In yet another post (of several) trying to end the debate about the common good simply by reasserting that the people who are credited with reintroducing this perennial political term to the lexicon are bad bad bad, Dan makes several allegations. The term “the common good,” Dan quotes Erick Erickson’s assesment about the origins of the recent common-good debates:

It is everywhere because the Vice President and the online army that defends him have decided individualism has gone too far and that we all need to dissolve ourselves into the collective, which they have taken to calling the common good.

It is everywhere because the Vice President and the online army that defends him have decided individualism has gone too far and that we all need to dissolve ourselves into the collective, which they have taken to calling the common good.

What?! The vice president has invoked conceptions of the common good as a restraint on excessive liberal individualism. This is a mainstay of conservative rhetoric and observation. Hayek said that “unrestrained individuality may pose a genuine threat to social stability.” Vance has cited Catholic social teaching, which has no such calls for self-dissolving. At times the vice president, as he will himself admit, has said even harsh things about his allies “ruthlessly” seizing the institutions. Buckley also used to talk about this magazine’s mission as one of displacing liberal dominance in “big targets” like “both political parties, the Soviet Union, elite universities, Hollywood and more.” I’ve never seen him call for “dissolving ourselves.”

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