Here's a further thought about the examined life, which the other day I summarized as "The best way to live is to never stop asking yourself: What is the best way to live?" Implicit in that formulation is a focus on personal improvement, for it involves continually asking yourself "Is this the best I can do?" For someone with high ethical ideals, the answer is always "not quite" because there is always a gap between the ideal and the real. Having those ideals gives us something to strive for. As I like say, "You don't have to achieve an ideal to realize the benefits of idealism."
The same applies, I might add, at the societal level. Today is America's 247th birthday. These days many people focus on what's wrong with America and her history. But that's nothing new. From the very start, many Americans knew that there was a large gap, perhaps even a yawning chasm, between the American ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the American reality of slavery. Even before the Constitution was ratified in 1787, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island had passed emancipation laws. At his death in 1799, George Washington, alone among the founders, liberated the slaves he had inherited. As a society, every once in a while we've had to ask ourselves if this is the best we can do, and we've found ourselves wanting - resulting in the Civil War, Reconstruction and subsequent backsliding, the abolition of the Jim Crow laws, the civil rights movement, and most recently yet another racial reckoning (not to mention women's suffrage and numerous other corrections).
You might think that we should have solved all of our problems by now, but history doesn't work that way. As Alexis de Tocqueville once said, "The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults." I remain optimistic that we Americans can live up to our ideals. In any case, because utopia is not an option, continuing to repair our faults is literally the best we can do.
This loops right back around to the personal: what is the best that I can do as an individual? Many people find it easier to rail against societal problems than to engage in the most difficult reform of all: the inner revolution of self-improvement. In today's climate of ideological extremism, that necessitates political moderation, truly educating yourself about American history and present-day society, and identifying opportunities to make a difference in your community. Therein lies the only long-term path to closing the gap between the ideal and the real.
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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