In fact, every human failure, no matter how apparently private, affects the whole community, and so, equally, does every act of moral courage and humility. Our politics must enshrine this, or our democracy will die. Shallow, feel-good conventions that deflect responsibility and obscure what is required for real social change are a sign of that death coming. Instead of being bored by Philadelphia last week and Los Angeles next week, we should be alarmed. Until our leaders openly acknowledge that every charge they hurl across the partisan divide is a charge that they can first bring against themselves, we the people will know that we have yet to hear the truth, which is that each of us can be charged as well.
Moral responsibility belongs to all.
That truth is hard but liberating. To admit it is to begin to change. That truth is the one blessing America needs. James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.