MISSOURI WATCH: OUR HOPE IS WHERE IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN: WITH INDIVIDUALS

In the current era of diminishing morality, political polarization and civic irresponsibility, many of us are left with the conclusion that the human instinct for survival is atrophying. We not only express concern for our seemingly increasing social dilemmas, we are anguished when we consider where our regeneration will come from.

I firmly believe too many of us are looking for solutions from our political process and the large number of ersatz saviors it continually produces and harbors. Nor do I believe answers can come from any group or single institution, however exalted the purpose of the group may be.

Our hope has to reside where it has always been: with the individual, regardless of how uncomfortable this assertion may make each of us feel. Today's challenges are supremely personal, and they lend themselves neither to superimposition or force-feeding. What our presently constituted groups can do -- and it makes little difference whether it is formal or informally defined -- is to arrest its own impatience with the individual long enough to sustain each search for regeneration truths. This is the only way existing groups, whether political or civic, are likely to get moral closure.

Just what is the real problem of a free society such as ours?

For starters, it is the problem of the individual who thinks that one man cannot possibly make any difference in the destiny of a society.

It is the problem of the individual who doesn't really understand the nature of a free society or what is required to make it work.

It is the problem of the individual who has no comprehension of the multiplying force of single, sovereign units.

It is the problem of the individual who regards the act of pulling a single lever in a voting booth in numerical terms rather than historical terms.

It is the problem of the individual who has no real awareness of the millions of bricks that had to be put into place, one by one over several centuries, in order for him to dwell in a free country. No does he see any obligation to those who continue building the structure or to those who will have to live in it after him, for better or worse.

It is the problem of the individual who recognizes no direct relationship between himself and the decisions made by government in his name. Therefore, he feels no special obligation to search for the information necessary to an understanding of the issues leading to those decisions.

It is the problem of any citizen who follows in the footsteps of proponents who are indifferent to all outside their own belief system.

In short, freedom's main problem is the problem of the individual who takes himself lightly historically.

After identifying the problem, who then is the enemy? Well, he is not solely a militarily powerful dictator 5,000 miles from our shore. For the enemy is many people. He is a man whose only concern about the world is that it stay in one piece during his own lifetime. He is invariably up to his neck in success and regards his good fortune not as a challenge to get close to the real problems of others but as proof of the correctness of everything he does. Nothing to him is less important than the shape of things to come or the needs of the next generation. Talk of the legacy of the past or of human destiny leaves him cold. Historically, he is disconnected, hence when he thinks about the world at all, it is usually in terms of his hope to maintain his own lifestyle for the next 15 or 20 years. He is an enemy because nothing less than a passionate concern for the rights of unborn legions will enable the world itself to become connected and whole.

The enemy is a man who not only believes in his own helplessness but actually worships it. His main article of faith is that there are mammoth forces at work which the individual cannot possibly comprehend, much less alter or direct. And so he expends vast energies in attempting to convince others that there is nothing they can do.

The enemy is a man who has total willingness to delegate his worries about the world officialdom. He assumes that only the people in authority are in a position to know and act. He believes that if vital information essential to the making of public decisions is withheld, it can only be for a good reason. If a problem is wholly or partially scientific in nature, he will ask no questions even though the consequences of the problem are political or social.

The enemy is any official in government, high or low, who keeps waiting for a public mandate before he can develop major ideas of his own, but who does little or nothing to bring about such a mandate. Along with this goes an obsessive fear of criticism. To such a man, the worst thing in the world that can happen is to be accused of not being tough-minded in dealing with other governments or with groups of its own citizens, who because of circumstances beyond their control, place them in general disfavor. He abhors the same disfavored segments of his society as the majority, reassured by the belief that if he hates the wrong crowd, the right crowd will admire him.

History will show that the truly monumental figures in mankind's earthly tenure have been those who displayed intellectual integrity and physical courage for others at a time when it was much easier to be a spectator. From the time of Christ to the age of Clinton, we have looked for the enemies of society in many of the wrong places, believing that they were easily identifiable by their sins. To this day, their identity remains elusive because we find it is so difficult to view ourselves as we truly are.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.