Common Good

In 2020–21, CQ asked you: What is the common good?

How do we define what is good for society as a whole? What happens when collective benefit runs counter to individual benefit? How are questions and assumptions about the common good built into academic inquiry, as well as our daily lives?

The sources below consider these questions from creative, scientific, and humanistic perspectives. We invite you to start with these core sources, wander further down to the “Explore” section, and join the conversation.

Start Here

  • International Monetary Fund: AI Will Transform the Global Economy. Let’s Make Sure It Benefits Humanity

    Artificial intelligence is already changing the way that we work, play, and spend our resources. How can we make sure that those economic changes benefit humanity?

    Read more here.

  • Joshua Rothman writing for the New Yorker magazine: In the Age of A.I., What Makes People Unique?

    The New Yorker magazine’s ideas editor Joshua Rothman asks what happens to human values when AI-generated content becomes indistinguishable from art, media, and thoughts produced directly by humans.

    Read more here.

  • International Committee of the Red Cross: On Being Human Now and in the Future

    University of Oxford Senior Fellow Hugo Slim explores the late historian Bruce Mazlish’s conception of humanity as a species, as a code of ethical conduct, and as a global identity.

    Read more here.

  • The Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Initiative

    The Human Origins Initiative at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History explores the deep past and the origins of human life in order to give us insights into human evolution, the development of human cultures and societies, and the future of humanity.

    Read more here.

  • Kaufman, Post-Traumatic Growth: Finding Meaning and Creativity in Adversity

    Image source: Scientific American

    “By embracing psychological flexibility, we face the world with exploration and openness and are better able to react to events in the service of our chosen values.”

    Read more here.

  • Collective Photo Essay

    Image source: The Walters Museum

    “This Celadon Box features kintsugi, a Japanese repair technique called kintsugi, which uses a mixture of lacquer and gold, silver, or platinum to mend an object in a way that highlights (rather than hides) the damage.”

    This is community project in progress. Check back here throughout the year and submit your own photo for the collective photo essay.

  • Baltimore Museum of Art

    Image: Elizabeth Talford Scott’s Quilt, “Plantation”

    “The Baltimore Museum of Art connects art to Baltimore and Baltimore to the world, embodying a commitment to artistic excellence and social equity in every decision.”

    Explore here.

  • National Academy of Engineering, 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century

    Image: National Academy of Engineering Website

    “All of these endeavors must be undertaken with clear vision for the aesthetic values that go beyond mere function and contribute to the joy of living.”

    Read more here.

  • The Nation’s Report Card

    Image: Baltimurals

    “For 13-year-olds, over the past 10 years, “the average scores declined 7 points in reading and 14 points in mathematics.“

    Read more here.

  • Danielle Allen, “Aims of Education” address (2001)

    “Friendship is crucial to encountering what is novel, alien, and unsettling, and such is the business of learning.”

  • Mark Phillips et al, “Genomics: data sharing needs an international code of conduct” (2020)

    “Further regulatory uncertainty risks…undermining people’s faith in scientific collaboration for the public good.”

  • Eula Biss, “Sentimental Medicine” (2013)

    “Herd immunity…is implausible only if we think of our bodies as inherently disconnected from other bodies. Which, of course, we do.”

  • Ada Limón, “Dead Stars” (2018)

    “What would happen if we decided to survive more?”

  • Michael Sandel, “Are We All In This Together?” (2020)

    “We need to ask a basic question… What do we owe one another as citizens?”

  • Story of Noah in the Bible, Quran, & Torah

    “‘My Lord, let me land at a blessed landing place’”(Quran).

    Read more in the Bible, Quran, and Torah

  • Raj Chetty, Opportunity Insights

    “The defining feature of the American Dream is upward mobility – the aspiration that all children have a chance at economic success, no matter their background.”

  • Colin Raymond et al, “Understanding and managing connected extreme events” (2020)

    “Extreme weather and climate events and their impacts can occur in complex combinations, an interaction shaped by physical drivers and societal forces.”

  • James Baldwin, “My Dungeon Shook” (1963) read by Chris Rock

    “You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason.”

  • James Madison, Federalist No. 10 (1787)

    “Complaints are everywhere heard…that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival Parties.”

  • Andrew L. Russell & Lee Vinsel: “Make Maintainers, Engineering Education and an Ethics of Care” (2019)

    “Innovation is not a value in itself, although it is often treated like one.”

  • Moon Duchin, “Can geometry save democracy from gerrymandering?” (2020)

    “How hard could it be to write down what it means to be a good shape and what it means to be a bad shape when it comes to political districts?”

 

 

PDF Document: View list of source and image citations.

 

EXPLORE

We spent the early summer of 2020 exploring the idea of the common good, and the sources here are ones we found along our way. Some came immediately to mind, like the TV series The Good Place or The Migration Series of paintings by Jacob Lawrence. Some, like Imani Perry’s essay on the “defiant joy” of Blackness, are just published. Some come from familiar places we turn to again and again for inspiration and meaning—Baltimore City, the BMA, This American Life, Brainpickings. Here are places to wander, to get lost, to find new pathways.

 

 

Throughout the fall 2020 semester, first year students from Krieger, Whiting, and Peabody had the chance to participate in Common Question Conversations. Students met in small Zoom-groups led by faculty members to discuss the common good. Their discussions were grounded in material that no one was an expert on, but to which everyone could bring an important perspective. Their conversations led to new connections and a new batch of sources to help address the question of the common good.

 

PDF Document: View list of source and image citations.

2020-21 Ideas

What have YOU read or seen that speaks to progress? Share your ideas here.