By William C. Shelton

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

I believe that we all have the capacity to be honest, but none of us has the capacity to be objective. To sustain effective promises, relationships, institutions and commerce, we need to be truthful with each other. But our understanding of what is true can be sincerely different from that of others. To do our best to be truthful, we can acknowledge all the available evidence on a matter and not exclude any that challenges our beliefs. 

In forming those often largely unconscious beliefs, we simultaneously form blind spots. Recognizing this, we can make conscious and disclose those beliefs, allowing others to evaluate what else we have to say by measuring our beliefs against the truth of their own experiences. The following are some things that I believe, which affect how I see and write about the world.

I believe that God created the universe, and righteous men wrote, copied, translated and past down the scriptures. The only means available to them to transmit their truths to their audiences were to use, in new ways, the historically culture-bound and language-bound communication tools available to them. Some who heard got it and were enlightened. Others turned these truths into dogma. If there is a contradiction between the evidence of God‚Äôs universe and literal assertions in the scriptures as they have reached us today, then the universe is probably truer. 

I believe that fundamentalisms have much less to do with spiritual truth than with religious hierarchies. They are inevitably intolerant and disrespectful of other fundamentalisms and of all who seek their own truth. They have justified some of the worst atrocities in human history.

I believe that the human capacity for empathy forms the basis of conscience. Its expression is the Golden Rule, as stated independently by Jesus, Hillel, Muhammad, Confucius and the Mahabharata. That rule is the basis of all just law.

I believe that we tend to do to others what has been done to us. We’re all mostly doing the best that we know how in the immediate moment. When people are hurtful or behaving badly, they are usually unwarily acting out how they themselves were hurt. This does not mean that we should ever tolerate such behavior, but it offers us insight into how to manage it.

I believe that every human being is worthy of respect. An operational definition of respect would be that the other’s experiences are as authentic as our own, and that we always have something to learn from them.

I believe that what our ancestors survived to become human, selected for the capacity to kill ruthlessly as well as to cooperate selflessly with others for the greater good. Different institutional arrangements require differing behaviors and attitudes for their inhabitants to live successfully within them. In so doing, they will give greater emphasis to the development of potentials for domination versus cooperation. We should create institutions that emphasize cooperation and mutual respect and develop in their people the ability to distinguish between which response will yield the best long-term outcome for all.

I believe that every human being has the capacity to be productive. If someone cannot be productive, then we should help him or her to become so, but not help or encourage him to remain unproductive. Society should ensure that all who are willing to be productive can earn a living. If it does not, the moral stigma is on the society rather than on those who are impoverished.

I believe that the emergence of capitalist institutions created the material basis for a human existence for all and the cultural basis for flowering of the extraordinary potential and subjectivity possessed by every human being. I believe that the system that we now live in is socialism for the wealthy, a limited welfare state for the poor and a fairly harsh capitalist economy for working people, including most small business owners. I do not dismiss business as somehow inferior to other vocations, since business now creates the value that supports every other vocation.

I believe that government should not spend more than it takes in, except in rare instances of war and recession. In prosperous times, we should pay down our debt. Our national debt is an expression of moral cowardice and is giving our sovereignty away to debt holders.

I believe that within our current political and economic systems, every unit of capital must either expand or die, and at the end of every round of competition, there are fewer players, who have disproportionately greater power to shape others’ lives. If we don’t find a better way, these dynamics will ultimately undermine the social basis for civilization and the environmental basis for human existence. I don’t know what that better way is.