Eventually the Steward Becomes the Ancestor

Tearing down is easy. Building is hard — and what a generation chooses between the two is the only inheritance that ever really counts.

~Michael T. Ruhlman

There is a temptation in politics to confuse destruction with accomplishment. A monument comes down. A business is confiscated. A tradition is abolished. An institution is dismantled. A wealthy person is punished. A class of people is humiliated. The crowd cheers. Something happened. But something happening is not the same thing as something improving. A wrecking ball can accomplish in an afternoon what craftsmen spent years constructing — and that does not make the wrecking ball more talented than the craftsmen.

This is where my criticism of certain forms of socialism and revolutionary politics begins. Not with compassion for the poor — compassion is necessary. Not with concern about inequality — extreme concentrations of power, economic or governmental, deserve examination. My concern begins when political morality shifts from “how do we help people build more?” to “how do we make sure somebody else has less?” Those are not the same moral impulse. One is concerned with flourishing. The other can become concerned with leveling. And leveling has a dangerous attraction: you don’t have to build anything to make two people equal. You can simply tear down the person who has more.

The Politics of Resentment

I have sometimes looked at ideological politics — particularly its most resentful varieties — and wondered where the joy went. Where is the joy of creating, building, inventing, raising children, starting a business, planting something, owning something, giving something away because it belongs to you and you freely choose generosity? Where is gratitude?

Political resentment can produce something that resembles joy, but isn’t quite the same thing. It is the satisfaction of watching the other fellow lose. The wealthy man is brought down. The businessman is made to surrender what he owns. The successful person is forced to grovel. And suddenly everyone celebrates. But consider what has actually happened: I have not become richer because you became poorer. I have not become wiser because you were silenced. I have not created something because yours was destroyed. That is not progress. It is resentment masquerading as justice — and this temptation belongs to no single political party. Human beings of every ideology are capable of discovering pleasure in the humiliation of their enemies. The warning applies to all of us.

The Builder’s Question

The builder looks at an empty field and asks what could be here. The entrepreneur sees a problem and asks if he can solve it. The teacher sees ignorance and asks if she can teach. The parent sees a child and asks what she must give him so that one day he no longer needs her. The steward receives something valuable and asks how to leave it better than he found it. These are generational questions, because their answers frequently outlive the person asking them.

From Inheritance to Responsibility

At first, adults control the doors of a child’s formation — the home, the school, the faith community. The child receives. But eventually the child becomes an adult. The student becomes a teacher. The son becomes a father. The employee becomes an employer. The citizen becomes a leader. And the person who spent decades asking “what did they give me?” must confront a different question entirely: “what am I giving them?” That is the transition from inheritance to responsibility, and civilization depends on it.

Socrates and Jesus, in profoundly different ways, both understood something about questions: a question makes the listener responsible for examining himself. “What do you believe, and how do you know it is true?” “You say you believe this — but does your life demonstrate it?” A healthy home should withstand “why.” A healthy school should teach “how do you know.” A healthy faith should force the question, “am I living what I claim to believe?” Generational responsibility adds one more: what happens if everybody lives the way I am teaching the next generation to live?

You Are Not the Last Generation

Modern culture tempts us to think only in the present tense: what do I want, what am I entitled to, what can somebody else be required to surrender for me? Generational responsibility asks us to extend the timeline. Suppose everyone gets what he wants today — what remains tomorrow? Suppose we borrow the money — who repays it? Suppose we consume the capital — who rebuilds it? Suppose we teach children that every inherited institution is primarily an instrument of oppression — who teaches them which institutions are worth preserving, and who teaches them how to build?

Leave Them Something Worth Inheriting

We inherited a civilization we did not create. It is imperfect because the people who built it were imperfect. So are we. Our assignment is neither to worship what we inherited nor gleefully destroy it. Our assignment is to receive it, examine it, repair it, improve it, add something of our own — and pass it forward. That requires builders, creators, parents, teachers, entrepreneurs, believers, questioners, and stewards — and people capable of experiencing another person’s success without interpreting it as their own deprivation.

Because the ultimate measure of a generation cannot simply be what we got, or even what we accomplished. The final question is what we left behind. Did our children inherit more wisdom or more resentment? More opportunity or more dependency? More freedom or more control? One day we will be the previous generation, and the children walking through today’s doors will be standing where we stand now. The child becomes the parent. The student becomes the teacher. The inheritor becomes the steward. And eventually, the steward becomes the ancestor.