Conservative intellectuals can’t stop debating the “common good” and how this concept supposedly animates the modern American Right.
But, as I argue in my latest American Conservative column, there’s a major omission in this debate. Namely, it completely ignores the actual sentiments of Republican voters.
They’re not into the common good, however it’s defined. Instead, they’re doubling down on their traditional stance of “Leave us alone!”
The people take a different view of the matter. Their main problem appears to be the government telling them what to do, not the government letting them do as they please. Ballot referendums legalizing vices gain overwhelming support. Impositions on individual liberties are hated. NIMBYism has never been more popular. People don’t even want to pay property taxes anymore to fund the common goods of their community.
These tendencies seem strongest among the Republican base. An instinctive libertarianism, rather than high-brow common goodism, motivates them. This is why they strongly opposed both woke and the lockdowns. They didn’t see these measures as examples of excess individualism. They saw them as limits on their liberty.
I'm glad there's still an individualist streak, and this will hopefully keep a lid on Vance and his tech bro buddies (minus elon, who's not up for this crap) from imposing their nanny state theocracy. I think Greer perhaps overplays how much of this libertarian streak there is, as we've still seen the adoption of AV laws in (I think now over half?) the country, although those have proved to be more of a minor inconvenience rather than a war on porn or a porn ban. Although, ironically, mister ron paul caucus libertarian mike lee himself would probably try to ban porn altogether if he had his druthers. The selective libertarianism from both sides gets wicked annoying. Somebody shouldn't be able to watch porn but you can own 10 million guns? Whatever, douchebag. The right wing elites should take the sticks out of their asses and get over themselves. People don't want to live in their world anymore than they want to live in mamdani's multi culti overpriced woke utopia and the only reason this faction still has a pulse is because of gas prices and the demoralization over what is a pretty decent economy on the whole. Anti racist mackerel snapping vice haters should really just shut the hell up, not just because vice is awesome, not just because they're wrong, but if they're actually pragmatic and want to win. How else are you going to oppose the massive censorship regime that's coming when the left takes power in January '27? That's assuming you can. And guys on the right need to stop acting like weed is just falling into people's laps. Even where available, it's very expensive and many localities still harshly criminalize it.
Could Pius XI's "problematic" Social Justice terminology "lead to a Rousseau-like "Forced to be Free" State? ? Did John Paul II correct Leo XIII's encyclical with ambiguous Lockean rights language while adopting non-Thomistic Kantian-like ideas?...
... Fr. Fortin shows that the first pope to use the "problematic" ambiguous term "social justice" was Pope Pius XI. He was also sadly the pope of the Cristero "Mexican Massacre" and "fell under the influence of the progressives" according Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
Fortin suggests that this term came in some sense from Jean-Jacques Rousseau who said we will be "forced to be free" by the state. - The Catholic Monitor https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2026/08/douglas-kries-professor-of-philosophy.html
The mistake you and they make is that Rousseau tried to preserve atomized individual freedom through the general will which left and right wing Catholics and conservatives call the "common good", is liberalism turning point to socialism/communism, but both have the same starting point. Please read my post above to read exactly what the prominent scholar Fr. Fortin said on this subject.
Eugene J. Roesch's 1963 book, The Totalitarian Threat: The Fruition of Modern Individualism, as Seen in Hobbes and Rousseau, argues that modern totalitarianism is not a rejection of early liberal individualism, but its logical outcome. Father Ernest Fortin similarly critiques modern rights-based social justice, seeing it as a departure from classical natural law. [1, 2, 3]
From Hobbes Individualism to Rousseau’s General Will
Roesch connects the two thinkers through the evolution of the social contract:
Hobbes's Atomized Individual: Thomas Hobbes starts with isolated, self-interested individuals in a state of nature driven by fear and competition. To survive, they surrender all individual power to an absolute sovereign. [1, 2, 3]
Rousseau’s Collective Subject: Jean-Jacques Rousseau tries to preserve individual freedom through the general will. However, Roesch argues that Rousseau demands a total surrender of the individual to the collective community. [1, 2]
The Totalitarian Pivot: Because the collective body defines the general will—and dissent is treated as mere error against that collective—Rousseau's radical autonomy morphs seamlessly into absolute state control, effectively realizing the totalitarian threat latent in Hobbes's Leviathan. [, 2, 3]
Connection to Fr. Ernest Fortin’s View on Social Justice
Father Ernest Fortin’s critique of modern political thought parallels Roesch's concerns from a classical/Augustinian perspective:
The Invention of Rights: Fortin argued that modern human rights and contemporary social justice theories originate with Hobbes and the modern project. They discard the classical and medieval view that humans have a natural, God-given moral end (telos). [1, 2]
Procedural Justice vs. Virtue: Modern social justice, rooted in this individualist lineage, focuses on legal mechanics and the redistribution or assertion of individual claims rather than the cultivation of human virtue and the true common good. [1, 2, 3]
The Secular Erosion: Fortin viewed modern rights talk as unstable—frequently collapsing either into hyper-individualism or into a collective tyranny where the state defines what is "just" for everyone, echoing the exact trajectory Roesch maps from Hobbes to Rousseau. [1, 2]