Justice and the good society are the two things I would like to talk about.

Justice, ever since the beginning of the modern era, has been affixed with varying degrees of equality. Equality does not mean sameness, and it shouldn’t. That would be immoral and impracticable. But there has to be a degree of fairness in the distribution of what we as a society produce. As we move into the 21st century, we need to realize that equality and fairness have suffered. Roughly in the last 30 years, the bottom quintile in the United States—the bottom 20 percent of the population—saw their income rise by 16 percent, the middle by 25 percent and the top by 95 percent. However, in comparison the very one percent at the top saw their income rise by almost 300 percent. During the same time the average worker’s pay, related to the income of the CEO of a major corporation, went from a multiple of 43 (so the CEO makes 43 times the salary of the worker) in 1980, to 344 today.

Those who need an increase in their income the most, received the least. What is the reason for that? What is the justification?

This is not the only problem we are facing. Even if we had greater fairness in this country, the kind of fairness you see in Europe and Japan, we still need to consider the problem of global justice. This dilemma is much worse than the inequality we have in our society. Pairing gross inequity, of magnitude not understood by those in the developed world, with global warming, the scenery of global justice is dim: those worse off are being hit the hardest.

As a society and as a planet, we need to address how best to distribute resources so as to effectively address claims of equity and liberty.

As far as the good society is concerned, the problem is that even if we had greater fairness in this country, there would be problems that are not solved by greater fairness. One of the more obvious examples in America and Montana is the epidemic of obesity that plagues our citizens. Not surprisingly, dramatic increases in obesity and overweight Americans have paralleled the decline in equality in the last 20 to 30 years, from President Reagan’s first term onward.

So what’s going on here?

What we are up against is what I call the paradox of decency and indifference. The people in this country are decent—we all know that. We all know it from firsthand experience. We all know it from surveys that indicate how generous we are, how willing we are to help others. Montanans and Americans are decent. We pay our taxes, we stop at red lights, and we help when you are in trouble. And yet we are totally indifferent to the problems of inequality, and apparently helpless in the face of what is happening to our wellbeing, to our quality of life, to our good life.

How do we explain that?

There are two explanations that are wrong. The first argues that we have to unleash the creative forces of the economy by pulling back on regulations and interventions by the state. It argues that we will prosper if we remove all regulation. Ever since the Reagan revolution in 1980 we have been tearing down regulations and reducing the power of the state. And things have only gotten worse—worse as far as justice is concerned, worse as far as the good life is concerned.

The second thing that would be unhelpful would be to preach at people and say, “Pull yourself together. Don’t be such a slob. Don’t eat too much. Get off your duff and start running,” or whatever. This approach would be as though you were to tell people in an assembly hall with a temperature of 120 degrees, “You slob, stop sweating. Pull yourself together.”

It is obvious why this would be wrong; you cannot help sweating in that environment.

We are caught in an environment that makes us indifferent to injustice, indifferent to global warming and global justice. We are helpless as far as our physical and moral wellbeing is concerned. By moral wellbeing, by a good life, I do not mean merely a decent life. I mean rising above decency to a level where we are attuned, where we are engaged in the best things the culture has to offer: athletics, knowledge, the arts.

What we need to do is change the environment. We have to change the setting. We know perfectly well what needs to be done to make the setting better. For the problem of equality, we have to change policy in such a way that income is more fairly distributed—not equally—just more fairly. Regarding the problem of the good life, in the case of the assembly hall, people would know what to do. We need to change the temperature. We have to change the environment in such a way that the default behavior is not sweating, but being cool. That is, where the default behavior is the right kind of eating, the right kind of physical engagement, the right kind of curiosity.

The first way to accomplish these goals is clearly a political task. In this political task, instead of preaching at people as consumers, “Don’t consume as much food,” or “Don’t consume as much electronic information,” we need to say, “You are citizens, you are responsible for this.” You have to engage yourself as citizens and bring about these changes. And the only channel is electoral politics. You have to ask yourself, if the setting has to be changed, who’s going to do it, and then elect those people willing to do it.

The second thing that is needed to accomplish our goals of living a quality and just life is good news. The problem we are up against is that when people are told the setting has to be changed, they think, “Oh my god, it is going to be difficult. We are going to be poorer. It is going be terribly austere.” If that were true, the prospect of beneficial changes—both as regards justice and the good life—would be dim. But there is good news. The good news is that a life that is compatible with dealing with global warming, with extending global justice, with inspiring citizens to engage with the best of society, is a much better life than we now have.

What sort of life would that be?

It’s a life of provocative, rewarding, physical engagement with things. The very thing that has given us so many problems—food—is also a wonderful example to show that greatness results when we practically engage ourselves. In the case of food, it means rather than just stopping at McDonald’s and doing the mindless thing—getting a Big Mac and laying into it—you stop at a store where you can get local food. You take it home, you engage everyone in the preparation of the food. This physically engages us in cutting, preparing, stirring, working together in the kitchen, and then gathering around the dinner table for a festive dinner. Food comes into its own when we exercise our skills and engagement in preparing and then consuming it.

It is the same thing with music. Music really comes into its own when people pick up the instruments they played in grade school and high school or pick up an instrument and make music together. Additionally people will become physically more active, more agile, more sure of themselves if they start walking or running and experience their environment. And here in Missoula that is just an easy and wonderful thing to do.

The good life is a much simpler life, much less dependent on broad scale manufacturing, processing, transportation, and all the rest. While life becomes simpler, we are also turning it down in terms of its demands on energy and environment. This life allows us to try to lead a commendable life, and by commendable I mean a life that is admirable—culturally admirable because it is active and skilled—and commendable in the sense that we can honestly say to people in Sub-Saharan Africa, “You too can lead this life.” Right now if we say, “Look at our life, you too can lead it,” well, the planet is just going to go down in flames.

So is something happening?

Lots of very good things are happening. There are local food movements. There are slow food movements. Our awareness of inequity in our country is increasing. We are playing more music. People are walking more. People are riding bikes, going hunting, going skiing, fly-fishing, and running on trails. In towns across Montana, citizens are getting engaged in politics, in community service, or with their local school boards.

Lots of great things are happening and the major problem is that these people don’t know of one another. They don’t see they are up against the same thing and working for the same thing. They are up against the current setting, the current culture, the current politics. And they are for a life of engagement and excellence—a good and just life.

There is a good life that is commendable and there are lots of wonderful people working on it. We need to join these people together, get them a voice and help channel them towards their respective goals. We need to make a difference.

That’s it.

Justice and the Good Life