Today in Goodness

Two Three quick hits on the goodness trail.
Novelist Jostein Gaarder calls for a Golden Rule 2.0:

(T)he golden rule can no longer just have a horizontal dimension – in other words a “we” and “the others.” We must realize that the Principle of Reciprocity also has a vertical dimension: you shall do to the next generation what you wished the previous generation had done to you.

E.J. Dionne Jr. calls on religious conservatives to stop using virtue as a weapon.

Enough with dividing the world between moral, family-loving Christians and supposedly permissive, corrupt, family-destroying secularists.

Enough with pretending that personal virtue is connected with political creeds. Enough with condemning your adversaries, sometimes viciously, and then insisting upon understanding after the failures of someone on your own side become known to the world. And enough with claiming that support for gay rights and gay marriage is synonymous with opposition to family values and sexual responsibility.

TV critic Maureen Ryan pulls some lessons about good and evil out of the finale of Lost.

• It's never too late. You can always remake your fate (or take a run at resolving your issues in another Sideways life, brutha).
• No one is eternally good or bad. You can revise or redeem your character through your actions.
• No one can go it alone. It takes a village and all that.

And finally... I'll launch my own quest for goodness at my new blog, In Search of Goodness, in just six days.

Today in Goodness

A new blog called The Wrong Stuff has appeared and begun meditating upon human frailty and how we handle our mistakes. I'm going to watch this effort by Kathryn Schulz closely. One of my hypotheses is that many of us will never reach a state of goodness because we can't face our own errors honestly. (Note that I'm including myself in that bunch of stumblers.)

E.J. Dionne, who knows Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan personally, joins the debate over Kagan with a startling report. Apparently, Kagan can engage in a political argument without getting nasty. Given the lack of civility in the public square these days, this is truly amazing. Dionne writes:

Several things about her response show why she will make an excellent justice. First, she understood we were debating in good faith. She doesn't turn disagreements into personal quarrels.

I have no idea whether Kagan will be a good justice, but this is a cheerful sign.

Finally, it's time to start the countdown for my own new effort -- The Goodness Project. My new blog, In Search of Goodness, will chronicle the quest. The new blog launches in 18 days.

Socialism for the rich only

E.J. Dionne makes some interesting points on the bailout today.

Socialism, you say? We're already into that. The administration's plan amounts to socialism for the rich only.

... and...

(I)f Congress can appropriate $700 billion for Wall Street, where is the help for everyone else hurting in this economy? Isn't it strange that an administration that could not come up with a comparatively modest sum to increase the number of children with health insurance could suddenly find all this cash for the financial industry?

Here's my message to Congress: Do what you must to fix the economy, but be sensible.