I listened closely while Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech last night in Denver. I also listened apprehensively because I have come to believe that it is impossible for any candidate to get elected as President of the United States these days if he or she requires Americans to make any significant individual sacrifices for a greater good. It has become my belief that Americans simply don’t want to be told anything other than a constant stream of happy news, false assurances that they are guaranteed to be living easy and bountiful lives while the free market automatically takes care of them.

For instance, the war we are currently fighting in Iraq has been presented as a painless enterprise to most Americans, the hard work all being done by volunteer soldiers and contractors. The Iraqi occupation has thus not required any significant sacrifices of any American, we are told, other than of those who volunteered to be in the military and their families. On the other hand, if we had raised taxes directly pay for this war (instead of borrowing that money from China), we would’ve seen a huge uprising against the Iraqi invasion before it ever began.

Self-sacrifice has become quaint In modern times.  Self-sacrifice is so out-of-tune that we’ve turned John F. Kennedy’s famous line on its head. Today, the politician saying the following words would be ridiculed: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Today, many Americans consider altruistic self-sacrifice to be something only for suckers and losers.  Exhibit A is that even our national “public servants” usually leave office much richer than when they entered public service.

Prior to Barack Obama’s speech, then, I believed, that no person could get elected as President if he or she requires Americans to actually make any personal sacrifices for the greater good. That is because (I believe) that too many Americans are obsessed with their personal happiness. What better illustration than the suggestion by George W. Bush, immediately following 9/11, that we go shopping.

I listened to Barack Obama speech, assuming I would not hear of any burdens he would impose on Americans were he to become president. After all, to impose any burdens on Americans, to explicitly require self-sacrifice, would be politically dangerous. If Obama dared to impose obligations on Americans, McCain would likely scoff, and continue to claim that economic times are good and that there’s no need to worry about anything.

What I heard last night delighted me, however. Obama specifically acknowledged that we Americans have a lot of hard work to do. He told us that self-sacrifice will be required, in small ways and big ways.

Obama told us that many of us will need to become better parents and that government cannot make us better parents. He spoke of fathers who must take more responsibility to provide the love and guidance needed by their children. He warned that each family would need to do its part to help make its household energy independent.

Was that it, though? Is that all that individual Americans will need to do to make America great again? Not at all. Obama repeatedly stated that Americans would have a huge new range of responsibilities under his administration.

These responsibilities fall under the penumbra of empathy. Under the Obama administration, we will become our “brother’s and sister’s keepers.” Under an Obama administration, we will be required to imagine “what it’s like being in someone else’s shoes.” Under an Obama administration we will each incur the “obligation to treat each other with respect.”   We will incur “individual and mutual responsibility” to restore America’s moral standing. Obama tied this golden rule, his I-thou, to his overall goals, such as giving a true education to each child and giving meaningful health care to each American.

This obligation of empathy contrasts sharply with the Republican program, which has long consisted of a hostility toward many aspects of government. It is an attitude of the government that says to its people: “You’re on your own.”

As opposed to government apathy, empathy connects us with all of the other people in our community, our nation and (if we take it seriously) our world. Empathy connects us with those who will inhabit the the Earth after all of us are old or dead.  Meaningful empathy thus imposes duties to live sustainably and to preserve and protect the planet for the next generations.

Failing to feel empathy for our fellow inhabitants of Earth is not merely a choice; it is an attentional disorder. Empathy is the only known antidote to what Hannah Arendt termed “the banality of evil.” Empathy requires a high level of proactive mental energy. It requires that we repeatedly tune into people whose lives we affect by our actions and non-actions.  Who are those people?  They are everyone occupying this planet.

We now know that our world is a really small world–in the aggregate, our actions and omissions affect millions of people, not just our friends and family members. Our actions and our ideas really do have consequences, whether or not we take the responsibility to ponder those consequences. Being empathetic requires far more effort than merely assuring ourselves that we will be good and decent. Being empathetic requires much much more than showing up at a church once a week, or handing a dollar to a beggar once in a while.

Substantial obligations flow from genuine empathy. Giving each other a hand is no easy thing, if done correctly. There is no day off. There is no dollar we spend and no action we take that is off-budget.   Investing our concern into the lives of others is a non-stop open-ended proposition. The explicit moral-political obligation recognized by Barack Obama will require much more of American citizens than was ever required by the Bush administration. It will be an inconvenient burden, sometimes an onerous burden.  We might be tempted to think to ourselves, “What’s in it for me?”

Consider all the real-life accounts of personal redemption and transformation of which you are aware. I myself have certainly learned of dozens of occasions where someone with just a bit of help, turned his or her life around to become a productive positive force in the world.   People who have been lent a hand can become people who is no longer in trouble with the law, who are no longer floundering and and who are no longer pulled down by a devastating addiction. Lending a hand truly changes lives, whether we lend a hand personally and spontaneously, or whether we lend a hand through the intentional establishment of government programs such as Head Start, Social Security Disability, the G.I. Bill, and even food stamps.

But don’t people abuse handouts? Isn’t it true that if the government hands out resources, some people will abuse those resources? Damn right, but keep in mind that today’s Democratic Party is not the old-fashioned naïve Democratic Party that asserts that all poor people and all criminals are blameless. This is a new savvy Democratic Party that works harder to make distinctions between people who need government help and those who are abusing it. This is a Democratic party that started recognizing the serious problems of dependency on government programs years ago, when Bill Clinton led the charge on welfare reform.

So, yes, some people will still try to abuse government programs, but empathetic people know that it doesn’t solve our problems to ignore the needs of others in our community. It is not helpful to exhort that other people, those caught in destructive loops, are “on their own.” Learning to accept that even the best social program is imperfect is a small price to pay to get millions of Americans retrained, re-educated, healed, and re-involved in the democracy.  It’s all very (dare I say it?) Christian. And yes, it’s time to reclaim the use and meaning of the word Christian. I write this post as one who does not believe in the divinity of Jesus, but I deeply believe in being Christian to the extent that to be a “Christian” requires that we be empathetic, and that we we consciously strive to be kind and decent to deserving others who need our help.

November is approaching. Let’s see, now, whether the citizens will accept or reject real Christianity. I’m not talking about decorating ourselves with t-shirts, charms and bracelets emblazoned with the word “Jesus.” I’m not talking about strutting around at a church and congratulating ourselves that we are “saved.” I’m not talking about dropping bombs on “heathens” in order to secure “our oil” from under “their sand.” I’m not talking about usurping the power of government to erect Ten Commandments monuments at courthouses to pat ourselves on the back that we are a “Christian Nation.”

I’m talking about recognizing the critical importance of being empathetic and then really and truly acting on it. It is from this one single intellectual/emotional shift in world view that an endless stream of good things can flow.