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On the Common Good

By Alan Jacobs • November 12, 2012, 6:23 AM

My friend Andy Crouch, an admirable Christian thinker and writer, wants to recover a Christian commitment to the “common good”. You should read the whole thing, but here’s a key passage:

The common good can help us avoid two modern temptations—one on the left and one on the right. “Leftists tend to be concerned about ‘humanity’ as a collective,” Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith told me via e-mail. “If some heads have to roll to improve humanity’s lot, so be it. A commitment to the common good opposes that entirely. Each and every person has dignity — the good society is one which allows the thriving of all persons, especially the weak and vulnerable.”

And yet, Smith pointed out, “the common good” challenges the libertarian stream of conservatism as well: “Individualists only want to see each individual live as they please, as long as they don’t obstruct the ability of other individuals to do the same. They don’t think anything is ‘common,’ except whatever minimal infrastructures are needed to create equal opportunity.”

Focusing on the common good has another positive effect, Smith noted: It can both draw Christians into engagement with the wider society and prevent that engagement from becoming “all about politics.” Essential to the common good, all the way back through Aquinas to Aristotle, has been the insight that the best forms of human flourishing happen in collectives that are smaller than, and whose origins are earlier than, the nation-state. Family above all, but also congregations, guilds, and clubs — these “private associations,” with all their particular loyalties, paradoxically turn out to be essential to public flourishing. If we commit ourselves to the common good, we must become more public in our thinking and choices, and at the same time not too public. The common good is sustained most deeply where people know each other’s names and faces—especially when it comes to the care of the vulnerable, who need more than policies to flourish.

I couldn’t agree more about the “private associations,” Burke’s “little platoons”; my chief political interests lie in strengthening those mediating structures between the individual and the state.

But I don’t see how invoking the language of the “common good” helps. Doesn’t every politician, and every supporter of every politician, think that his or her policies promote the common good? Wouldn’t the left-liberal or statist just say that the common good is best promoted by having a government that fairly regulates and distributes goods and services, so that we don’t have to rely on the unpredictable eccentricities and (sometimes) petty narrowness of the little platoons?

It seems to me that people of very different politics can quickly agree that they all seek the common good — but doesn’t that just leave us with all the same old disagreements about what that common good is? Now, if Andy’s argument is just meant as a reminder to Christians that they should care about the flourishing of the whole community rather than just the Church itself, I sort of get it — though even then I suspect that churches would be happy to describe all their activities, from preaching to street-corner evangelism to soup kitchens, in common-good language. I’d like to hear more from Andy, and others, about how, specifically, this vocabulary helps us. I suspect I’m missing something obvious.

Posted in Ethics, Religion.

20 Responses to On the Common Good

David Ryan says:

November 12, 2012 at 7:59 am

” Family above all, but also congregations, guilds, and clubs — these “private associations,” with all their particular loyalties, paradoxically turn out to be essential to public flourishing. “

Just in the last day or so Matt Frost and I have had an enthusiastic exchange about the USAA Insurance and Financial Services company, with Matt offering, “I think the future of middle-class life might involve membership in similar “corporate hand-holding” organizations, rather than getting the same services from your firm’s HR department.”

Personal responsibility is great, I’m a big believer and sometime practitioner. But individually we are weak. Well affiliated we can be strong; stronger than the weakest link, stronger than anyone of us alone.

What I’ve come to understand is that churches, for all their failings can be and are strengthening affiliations (I don’t mean to pass over the relationship with God aspect, it’s not my thing, so I can’t speak to it with any meaning.)

Churches, unions, guilds, chambers of commerce, and yes, even insurance companies offer the opportunity for strengthening affiliations, and if I were to try and inflect “common” most generously, I would say Crouch means common, as in the everyday, the people and things that touch our lives directly, face to face.

If nothing else, this sort of face to face engagement prevents us from saying things like “I’m gonna smack the next person who say x, y, or z upside the head”. That’s too easy to pound out on a keyboard in a moment of pique; say that to another man face to face and at least you’d better be ready to make it stick, or better, maybe you won’t say it at all.
Greg Metzger says:

November 12, 2012 at 8:11 am

Where to start? I wish I had more time/energy to give your question the rich answer it deserves, but I will just speak quickly from the gut and say that when I see folk disciplining their language to speak of the common good and shape their arguments with recognition of a common good “bar” they tend to write/think with greater humility and broader sensitivity to the complexity of policy and the limits of their own perspective. They invite participation and development rather than closing off the world into sharp categories of us/them, in/out.

That is not the rich grounding the phrase could be given, but at least it speaks to some of my instincts for the phrase and why I renamed my own blog “Faith and the Common Good”–it at least reminds me of what I should be shooting for even when I fall short of it. Language that elevates is an intrinsic good.
Andy Crouch says:

November 12, 2012 at 8:40 am

Great questions, Alan. I’ll look forward to the conversation here, but just a few points beyond what I said in the article itself.

1) It is certainly true that ‘the common good’ does not resolve all questions about the role of the state—witness the intra-Catholic discussions on any number of policy issues. But it does place useful boundaries on how we address those questions.

2) For example, it rules out Ayn Rand-style individualism, which may not afflict TAC readers, but is alarmingly popular on the right. The proper response to the implicitly statist “You didn’t build that,” is not “Yes, I did too build that!”

3) For another example, it provides leverage to critique the implicit statism in, say, the Obama campaign’s “Life of Julia” video, which may not afflict all Democrats, but is alarmingly popular on the left.

4) The plain fact is that many Christians attempting to advance particular policies in the public square, especially those on the right, make no effort to let “the common good” shape their arguments or the policies they are advocating for. This leads to a justifiable charge of special pleading. If my piece can simply help deepen and enrich the way my fellow Christians conceive of and advocate for social and economic policies, I think they and the republic will be better off. (Not least, I think the materially poor, so neglected in our current electoral rhetoric, would be better off.)

5) While, like any generic phrase, “the common good” is subject to a great deal of abuse (as I mention in the opening paragraphs of the article), I still think it is helpful in pressing all parties to (a) make explicit their understanding of ultimate good—it’s surprising how often this goes unstated or how often the good in question really reduces to thin concepts of “rights”, and (b) make a clear argument for how their vision of the public sphere relates to the good of families, churches, and other private associations, and even more fundamentally persons and their flourishing.

6) On a different tack, one we’ve tried to pursue with This Is Our City, “the common good” also serves as a valuable reference point for personal choices. Most of my fellow American Christians’ choices about career, consumption, geography, and more are articulated in starkly individualist terms. Again, this may not be true for the average TAC reader, let alone the average Alan Jacobs reader!, but in my observation American churches are full of the functional individualists Christian Smith describes. Even if the actual motives for our choices may be more complex, we lack a vocabulary for evaluating our personal lives in light of something larger. I would love to see more of my fellow Christians making explicitly “common-good decisions.”

So while it’s certainly not a panacea, I think that if people all along the political spectrum recovered the thicker meaning of “the common good,” and were held accountable to that thicker meaning, that would be a real contribution to our public life.
Madison says:

November 12, 2012 at 8:48 am

Thanks Alan. This seems to be a fair question to me. I have been worried that ‘common good language’ can be too easily twisted and used to cloak one’s true intentions w/ the noblest of robes. Yet, the alternative seems a bit worse when one imagines a world in which each person speaks in naked and blunt terms of self interest, or fails to even pretend that what they do matters to everyone else. Like David Metzger points out, common good language is in part aspirational, as it reminds us of what we should be hoping to aim at.

For those who opt to continue speaking in terms of the common good, here’s one suggestion: show your work! Show us how you get from action A to common good result Z, and be clear about what makes point Z good. This will keep common good terms from being emptied of their deep significance, would perpetuate the aspirational role that the words play, and would encourage clearer thinking, which I know I could use.
James K.A. Smith says:

November 12, 2012 at 9:28 am

I think the force of “common good” language is contextual, as Andy suggests in his comment here. I find it an important antidote to certain tendencies that might be described as vaguely “Hauerwasian” or “Anabaptist” (of a sort)–stances that have captivated a younger audience of evangelicals who seem prone to either give up on a notion of life-in-common outside the ecclesia, or see any concern for the common good as a concession to liberalism. (I think this is what Hunter is trying to diagnose in his discussion of Anabaptism in “To Change the World.”)

In this respect, Augustine–or a good Augustinian like Oliver O’Donovan–will emphasize that the church is also called to seek the welfare of the city.

So I think the language of “the common good” doesn’t answer specific policy questions (we’d have to specify the substance of the Good first), but it does name a stance toward cultural participation that can be important in our current moment, I think.

(I also think it introduces an inherently teleological mode of thinking about such matters, challenging our default to deontological “principlism,” etc. In other words, I think “common good” language presses us to be more Aristotelian, you might say.)

FWIW.
Alan Jacobs says:

November 12, 2012 at 9:29 am

That’s a very helpful answer, Andy, and it makes strategic sense to me. (I knew there was something I wasn’t getting.) As the project and your thinking about these matters moves forward, here are some things that I think it would be good to keep in mind:

1) The possibly elusive relations among redescription of Christian practices for rhetorical purposes, redescription of them to remind us of what we’re supposed to be doing, and actual alteration of those practices. I am suspicious of the value of the first: it sounds too much like marketing. (“Let’s call it the ‘common good’ so people will like us better!”) So I was glad to see your emphasis on the second and third.

2) Having said that, I think that in terms of Christian reflection on what we’re doing and re-dedication to what we ought to be doing, “common good” language is unlikely to be more than a brief way-station. At some point, and at some point pretty soon, we’re going to have to spell out with some specificity what we think the common good is, and that specificity will surely create some scandals and stumbling-blocks.

3) I therefore — I think it’s a “therefore” — prefer to use a richer, thicker, and more biblical language to describe what we’re all about. I’d like to say that for Christians the common good is created by participating, through word and deed, in the coming of the New Creation, Christ’s kingdom of Shalom. Using that language we can say with a good deal more clarity what we think God wants for us and for the world. But if starting with “common good” language gets us moving in that direction, I’m all for it.
James K.A. Smith says:

November 12, 2012 at 9:36 am

I think we’re on the same page here in many ways. I think “the common good” is helpful to press us in a certain direction, but at some point you have to SPECIFY just what “the Good” is. And unless we actually start to have disagreements about this, then “the common good” is either meaningless or just a cover what turns out to be “progressive” policy. And I think there is a real danger of young evangelicals mistaking “the common good” for the agendas of the left (such as it is in this country).

For example, if folks who talk about “the common good” can’t entertain a “common good” argument against gay marriage, then the term really doesn’t carry any significance.
Leroy Huizenga (@LHuizenga) says:

November 12, 2012 at 10:10 am

But Alan, how can that be “common” when it’s so Christian? If we’re having an intra-Christian conversation, sure, then Shalom is richer than other language we might use. But we can’t really get a hearing in the wider culture and make a contribution to the…Shalom of the common good?…if we’re speaking Christian language. Or…?
Andy Crouch says:

November 12, 2012 at 10:31 am

Yes, Leroy’s point is important. I would love for us to use “shalom” as much as we can—I translate it “comprehensive flourishing,” which incidentally has been another major theme of This Is Our City—but in pluralistic discourse that only goes so far.

Also, the common good, when used in its Aristotelian–Thomistic–Catholic Social Teaching sense, has a better-developed theoretical framework behind it when applied to issues of public life than does “shalom” (to which you might say, more’s the pity, but there it is).
Alan Jacobs says:

November 12, 2012 at 10:36 am

Leroy, I think we need to distinguish between the common good and a common vocabulary for describing what’s good. That’s one of the reasons why I was pressing Andy to distinguish between (a) redescription of what we’re already doing and (b) doing different things.

If my church helps house the homeless and feed the hungry, we’re contributing to the common good, right? But if people ask us why we think doing that is important, at a certain point we’re going to have to invoke specifically Christian categories — obedience to Dominical commands, for instance. There’s a school of thought that says that Christians should delay that specificity as long as possible, or avoid it altogether, especially if we’re trying to shape public policy. But maybe shaping public policy isn’t the most important thing — it’s certainly not the only important thing. And in explaining why a church would feed the hungry, it’s not important at all.

So I say, let’s not be reluctant to speak a specifically Christian language, as long as we’re willing to explain it and not blithely toss around buzzwords that make sense only to us. I used a specifically theological language in replying to Andy because we’re both Christians, but I wouldn’t go straight to New Creation language in chatting with an unbeliever! (I’d get there eventually, though, God willing.)
M.DeMoor says:

November 12, 2012 at 10:50 am

This is a helpful (and high-powered) conversation. I would just like to contribute a suggestion: another way of thinking about the “common good” is that it implies the “good” of those things that are irreducibly “common” — the things that we cannot dissolve into individual concerns or responsibilities. Thus the common good MUST include the flourishing of natural systems, which — the tragedy of the commons notwithstanding — cannot be parceled out into shares in the care and interests only of individuals. This holds also for those institutions and social practices that involve and affect us (which “us”?) all.

None of this changes the (in my view not necessarily infelicitous) fact that there will be deep disagreement about what the “good” of these commons will entail, but it at least helps to refine the concept of the “common good” in a way that makes it less vague and thus more helpful in deliberations about policy and practice. For what that’s worth.
Will Hinton says:

November 12, 2012 at 10:55 am

Great conversation! I’m still stuck on James D. Hunter’s term “faithful presence” as a way to describe how Christians should be working to promote the flourishing of all in our neighborhoods, communities, and nations. I think I prefer using this term among Christians as it provides a stronger sense of the source of our motivation. We Christians are called to love our neighbors, who are made in the image of God. That love should take the form of wanting to see the full flourishing of each person within the context of community.

I also think that Hunter isn’t just suggesting that “faithful presence” is simply about the common good but that Christians are called to provide a counter-cultural alternative to the dominant paradigms of our age. What does Christianity have to say about hyper-individualism or about materialism? I would suggest that we need new and more stories about how people or organizations are living out “faithful presence” to serve “the city” even more so than abstract frameworks. This is why I am so encouraged by the work that Andy Crouch has been doing in the “This Is Our City” project. Until we as Christians make it abundantly clear in our actions that we are FOR all and that love for our neighbor drives us, our talk about the “common good” will continue to be viewed as the Christian way of trying to cling to cultural power in a way that benefits us instead of the culture at large.
Adam says:

November 12, 2012 at 11:44 am

I would identify the concept as basic good citizenship. That is the one topic I see as missing from the past election cycle. What ever happened to elevating the idea of citizenship and our shared responsibilities to one another? All I heard was the line in the sand between the “makers” and the “takers”. I am not a religious person per se, but in all religions there is the idea of community and brotherhood, of caring for the sick and those in need, of protecting the vulnerable. Those basic values should be reflected in our governing models as well, with both the individual, and Burke’s “little platoons” acting as the guardians against overreach. An interesting point to me is the idea of social media and how it continues to play out. The speed at which information and ideas flow today take the conversation from the geographically local area to the national(and world) stage almost immediately. Does this restrict or expand the influence of the populace and the “mediating structures”?
Cornel Lencar says:

November 12, 2012 at 11:48 am

I think that all discussions about the common good is well surpassed by the important aspiration people everywhere have, that of a just society, in a Rawlsian perspective…
john personna says:

November 12, 2012 at 12:23 pm

The fundamental human organization was the band, or tribe. Those proto-states had rules for fairness, and sharing, and the common good. Nations, and “all humanity” are inclusive extensions of the tribe, which work to varying degrees. But I wouldn’t say those extensions are the greatest error in popular American political thought. A lot still rests on the false notion that man started alone, and with higher faculties formed social contracts, etc. Actually no, the fossil record shows bands before reason. Our social selves were not invented by wild-haired 19th century Europeans.
Jake Meador says:

November 12, 2012 at 2:03 pm

I think the discussion in the comments has helped make this more clear to me, but the hesitation I have with “common good” language is that it seems like a secular shorthand for a concept that we understand in explicitly Christian terms. But if we aren’t clear on that point, couldn’t the secular shorthand eventually become a secular concept, even in the minds of Christians? Shorthand phrases can take on a life of their own sometimes, so I worry about becoming too dependent on them.

If we mean that we want our work to promote creational flourishing as it is defined in scripture, then I think we need to say that – though, admittedly, that isn’t nearly so compact as “the common good.” Perhaps simply saying “creational flourishing” is sufficient? I don’t know. (Certainly, using a more secular term in conversation with someone outside the church would be wise and helpful, but it seems to me that this situation is an exception, not the rule.)

The crux of the issue seems to be how Christians can–or, I suppose, if they should–reclaim a useful rhetorical device so that it can be used to articulate a distinctly Christian way of thinking about society.
Aaron Gross says:

November 12, 2012 at 2:12 pm

Great discussion. I think I agree with everybody here.

Couple minor points. One of those Front Porchers (the guy from Kansas, I forgot his name) once wrote against conservatives’ appealing to the common good, for the reason stated here: it’s used to justify anything. He suggested, instead, appeals to preserving those things we love. I think so, anyway, that’s just from memory.

Re “shalom” as a word for “comprehensive flourishing,” I don’t know biblical Hebrew at all, but I think a better word for that might be “hayim,” narrowly translated as “life.” But it didn’t mean just biological life, it meant flourishing as well. (Similarly, “death,” “mavet,” didn’t mean just biological death.) Anyway, that’s what I read in one of Jon Levenson’s two books on resurrection, I forget which one. He presented it as a straightforward, non-controversial understanding of biblical Hebrew.
Philip Harold says:

November 12, 2012 at 4:04 pm

It’s actually crucial. If you listen hard to politicians I don’t actually think you’ll hear as much about the common good as much as you’d think.

Instead, politicians talk about “values, values, values.”

The two are not the same and the difference is critical. Values are something we have, and something we clearly know. But the common good is not possessed, nor is it something we hold clearly before our mind’s eye. Rather, it always involves the contribution of other people.

In short, values are subject to the central prejudice of the Enlightenment of logocentrism, that is, privileging the individual “rational” consciousness to the detriment of politics (in de Jouvenel’s wide sense of suggestion-response).

I’m writing a book on this right now, “Against Values; Recovering the Common Good in Politics.”
matt says:

November 12, 2012 at 5:33 pm

As a non-believer, I really liked your biblical/theological language. Cf civil rights movement’s biblical mission. I’d rather learn where my fellow citizens are really coming from (and reflect on whether they may have real insights into the truth of things) than be ‘sold’ a political program in terms they *think* we share.

But of course it’s not at all obvious that your biblical purpose recommends “little platoon”ism. How do we connect those dots? It seems to me that all but the most revolutionary movements have their batch of little platoons they cherish, across the right and the left, maybe varying with the circumstances.
Chet says:

November 12, 2012 at 8:33 pm

For another example, it provides leverage to critique the implicit statism in, say, the Obama campaign’s “Life of Julia” video, which may not afflict all Democrats, but is alarmingly popular on the left.

I just don’t follow this at all. “Life of Julia” is so “alarmingly” popular on the left precisely because its a comprehensive series of examples of how the public provides for the common good.

“Common good” refuting “statism”? I don’t follow. The state is how we act together to promote the common good. It’s precisely that, in fact.