As youngsters we were generally so focused on ourselves, on the routine trivia of our emerging lives, that we had little time or interest in examining the conditions of our larger society.

With age and maturity that started to change. For me the transformative moment was the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I had no idea where it was or what it meant, but I was old enough and sensitive enough to the changed and charged climate of our people to recognize the gravity of it. I began to notice that the world was larger and much more complex than I had earlier understood.

Now I and those other Pearl Harbor-era children are seniors — not necessarily wiser, but with a lot more experience under our belts. And now, reflecting on questionable choices we had made over the years, we have become less confident in our judgment, a bit less certain of our insights, and a lot less sanguine about the future of our nation. So now it’s time to pause and ask who are we as a people and what do we want.

We think we know who we are — sort of. As children of the Constitution and its subsequent 200-plus years of building on the promises of that document and on the dreams spawned by its vision of concern for “the welfare of the people” and on its democratic principles of equality for all our people, we are the hope of the world and the template for the future. Sort of.

In a sense we are an amalgam of all the people from all the times of history: wise and foolish, talented and inept, selfish and philanthropic. We are the history of Man.

But here in America we are also keepers of a flame lit by our revolutionary ancestors — the successors to and continuing spirit of a dream. For most of us, of course, financial and emotional security are our most central focus, but the spirit of community continues to play a role in our lives and remains a part of our heritage, the essence of the spirit of our traditions.

Or it did until recently.

To some degree, of course, the pursuit of self-interest is the natural drive for us all, but self-indulgence is not our distinguishing feature. Whether it is our natural instincts or lessons learned from traditions established by our Constitution and reinforced by the generations that first followed, we as a nation had always honored higher aspirations, wishing the very best for our fellows and willing to sacrifice some of our well-being to help the most needy among us.

That is the essence of our national character, calling as it does for a focus on We the People’s pledge to “Promote the general Welfare ... .”

Trouble is, that is not an effective campaign issue. Because of the connection between the provision of aid and its cost, most candidates for political office will not touch it, and too many of our citizenry would rather not think about it.

Plotting and pursuing a future for ourselves and our families is, of course, a necessary and honorable role, but as a relatively secure and sensitive people who are products of the higher principles defined and demanded by our Constitution, we had and still have a more comprehensive and humane outlook than simply increased accumulation of assets.

The larger tragedies of nature — the Katrina hurricanes, the massive California firestorms, the horrors of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami — grab our hearts and our charitable instincts, but the more common, while equally tragic, collapse of indigent individuals is met with hesitation and calculation.

After affixing a price for remediation, our thoughts turn to taxes as the means of payment — an unpopular topic for a constituency always a bit short of funds even if secure. That is when our instinct for compassion is transformed into a political struggle against “big government,” fearful of its power to levy taxes, but dismissive of the benefits — even the necessities — made possible by those taxes.

Unfortunately, that interpretation of motives and actions frustrates the higher aspirations of our founding principles and the more charitable instincts of our people. As with the dramatic tragedies of natural disasters, the individual’s more devastating pains of poverty must also be met and resolved, and although the details of funding play a serious role in meeting the challenges of relief, they are not at the top of the list.

“Planning for the long run” is a popular and efficient factor in running a society, but for today’s hungry and homeless and hopeless — and for the elderly and ill without a path to the future — the “long run” is today. We must first attend the survival needs of the needy, and then talk about taxes tomorrow.

Because that is who we are.

Bob Faber has been a resident of Ann Arbor since 1954. He and his wife, Eunice, owned a fabric store and later a travel agency. He served a couple of terms on the Ann Arbor City Council. He may be reached at rgfaber@comcast.net.