Our politicians today don’t talk about ideas and ideals the
way some pols did in days gone by.
I’m not saying—no way!—that politics and politicians were
somehow better in the mythical “good old days.” The sham and the shenanigans
and the shame have always been there.
Every so often, at least, lip service is given to the notion
of doing the right thing for the right reasons.
How about this:
“Public good is not a term opposed to the good of
individuals. On the contrary, it is the good of every individual collected. It
is the good of all, because it is the good of every one.”
I think that’s a decent approximation of the common sense
meaning of “the common good.”
p.s. The quote is from Thomas Paine, 1778. He’s the guy who
wrote the blockbuster Revolutionary War pamphlet, Common
Sense.
Source:
Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America (London:
Oxford University Press, 1977), 89.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.
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