Yet the common good seems to have disappeared. The phrase is rarely uttered today, not even by commencement speakers and politicians.
There's growing evidence of its loss -- in CEOs who gouge their customers and loot their corporations; Wall Street bankers who defraud their investors; athletes involved in doping scandals; doctors who do unnecessary procedures to collect fatter fees; and film producers and publicists who choose not to see that a powerful movie mogul they depend on is sexually harassing and abusing women.
We see its loss in politicians who take donations from wealthy donors and corporations and then enact laws their patrons want, or shutter the government when they don't get the partisan results they seek.
And in a president of the United States who has repeatedly lied about important issues, refuses to put his financial holdings into a blind trust and personally profits from his office, and foments racial and ethnic conflict.
This unbridled selfishness, this contempt for the public, this win-at-any-cost mentality, is eroding America.
Without binding notions about right and wrong, only the most unscrupulous get ahead. When it's all about winning, only the most unprincipled succeed. This is not a society. It's not even a civilization, because there's no civility at its core.
If we're losing our national identity it's not because we now come in more colors, practice more religions, and speak more languages than we once did.
It is because we are forgetting the real meaning of America -- the ideals on which our nation was built. We are losing our sense of the common good.
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