and encourage each other to pursue their passions in a manner that contributes to society as a whole. When we call forth up and elect leaders who come from this sort of background, real changes will begin to happen – changes that will cascade and multiply across the country. By the grace of God and the intercession of the saints, through the fortitude and determination of the one Universal and Catholic Church, if we again make ourselves into a trustworthy people, our nation will return to prosperity and become a blessing to the world.