It is in this gap between our claims on the collectivity and our needs for the collectivity where meaning can be lost. And yet this gap between rights and needs is also where meaning is to be found. We have reached the limits of what can be gained through the realm of the individual alone. It is high time that we accept the inevitable emptiness of such an approach and begin to foster our connection to the larger social and spiritual community. A truly sustainable Social Security program must be grounded in the security of shared social meanings.
Public policy has a role to play in our search for lasting security and meaning.
As Social Security reform inches more and more toward a vision of individual accounts and individual equity, we must pause to consider the aspects of security that we are sacrificing in the process. Fiscal soundness matters, but it is not all that matters. Social Security reform and aging policy in the United States need to be socially and spiritually sound as well. Unless we look beyond the balance sheets of the future, our hopes and aspirations for growing older will be reduced to actuarial projections. We cannot aVord to be so shortsighted.