Essay On The Common Good

After the Civil War, the American notion of the common good was most prevalent in times of extreme crisis. The common good is the drive that causes people to work for the good of everyone. The converse of the common good is individualism, where people tend to focus on improving their own well-being. Americans tended to band together when the country was in distress, in order to deal with the crisis at hand. After the times of trouble were over, when the American people no longer had a cause to unify them, the nation reverted to the notion of individualism. Without a pressing need for unification, Americans tended to help themselves rather than others. This cycle of alternating ideals can be clearly seen throughout American history, from the Reconstruction Era, to the WWI era, to the development of modern America. The first American phase after the Civil War, called the Reconstruction Era, was an unstable time for America. Much of the country was in shambles, and the government bumbled around in a constant haze of confusion. During this era, the American people shifted rapidly between philosophies because of the turmoil and confusion of the Reconstruction. After the South was successfully brought back into the Union, many …show more content…
The government had shown that it was willing to directly assist the country in times of crisis, and this greatly affected the viewpoint of many Americans. “An outworn philosophy of hands-off individualism seemed increasingly out of place in the modern machine age” (Pageant, 638). Direct government intervention in American society took away the need for individualism. Progressivism dictated that American people should not have to take care of their own problems. Americans during this time worked neither for the common good nor for themselves. They had no reason to work for the good of others, and they were told that they needn’t work for