Olivia: Alright, Jackson. Here's a paradox for you. We live in the wealthiest, freest societies in human history. Yet, rates of loneliness, depression, and suicide are skyrocketing. What went wrong? Jackson: Wow, starting with a light one! I'd guess… social media? The economy? The fact that my favorite coffee shop now charges extra for oat milk? Olivia: (Laughs) All valid complaints, but today's book argues those are just symptoms of a much deeper problem: a 'cultural climate change' where we've traded 'We' for 'I'. Jackson: We for I? That sounds… abstract. What are we talking about here? Olivia: We are talking about the central argument of Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times by the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. Jackson: Ah, okay. I’m listening. Olivia: Sacks was the Chief Rabbi of the UK, a major public intellectual, and this was his final, powerful message to the world, written just before he passed away. It's been widely acclaimed, even winning Book of the Year from the Jewish Book Council, because it tackles the one question everyone seems to be asking: how did we get so divided and what can we do about it? Jackson: That is the question, isn't it? It feels like everyone is in their own corner, shouting. So where does Sacks even begin to untangle that?

Olivia: He starts with his core diagnosis, what he calls 'cultural climate change.' He argues that just like the environment, our social world is heating up with anger and division. And the primary pollutant? A seismic shift from a 'We' culture of collective responsibility to an 'I' culture of radical individualism. Jackson: Okay, but hold on. Isn't the 'I' culture just another name for freedom and self-expression? My whole life I've been told to 'be myself,' 'find my passion.' Is Sacks saying that's wrong? Olivia: Not wrong, just dangerously out of balance. He’s not arguing for a return to oppressive collectivism. He’s pointing out that when 'I' becomes the only word that matters, the 'We' that holds society together starts to fray. And the first thread to snap is human connection. He points to this massive epidemic of loneliness. Jackson: I've definitely heard about that. It seems counterintuitive with everyone being so 'connected' online. Olivia: Exactly. Sacks cites a Cigna survey from 2018 where nearly half of Americans reported feeling alone or left out. And it's worst among the young. He even found a study that showed the word 'I' started to dramatically outpace 'We' in books published after the 1960s. It’s literally in our language. We’ve become the main character in a story that used to be about all of us. Jackson: That’s a bit chilling. It’s like that New Yorker cartoon Sacks mentions, with Humphrey Bogart sitting alone at a bar, but instead of talking to the bartender, he just says, "Alexa, play ‘As Time Goes By.’" Olivia: That's the perfect image for it! We have all this technology for communication, but we're more isolated than ever. Sacks contrasts this with these incredible 'blue zones'—places where people live exceptionally long lives. He tells the story of these villages in Sardinia, where a key factor in their longevity is what one researcher called 'the village effect.' Jackson: The village effect? What’s that? Olivia: It’s simple, really. No one lives alone. The elderly are integrated into family life, not sent away. Social contact is constant and face-to-face. They have a powerful sense of community, of 'We'. They are physically and emotionally supported by the group their entire lives. The result? They live longer, healthier, and happier lives. Jackson: So the secret to a long life isn't some fancy diet, it's just... not being lonely? Olivia: In large part, yes. Sacks argues that social isolation is as harmful to your health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. We've built a society that celebrates the 'I'—the self-made individual, the solo entrepreneur, the person free from all ties—but we've forgotten the most basic human truth, one he quotes from the book of Genesis: "It is not good for man to be alone." Jackson: Wow. When you put it like that, our modern idea of success starts to look a lot like a recipe for misery. Olivia: It’s a profound trade-off. We gained a lot of personal freedom, but we lost the built-in support systems of family, community, and shared identity that used to hold us together. And that unraveling doesn't just make us lonely. It starts to poison everything else.

Jackson: Okay, so the 'I' culture makes us lonely. I can see that. But how does my personal loneliness connect to, say, a global financial crisis or political chaos? That feels like a big leap. Olivia: It's not a leap; it's a domino effect. Sacks argues that when the 'I' completely overtakes the 'We,' it corrodes the two pillars that are supposed to hold a free society up: the market and the state. He says we've essentially 'outsourced' morality to them. Jackson: Outsourced morality? What does that even mean? Olivia: It means we've started to believe that if something is legal and profitable, it must be okay. The market tells us what's valuable through price, and the state tells us what's permissible through law. But neither the market nor the state can teach us to be good, to be just, or to care for one another. They are systems, not sources of moral character. Jackson: And when you take the moral character out... things get ugly. Olivia: Precisely. Look at the market. Sacks gives the devastating example of the collapse of Carillion, a massive UK construction company. The board of directors knew the company was sinking, saddled with billions in debt. But what did they do? They kept paying themselves huge bonuses, misrepresented the accounts to keep the stock price up, and squeezed their suppliers dry. Jackson: I remember that. It was a total disaster. Olivia: A total moral disaster. When the company finally collapsed in 2018, thousands of people lost their jobs, 30,000 suppliers were left with massive losses, and 28,500 pensioners saw their futures thrown into jeopardy. The parliamentary report on the collapse called it a story of "recklessness, hubris, and greed." It was a market completely detached from morals. Jackson: That makes so much sense. You see a headline about a corporate scandal or a politician lying, and you feel helpless. Sacks is saying this isn't just a few bad apples; the whole orchard is sick. Olivia: Exactly. And it’s not a new idea. This is what’s so brilliant about Sacks’ work. He connects it all the way back to the father of capitalism himself, Adam Smith. Jackson: Wait, Adam Smith? I thought he was the original 'greed is good' guy. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Olivia: That’s the famous line from The Wealth of Nations, and it's true, as far as it goes. But what most people forget is that Smith wrote another, earlier book called The Theory of Moral Sentiments. And the very first sentence of that book is: "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it." Jackson: Whoa. So Adam Smith, the champion of self-interest, was also the champion of empathy? Olivia: Yes! He understood that for a market to work, it had to exist within a society held together by trust, empathy, and a shared moral code. When you strip that away and have only self-interest, you get Carillion. You get the 2008 financial crash. And you get a political system where trust has completely evaporated. Jackson: Which leads to the political mess we're in now. The populism, the polarization... Olivia: It's the same pattern. When people feel that the system is rigged, that the elites don't care about them, and that there's no shared sense of 'We,' they lose faith in democratic institutions. Sacks cites the data: public trust in government in both the UK and the US is at historic lows. And when trust dies, civility dies with it. Politics becomes a zero-sum game of power, not a collaborative effort for the common good. Jackson: Okay, I'm convinced. We're lonely, our institutions are crumbling... it's a bleak picture. Does Sacks offer any hope, or are we just doomed to bowl alone forever while the world burns?

Olivia: He offers a tremendous amount of hope. And it's not some grand, top-down political program. It's something much deeper and more human. He says we need to rediscover the difference between a 'social contract' and a 'social covenant'. Jackson: Contract versus covenant. Okay, that sounds a bit academic. Break it down for me. Olivia: It's actually very simple. A social contract is a deal. It's transactional, based on self-interest. You and I agree to follow the rules so we don't harm each other. It’s about "I." The state is the referee. Jackson: Right, like a business deal. I'll do this if you do that. Olivia: Exactly. A covenant, on the other hand, is a moral commitment. It’s based on loyalty, trust, and love. It’s not about "what's in it for me," but "what's in it for us." It's about shared identity and collective responsibility. Think of a healthy marriage, a close-knit family, or a deeply committed team. That's a covenant. It transforms a group of 'I's into a 'We'. Jackson: Okay, I see the difference. A contract is about protecting my interests. A covenant is about committing to our shared future. Olivia: You've got it. And Sacks gives the most powerful, moving example of a covenant in action I have ever read. It’s the story of what happened in a tiny town called Gander, in Newfoundland, Canada, on September 11th, 2001. Jackson: 9/11? What happened in Gander? Olivia: When the US closed its airspace after the attacks, 38 jumbo jets were ordered to land at Gander's huge, mostly unused airport. Suddenly, this town of 10,000 people was faced with nearly 7,000 stranded, terrified passengers from 97 different countries. They called them 'the plane people'. Jackson: Oh my god. What did they do? Olivia: What they did was a miracle of human decency. The local bus drivers, who were in the middle of a bitter strike, immediately put down their picket signs and started driving the passengers. The townspeople opened up schools, churches, and their own homes. They cooked mountains of food. They brought clothes, toiletries, and toys. They set up free phone banks so people could call their families. They didn't ask for anything in return. They just saw people in need and responded as a 'We'. Jackson: Wow. That's incredible. They weren't getting paid; there was no contract. They just... did it. That's a covenant in action. Olivia: It is. For nearly a week, they put their lives on hold for complete strangers. Sacks uses this story to show that our capacity for moral action, for kindness, for covenant, is still there. It's our default setting. We've just let it get buried under layers of individualism. Jackson: That’s a beautiful story. But it raises the question: how do we get there from here? Gander is a small town. How does this scale to a whole divided country?

Olivia: And that's Sacks' final, brilliant point. It doesn't scale from the top down. It can't be legislated. He says cultural climate change, unlike the environmental kind, begins with individual choices. It starts with us. Jackson: So it's not about waiting for a politician to fix everything. Olivia: Not at all. It's about each of us making a conscious choice to shift our focus. He talks about prioritizing what David Brooks calls 'eulogy virtues'—like kindness, compassion, and integrity—over 'résumé virtues' like wealth and status. It starts by asking, "How can I help?" instead of "What's in it for me?" Jackson: So, the big political and economic problems we see are actually rooted in a moral and relational problem. And the solution isn't a new law, but a personal choice to shift from 'I' to 'We' in our own lives. It's about rebuilding those small covenants—in our families, our neighborhoods, our workplaces. Olivia: Exactly. It's about strengthening the 'We' of relationship, the 'We' of identity, and the 'We' of responsibility. Sacks leaves us with a powerful question that really sums up the entire book. Jackson: What's that? Olivia: He asks us to decide: Are we just consumers in a market, competing for scarce goods? Or are we citizens in a society, bound by a shared fate and a common good? The future, he says, depends on our answer. Jackson: A question to ponder. This is Aibrary, signing off.