Sunday Evening Reads
The Idea Of The Common Good Is Slipping Away
“Government is instituted for the common good…and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men.”
John Adams
That wild and crazy idea of “the common good”—that government exists for the common good of all of our citizens—seems to be rapidly fading from our collective conscience. But why? And if we want to, how do we get it back? This philosophy is embraced by our Constitution and the writings of the founding fathers, yet so few of our public officials seem to care about it anymore, and some outright scoff at doing anything for the common good, because it just might infringe on our “individual freedoms.” I’m not going to attempt to answer these questions at the moment, and better minds than mine have addressed this issue extensively (my esteemed Substack colleague, Professor at Berkley and former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich wrote an entire book just a few years ago titled “The Common Good”.
You might have noticed that I’ve mentioned this concept numerous times in this newsletter, and it is the foundation of the ideas I’ve been discussing about our laws and culture: our country needs a much more robust, underlying support system that includes everyone and nurtures our weakest and most vulnerable members, so all of us can thrive rather than just exist day-to-day and paycheck-to-paycheck.
For this evenings Sunday reads I’m going to share just a few articles about our country’s ideal of The Common Good, and I’m going to first highlight the recent New York Times opinion piece that blew me away…
— This Times opinion piece, co-written by a sociologist and professor at the University of Arizona and a longtime physician in New York City’s South Bronx, does a deep dive into the origins of “vaccine hesitancy” and what it shows us about today’s American culture.
“ …[vaccine] hesitancy reflects a transformation of our core beliefs about what we owe one another.”
“Over the past four decades, governments have slashed budgets and privatized basic services. This has two important consequences for public health. First, people are unlikely to trust institutions that do little for them. And second, public health is no longer viewed as a collective endeavor, based on the principle of social solidarity and mutual obligation. People are conditioned to believe they’re on their own and responsible only for themselves. That means an important source of vaccine hesitancy is the erosion of the idea of a common good.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/opinion/vaccine-hesitancy-covid.html
— Why not read through this section of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (if you dare) which discusses the origins of The Common Good concept and why it matters.
“In ordinary political discourse, the “common good” refers to those facilities—whether material, cultural or institutional—that the members of a community provide to all members in order to fulfill a relational obligation they all have to care for certain interests that they have in common.”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/common-good/
And finally for this evening, here’s an article from Vox discussing former presidential candidate and now Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg’s proposal to encourage public service. He was the only presidential candidate to include a call for national public service in his platform, and when I first read about this proposal, I was smitten—it is one big way to reinvest in our original idea of the common good. Our country is in desperate need of common goals, something to work towards together that might help us understand anew, why we’re called the United States of America. A year of public service by our youth seems to me the perfect vehicle to help unite us.
For the last few decades, we’ve brainwashed high school graduates that they must move on to college and that the sole purpose of that education is to get a good paying job. (so that can pay off that massive student loan debt, no doubt). With public service as an eventual requirement, our next generations can see firsthand how our country really works and perhaps end up choosing professions or trades that contribute to the common good.
“Pete Buttigieg wants Americans to serve their country — and not just through war. So he’s rolling out a national service plan that encourages community work.”
“Buttigieg’s plan, “A New Call to Service,”calls for providing up to a million service opportunities to high school graduates by 2026, which marks the 250th anniversary of America’s independence.”
https://www.vox.com/2019/7/3/20680963/pete-buttigieg-expand-national-service
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this idea of the common good and call for public service—and chime in on vaccine hesitancy if you’d like!
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I completely agree with you insofar as your goals and objectives are concerned. I am all for alleviating the plight of the poor, downtrodden and persecuted.
However, I disagree insofar that you contend, or may contend, that we have a long tradition of believing in advancing the common good.
Examples: 1) At the time of the founding Father's, one had to own real property to be permitted to vote. Any white man, who did not own land could not vote.
2) John Calvin, and the Calvinism that was his legacy, held that the great majority of the populace was predestined to go to hell. The belief that must people would go to hell was conducive to a contemptuousness for the poor and oppressed.
3) You cannot find the words democracy or democratic in our constitution. Indeed, we did not start to use the term fondly until the 1930's. As late as the 1920's, many Americans chastised democracy as rule by the rabble.
4) Lord Salisbury said in the 1880s or 1890s that expanding the franchise would destroy the England he loved: Poor people he feared would vote for leftists who would confiscate what the rich had. This idea did not die when Lord Salisbury died. In the 2012 pres campaign, Romney said that 48 percent of the electorate got "checks" from the govt. (Soc security, etc. : I don't think the number is that high). As such, he said that our political system consisted of hordes of grasping, non productive bums leeching off of the productive and brilliant elite.
5) Thomas Jefferson said that homosexuals should be castrated. Of course, that's a different issue than the common good. However, it is still relevant to what I am trying to say. When one goes back, back into the past, one will find that the ideas and sentiments of men were often much coarser, meaner and more violent. I think we tend to have an excessively high valuation of our historical figures (EG. Thomas Jefferson said that black people Smelled because they had poor kidney function and excreted some urine through their sweat pores - and you can't excrete urine through your sweat glands) Your quote from Adams was commendable, but I think the sorts of quotes we have been taught to associate with the Fathers of our country are the exception to the rule in so far as the characters of these guys are concerned.