Caring and appreciating

Government institutions have a way of crowding out the cultural institutions every society needs to give its citizens a sense of membership and belonging and the kind of meaning that comes of performing mutual aid. 

Neither the marketplace nor the government’s halls can deliver what society craves and what the healthy human soul yearns for: a community where people can experience a good sense of belonging. 

We know why not the market but why not the government? Because the market says you don't have to be generous while the government says you don't have to appreciate the generosity. The charitable act needs the act of gratitude or it becomes stillborn. The point is not merely to alleviate suffering in the moment, it is to create a climate of mutual obligation that makes for a palpable sense of society as community. 

So if not the market and not the government, then what? The Constitution. Caring and appreciating needs to be written into the very code of compact. Others call it the Bible.