Notes and Ruminations:
Toward The Public Good
These notes and ruminations are a collection of ideas which aim toward the public good. The “good” itself cannot be concretely defined, but the concept can serve as a beacon light to illuminate and inspire citizens to engage in joint fact-finding and creative conceptualization of policies and actions which can serve and strengthen their communities.
This site assumes that we live in a radical environment, and, in the spirit of the term, we must return to our root ideas in order to fundamentally change our actions. Changing our presuppositions, basic starting points, mental models and images does not come easy. Fundamentally, it involves an inner ethical reordering of the ideas that we identify with powered by a motive of exemplifying and testing how a set of ideas can engender more social harmony to achieve the public good (i.e. where we strengthen each other without significantly excluding or weakening other aspirations for the good). It is in our conception of ourselves–our ideals, our best, unique intimations and experiences from our lives , our best thoughts for others which nourish and sustain, wherever possible, a continuity of consciousness on behalf of each and all in an increasingly fragmented world.
In the public sector, there is a destructuring with old forms and allegiances breaking down. Public and private behavior are merging into one. Politically, this creates potentially positive social spaces for new forms of self-organization, public law, cultural hybrids, and political linkages while individually creating more space for self-definition through embracing more diverse, democratic group expression. The challenge for each and all is how much diversity one can sincerely tolerate?
The public sector leader must be willing to operate at different altitudes of general principle suffusing grounded skill-in-action with a receptiveness to citizens and stakeholders and an openness to surprise! A starting point for rethinking is a strong motive which enables integrating diverse and emergent desires into iterative, action possibilities which are inclusive, maintain future trust and resilience, and point to the public good. As a political statesman, the public sector leader must be able to “feel the temperature”, exercise non-violent, less coercive restraint wherever possible, and look for the interstices between bounded structures where human relations and integrative ideas can blossom and fructify collective dialogue and mutual trust in public policy and corresponding organizational behaviors. At the public policy level, this involves understanding how to choose less coercive rationalities–means and ends–for creating healthy boundaries of trust, confidence, and social solidarity. At the level of organizational behavior, it means using ourselves as instruments to transcend the dichotomy between the costs of dogmatic group attachments on one hand and the elusive search for human authenticity in relationships on the other. A public policymaker can find those political and administrative spaces where belief in human potential and collective solidarity converge at the point where the Eros of fraternity can warm, loosen, and inspire rational minds to naturally engage a concept of a more inclusive, common good.
