If I’m to be a person of good faith, each day is an occasion to imagine with greater accuracy and appreciation the net, the latticework, in which I’m caught up, the labor out of which my life has been made possible, and to experience the fact of my relatedness as a gift and a responsibility. To conduct my life in bad faith is to proceed in denial of this relatedness in speech, action and investment. The avenues for proceeding in bad faith are myriad and multiplying, often appearing before us as the only means for, as the saying goes, getting ahead. What I do with a strange phrase like “getting ahead” will depend on how I go about imagining my own context. What’s forward and what’s backward? Who do I hope to get ahead of, and where do I imagine I’m getting to, exactly? Does it include playing well with others? Do I resent even being made to ask these questions?
A person of good faith
