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World War II officially ended on September 2, 1945, 75 years ago today, when Japan’s imperial government surrendered to the Allied powers. After that, an international order was put in place, largely with leadership from the U.S. and defended against Soviet ambitions and subversion of liberal and traditional orders by Communist ideologues.

Recently, we have heard worries expressed that, in our time, that international order formed under the umbrella of the Charter of the United Nations, which was drafted and ratified to realize the ideals of the Atlantic Charter of 1941, may be falling apart, as the demands of populist nationalisms seek preeminence. Those ideals are reflected in the Caux Round Table’s principles for business, government and civil society and shape our “internationalism” and its confidence in the advantages of our collective securing of the common good.

An essay reflecting this history and idealism can be found here.

There were 23 people who attended our August 20th round table on our reflections regarding the pandemic, convened through Zoom.

Remarkably, a common theme emerged from the comments, articulated by participants from different countries, but all pointing in the same direction. That theme was loss – not of money, but of something more important – trust and confidence and the need for virtue to fill that social emptiness.

Individuals have lost confidence in elites and those in authority have lost confidence in themselves.

One participant noted that the black swan event was not the virus, but the collapse of leadership across our elites – political, religious, business and educational. Not even science has provided reassurance. Expertise, the justification of privilege for all modern rational/legal institutions, is falling short in obtaining the trust of individuals.

What is needed now, globally, therefore, is a new culture which can legitimate trust in ourselves, trust in our institutions and self-confidence of our leaders in the efficacy of their own virtue.

That culture can’t be bought. It has to evolve from our hearts. Financial investments and charity, government funding of expenditure through the creation of more fiat currency liquidity cannot create a spiritual good, but what we need must come from the spirit.

The pandemic has laid bare our values – the differential impacts on the poor, the elderly, SMEs, the instinct for self-protection, fears and the recriminations arising from them.

We need to re-establish moral authority to give people reasons to be resilient and live in solidarity with others. But how to do this? A flow down from the “top” is out of the question. It is the “top” which has been exposed as lacking in moral and emotional substance. A bottom-up process is needed where values and vision are made available to individuals and they, in turn, then act charismatically to rally resolve and goodwill.

We need, it was suggested, solidarity, individual acceptance of responsibility and social closeness, not social distancing.

We need a new controlling myth; manners too, ethical norms for individuals vis-à-vis others lifting up acceptance of reciprocal duties. Culture exists in relationships, so to build a new culture, we must engage with those around us, not just stand aloof from institutions and their authority figures. As one participant said, subjects of power structures must become citizens of vital communities.

The world is open to follow new outbursts of leadership, but in such conditions, history has shown that not every flowering of “leadership” leads to good. When culture is threadbare and society is fragmented, it’s not always the “better angels” of our natures which rise up from the ashes of disappointment to direct our fears and passions.

What is a moral person to think about truth? The epistemology of our modern age does not put a premium on truth. Conventional wisdom values much more relative truths – my truth, your truth, feminist truth, Chinese truth, ad infinitum.

Today, the search for truth among so many Western educated intellectuals and academics is tied to listening – to a moral obligation of hearing the voices of others in a moral cosmos of infinite others. Accordingly, there is no test, no criteria, for truth that is either objective or transcendent. Social convention – the absence of real truth – is all.

On the other hand, each person is born with a moral sense, a capacity to make moral decisions. It is part of our social nature. But the moral sense needs reassurance that what it comprehends is reliable, sturdy, on target, will still be there, more or less, in the same form and with the same intent tomorrow and again the next day and the day after that until, if not the end of time, at least for some respectable duration in which we must commit and live eagerly with our commitments.

Could it be that the truth is that which is sophistry, that which we cannot bend to our will, to which our will must submit?

In short, being moral demands searching for truths which are more substantial than social conventions – the mores which Cicero complained of when they leaned towards dictatorship.

Perhaps the intersection of morality and truth is a process – an intellectual, even spiritual, process of listening and thinking, of going beyond emotions and appearances.

I recently read this comment by a young scholar at the James Madison Program at Princeton University:

“Free inquiry is animated by the desire for truth alone. Humanistic learning consists of reading and reflecting on the reality of things for their own sake, not for their results. The classical philosopher Pierre Hadot described philosophy as a way of life that “translates into self-mastery and self-control, which can be obtained only by habit and perseverance in ascetic practices.”

The pursuit of truth, for its own sake, has other advantages. It sustains civil discourse in a pluralistic society. It helps us forge real connections with other human beings, alive and dead, from different eras, as well as our own. Reading great books enables us to think about science with Newton, ethics with Aristotle or history with W.E.B. Du Bois. This should generate pride in our own intellectual potential, as well as humility when we realize how far short we fall in the endeavor to understand ourselves and the world around us. And humility is necessary to sustain civil dialogue.

The pursuit of truth, for its own sake, also directs us outward and helps create deep friendships with fellow truth-seekers, whatever their age, race or political party.

Such direction towards others nourishes the moral sense.

Pope Benedict XVI in his 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate wisely said “Truth needs to be sought, found and expressed within the “economy” of charity [love/compassion], but charity in its turn needs to be understood, confirmed and practiced in the light of truth. In this way … we help give credibility to truth, demonstrating its persuasive and authenticating power in the practical setting of social living.” (para 2)

I wanted to share with you an article we thought would be of interest to you by Steve Young, our Global Executive Director, titled “Stopping the Contagion and Achieving the SDGs.”

It was first published in the Q3 2020 issue of the SID Directors Bulletin, published by the Singapore Institute of Directors.

We would be most interested in your thoughts and feedback.

Yesterday, I was looking up a point in Adam Smith’s largely overlooked classic on the application of morals to life, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. By accident, I ran across this affirmation of why we should be virtuous:

“But the philosophers of all the different sects very justly represent virtue; that is wise, just, firm, and temperate conduct; not only as the most probable, but as the certain and infallible road to happiness in this life. This conduct, however, could not always exempt, and might even sometimes expose the person who followed it to all the calamities which were incident to that unsettled situation of public affairs. They endeavored, therefore, to show that happiness was either altogether, or at least in great measure, independent of fortune: … Wise, prudent, and good conduct was, in the first place, the conduct most likely to ensure success in every species of undertaking; and secondly, though it should fail of success, yet the mind was not left without consolation. The virtuous man might still enjoy the complete approbation of his own breast; and might still feel that, however untoward soever things might be without, all was calm and peace and concord within. He might generally comfort himself, too, with the assurance that he possessed the love and esteem of every intelligent and impartial spectator, who could not fail both to admire his conduct, and to regret his misfortune.”