Our final two every day meditations have been dedicated to Thomas Aquinas’s highly effective and substantive teachings on the frequent good. He’s given credit score in spite of everything to bringing that idea, first articulated by Aristotle, into western consciousness and jurisprudence.
I discover nice which means and even solace in his teachings at the moment of chaos and rupture in western politics when highly effective and monied forces of authoritarianism are bent on displacing the very idea of the frequent good.
I used to be amazed subsequently to come back throughout yesterday a dialogue on the identical matter by Michael Ian Black. The context was fairly totally different from those that learn our every day meditations. It was a “Viral ‘Debate” between liberal commentator Sam Seder and twenty younger MAGA conservatives.*
Black reported that his blood strain fizzled and popped, and he needed to ultimately flip the “debate” off as a result of he holds a conservative bias and imaginative and prescient of America which nonetheless believes that consultant democracy stays one of the best type of authorities but devised. He embraces the preamble of our Structure: “We, the Individuals, as a way to construct a extra excellent union…” He feedback that “It’s a exceptional phrase with which to ascertain a nation: ‘We.’”
After which got here the ringer for me that was so pertinent to our final two DMs. The “notion, the promise of a standard good, is the elemental divide between my imaginative and prescient and that of the present administration.”
He factors out that again and again…the younger conservatives platformed within the video expressed an absence of religion in that pluralistic society. They haven’t any religion in our establishments. They haven’t any religion in science. They haven’t any religion in People who do share their spiritual beliefs to find out one of the best plan of action for their very own lives.
Truth-checking of their many claims discovered that their claims “had been virtually all incorrect” however by no means thoughts as a result of “the MAGA worldview just isn’t knowledgeable by information however by emotions. They really feel that Social Safety is a catastrophe regardless of the truth that, as Sam identified, it retains 2/3 of our senior residents out of poverty.” The truth that vaccines work or local weather change is going on and is man-made doesn’t matter. A “wholesale dismissal of knowledge” predominates as a result of, “as Stephen Colbert as soon as famously mentioned, “Actuality has a liberal bias.”
These MAGA voters, he concludes “are flatly flawed about virtually the whole lot.” The hot button is that “it doesn’t matter for those who’re flawed as long as you’re confidently flawed. And oh boy are they assured.”
One debater mentioned it out loud. “The liberal world order must be overthrown utterly, and Christian nationalism is an efficient various.”
Black concludes that it is probably not doable to achieve these individuals who in all probability really feel the identical about him, “though the distinction between us is I’ve actuality on my facet.”
He says that “We, the Individuals” rests on a basis I used to imagine was unshakeable.” Black believed we had been able to “figuring out that which binds us, in any other case referred to as the frequent good.” MAGA “rejects this” and in doing so, “rejects America.”
* Michael Ian Black, “The Viral ‘Debate’ Video That Proves Most MAGA Voters Are a Misplaced Trigger.” The Day by day Beast, March 12, 2025.
See Matthew Fox, Sheer Pleasure: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality, pp. 124f., 416f., 396-398, 408f., 415, 419.
And Fox, Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Reworking Evil in Soul and Society.
And Fox, “Warriors for Ecological and Financial Justice: Meister Eckhart Meets Dorothy Stang, Karl Marx, David Korten, Serge Latouche, Anita Roddick, and Howard Thurman,” in Fox, Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Occasions, pp. 221-230.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Items for the Peoples of the Earth.
Banner Picture: ” ‘The Different America’ – America is as soon as once more in peril — however guided and impressed by the leaders of our previous, these of us who nonetheless imagine in Tolerance, Freedom and Democracy will not be afraid!” Picture by Daniel Arrhakis on Flickr.
Queries for Contemplation
What are your emotions on listening to about this debate with younger MAGA voters and Sam Seder? And on seeing how central the idea of “the frequent good” was to the understanding supplied by Black about America, its previous and its future?
Really helpful Studying
Sheer Pleasure: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox renders Thomas Aquinas accessible by interviewing him and thus descholasticizing him. He additionally translated lots of his works resembling Biblical commentaries by no means earlier than in English (or Italian or German of French). He offers Aquinas a discussion board in order that he may be heard in our personal time. He presents Thomas Aquinas solely in his personal phrases, however in a kind designed to permit late Twentieth-century minds and hearts to listen to him in a contemporary manner.
“The educating of Aquinas comes by means of will a fullness and an perception that has by no means been current in English earlier than and [with] an important message for the world right this moment.” ~ Fr. Bede Griffiths (Afterword).
Foreword by Rupert Sheldrake
Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had at all times shied away from utilizing the time period “Anti-Christ” as a result of it was so usually used to unfold management and concern. Nevertheless, given right this moment’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables on this guide using the archetype for the reason for justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a second, for inspecting the archetype of the Antichrist, it’s now…Learn this guide with an open thoughts. Good and evil are actual forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, writer of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For instant entry to Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white photos, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To obtain a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for instant obtain.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Reworking Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling writer Matthew Fox affords a brand new theology of evil that essentially modifications the standard notion of fine and evil and factors the way in which to a extra enlightened remedy of ourselves, each other, and all of nature. In evaluating the Jap custom of the 7 chakras to the Western custom of the 7 capital sins, Fox permits us to suppose creatively about our capability for private and institutional evil and what we will do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a greater imaginative and prescient and depth of notion far past the grasp of anybody single science. A breath-taking evaluation.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, writer of Quantum Theology: Non secular Implications of the New Physics
Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior For Our Time
Whereas Matthew Fox acknowledges that Meister Eckhart has influenced thinkers all through historical past, he additionally desires to introduce Eckhart to right this moment’s activists addressing up to date crises. Towards that finish, Fox creates dialogues between Eckhart and Carl Jung, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Heschel, Black Elk, Karl Marx, Rumi, Adrienne Wealthy, Dorothee Soelle, David Korten, Anita Roddick, Lily Yeh, M.C. Richards, and plenty of others.
“Matthew Fox is probably the best author on Meister Eckhart that has ever existed. (He) has efficiently bridged a niche between Eckhart as a shamanistic character and Eckhart as a post-modern mentor to the Inter-faith motion, to disclose simply how cosmic Eckhart actually is, and the way remarkably related to right this moment’s spiritual disaster! ” — Steven Herrmann, Writer of Non secular Democracy: The Knowledge of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Ahead
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Consciousness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the which means and apply of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the longer term that guarantees private, social, and international therapeutic, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, main the way in which towards a gentler and extra ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate exercise.
“Properly value our deepest consideration…Places compassion into its correct focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Items for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the therapeutic and liberation present in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of each spiritual and political persuasion to unite in a brand new imaginative and prescient by means of which we be taught to honor the earth and the individuals who inhabit it because the reward of a superb and simply Creator.
“A watershed theological work that gives a standard floor for spiritual seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Follow.
“I’m studying Liberating Items for the Individuals of the Earth by Matt Fox. He’s one which fills my coronary heart and thoughts for brand spanking new life regardless of a lot that’s violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
