John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Rocker in his Concord home: Minds Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com.

Three signs of the times with a common theme have caught my attention this past week. Scores of newspapers, including the Monitor, have stopped publishing Adam Scott’s cartoon, Dilbert. I attended a lecture by Jennifer Berkshire, co-author of A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door. And finally, the sign every New Hampshire person sees every day on license plates, “Live free or die.”

The commonality in these three signs of the times reveals a controlling concern for personal individual rights, exacerbating the divisions in Congress and society that are dominating life today.

Here’s my take on evidence that some people are destroying the very ideals of democracy that are so cherished.

For many, New Hampshire’s “Live free or die” motto has lost its roots to become an individualized demand for personal freedom first. For example, free staters interpret the motto as a focus on the individual. However, John Stark, the author of the toast to veterans, “Live free or die,” wrote in correspondence concerning the toast, “As I was then, I am now, the friend of equal rights for men (sic), of representative democracy, of republicanism, and the Declaration of Independence – the great charter of our national rights…”

He explained the meaning of his toast to be living out those ideals together as a community, or “the great charter of our national rights” would die. “Live free or die” was a motto to draw us together.

Cartooning is an instrument of humor that exposes flaws and weakness in human relationships. Over the years Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, has poked fun at communal office politics. However, this week it has been exposed that Adams has another side. In a podcast he revealed the perspective of his personal priority in relationships, “you should absolutely be racist whenever it’s to your advantage.”

NPR reported he also said, “I’m going to back off from being helpful to Black America because it doesn’t seem like it pays off.”

“It makes no sense to help Black Americans if you’re white. It’s over. Don’t even think it’s worth trying.”

Adams has revealed that for him the most important things are being only with people perceived to be like himself and to personally benefit from every relationship. A democracy of the people cannot survive with such self-seeking attitudes. Adams’ cartooning has been tainted. It should be no surprise that Dilbert has been removed from most of the more than 200 newspapers.

Finally, education in New Hampshire is moving from public education as a collective good to becoming another venue for rewarding personal private privilege.

Jack Schneider and Jennifer Berkshire, A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door, report, “Most Americans are convinced that ‘private’ is a mark of distinction. Education consumers should pay their own way. According to polling by Gallup, roughly three-quarters of Americans believe private schools provide a ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ education. By contrast, less than half of respondents expressed such positive views of public schools.”

Supporters of private individual education are critical of public education, perceiving it as designed for “one size fits all,” therefore, leaving many students behind. However, public access to education has been created as a shared responsibility of citizens to meet the needs of each and every student. It is a communal effort providing education that includes the ideals of established justice, insured domestic tranquility, provision for the common defense, promotion of the general welfare, and security of the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (people) are created equal.” Public education, at its best, seeks to give all students the tools to access and understand these ideals.

These three signs of the times make it difficult to bring our country together. Negotiations, compromise, and rational arguments do not seem to work. Efforts continue to be throttled by convictions of self-aggrandizement and insistence upon the primacy of “my way.”

However, another way to build community and trust may be to employ empathy: understanding other people’s feelings and thoughts. Let empathy be practiced in cartooning, education, face to face relationships, and in the motto, “live free or die.”

Perhaps we can learn that our freedom is held in the hands of our neighbors. If we were to join hands and lift together, we may contribute to the progress of human beings toward a new humanity, where self-interest is overcome with empathy and aspirations to nurture democracy, equality, and equity among all people. It would be a worthy sign of a time of preparing the future for the next generations.

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