The Greeks coined a special word for public life. They called it politics, and defined it as the activity wherein citizens of the polis worked out among themselves ways and means of providing for the common good. The great tragedy of our time, from which many other problems flow, is that ordinary citizens have abandoned the sacred activity of politics to politicians, those with great wealth and influence, and experts. In his important and disturbing book on the state of democratic politics in the United States today, William Greider brilliantly catches what is really at stake in the vitality of our political life. Politics is not a game.
Public life happens outside the private boundaries of family and friendship.
It is the social space where citizens who cherish democracy and people of faith who hunger and thirst for justice must learn to register our claims effectively. It includes but is in no way limited to partisan, electoral politics. Voting is in actuality a minimal expression of authentic public life. The basic dilemma in the collective life of the U.S. today, namely the unraveling and discrediting of genuinely democratic governance, is a crisis of what I am calling public life. People of faith have another word for building our public life.