10 Key Values of Practical Idealism

by John Hammock

I wrote most of the following thinking of a non-Christian audience. For me everything that I say here is grounded in my faith in Jesus Christ and my belief that Christians are called to mission.

Each one of our lives is meaningful and important. My life is important; so is yours. Each one of us has a choice to make. It is possible for you to take control of your life, explore your values and your wants to determine how to live and how to impact the society in which we live.

It is easy in today’s world to think that I as an individual don’t count, that I am helpless and marginal. After all, there are so many people in the world; policy-makers often seem far away and unresponsive; tragedy, fear, terrorism seem close at hand; even our most sacred values seem threatened or questioned.

Seeing the devastation in New York in September, 2001 left me feeling powerless and helpless. One of my first reactions was “why bother?” How could I continue to be an optimist, to think that each individual mattered? Was there reason for hope? I have always been an optimist. Could I still be optimistic about where we were going as a world community? But these thoughts did not last long. I received a call early on September 11 from a friend I had not seen in years, a woman whom I had hired as an office assistant when she was a student and now was a well-known writer. Esmeralda Santiago knew I traveled constantly and called just to see if I was safe. Humanity restored; relationship nurtured. A simple phone call renewed my spirit and lifted me to optimism. It is precisely because of these acts of barbarianism and the compassionate, caring worldwide reactions that I must struggle more to not give in to fear, despair and hopelessness.

As individuals, we have power to transform our own lives and this personal transformation has the power to change society. As a social scientist I have been focused for years on the economics and politics of social change. It is very apparent to me now that I cannot separate social change from personal transformation. Each one of us, as an individual, counts. Each one of us has a set of values, a set of norms and beliefs that come from our history and culture. Together with others we make up our society. To bring about durable social change each one of us needs to understand the values of others and work to make our values understood by and tolerant of others.

Values are at the center of personal and societal transformation. I cannot tell you what to think, what to value, what to care for. I can ask you to clarify your values, to use a certain book as a way of entering into a dialogue about what is important for you. I, of course, hope that you resonate with some of my values and hopes and that you will share some of the principles that have guided my life. But that is not up to me; it is up to you.

We are at a crossroads. There are certainly competing values threatening to plunge the world into war. But I cannot believe that values of destruction, fear and death will win out. I cannot believe that values solely based on egocentric individualism will win out. I cannot believe that values based on hatred, division, war and anarchy will win out.

Wars and turmoil worldwide notwithstanding, I believe we are poised to ring in a new humanitarian era. By this I mean a century that will use the scientific and technological changes we have seen to uphold societies based on fundamental humanitarian principles and values. But the majority of us worldwide that believe in sane, progressive values must act. We must come together to act individually and collectively.

And this is particularly true of Christians. We must take Christ’s call to go out into the world seriously and totally. We must reach out to other Christians and to non-Christians alike.

There are ten key values that I believe we can all (Christians and non-Christians) come together around. I call people who live by these principles the practical idealists.

1. Embracing balance, not radicalism. Extremism leads to violence and to closed minds. Extremism can be political, economic, military, social, religious, cultural. Balance does not means having no views or opinions. Balance does not mean rolling over and playing dead. Balance is an active stance, one that challenges extremism of all kinds. Balance means humaneness, treating people with dignity; treating people as you would want to be treated. Strong beliefs OK—but play by humane rules.

2. Living for self and others, not just self. It is important to live a healthy, transforming personal life. Each individual has the responsibility of treating his or her body as the temple that it is. Each individual needs to take responsibility for his/her nutrition, health and spiritual (or value) development. Each life is precious and is a journey with many stages. But each life is not just self- preservation and aggrandizement. Each life must learn to live with and for others.

3. Embracing diversity and difference, not exclusion and sameness. Clearly each of us feels more comfortable with people who are like us, who speak the same language, who eat the same foods, who look like us, who share a national or ethnic identity. When there is calamity or we feel threatened, our first impulse is to exclude from our lives those who are different—however that difference is perceived. We look for people of our own religion, our own race, our own families, our own employment, our own nation and circle the wagons to keep a perceived threat out. But this is no solution; it only breeds further intolerance, hatred and fear. Diversity must be embraced and uplifted, acknowledging the real difficulties it poses and presents each of us.

4. Embracing and fostering relationships with friends, family, and communities. It is not just learning to live with and for others. It is taking the time and expending the energy on building and maintaining relationships. Most of us cannot live meaningful lives on our own. Meaning comes in our relationships with others. We take a risk when we develop close relationships with others. With partners or spouses we make a covenant of mutual respect, love, tolerance, faithfulness, constancy and forgiveness. This serves us well as a model for our interactions with others in all our relationships.

5. Embracing personal responsibility, not just personal and human rights. We all have rights. We are proud of our political rights to vote, to assemble, to worship the god of our choice, to say publicly what we believe. We are proud of the Bill of Rights and of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. We struggle to add economic and social rights as everyday rights for each of us. These are crucial, hard-fought rights that each of us has. But we must complement our rights with our responsibilities. As individuals we also have a responsibility to each other, to our neighbors and our not-so-close-neighbors. With rights comes the task of exercising those rights in a responsible way. This means practicing mindfulness of others.

6. Embracing compassion and letting go of fear. We live in scary times. We are worried; we feel insecure. It is not only terrorism. It is also our concern over whether we will lose our job or our good health. It is easy when we feel insecure to lash out in hatred, anger and fear. But this is not a solution. It does not get rid of the insecurity; it fosters it. Fear breeds closed-mindedness and violence. The antidote to fear is hope. It is turning fear into hopeful actions. It is seizing the optimistic view and exercising that optimism through charity and compassion.

7. Embracing social justice, not just compassion and charity. Charity, as in “helping the other fellow”, is not enough. Giving money to causes or good works, even performing the humanitarian work of providing relief to people in dire need is not enough. Rights and responsibilities mean working so that every member of society has a share in the wealth of the society, participation in the social, economic and political workings of the society. Social justice does not mean equality; but it screams out for greater equity, strong participation in decision-making and a constant lifting of the oppressive systems that lock people into poverty.

8. Embracing a sustainable future, not just living for the present. We live in world of limits. Just as we limit our personal freedoms to live in society with others under some type of social contract, so too must we limit our national, corporate, ethnic and community freedoms to live in harmony and peace into the long future. One nation, one corporation, one ethnicity or one community does not have the right to rape, pillage, destroy or oppress other nations, communities, ethnicities or people. We must embrace social, political and economic systems that build a sustainable future and preserve resources and life for generations. This means tempering unbridled and unregulated economic systems.

9. Embracing and forging common, worldwide values. Each one of us has values based on our history, religion and culture. We must celebrate our values while we learn to understand the values of others and work to forge a common world-wide ethics. As the world shrinks through communications, we will be forging values and ethical standards that will cross boundaries. We must promote an ethics that will help to usher in a humanitarian century that focuses not on political power and economic gain as ends in themselves, but that focuses on the well-being and prosperity of all people—understanding the needed interplay between limits and opportunities.

10. Embracing freedom and peace. Each one of us can build peace by starting with peace within ourselves and with all those we know. Peace starts from within. Peace and freedom also need social and political vigilance—to make sure that peace and freedom are extended to all. Freedom means the ability of all to flourish in their lives, building legal, political, social and economic systems that allow for human fulfillment. It means asking the question how much is enough for one individual and setting boundaries and limits for the common good.

Dr. John Hammock is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy & The Fletcher School, Tufts University. Currently on leave until September, 2008 and working with Sabina Alkire as a senior research associate at the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative, John was Executive Director at Oxfam America from 1984-1995 and Executive Director at ACCION International from 1973-1980. John is the president of the board of Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation.

Tomorrow: Laura Amendola