Me and we: Individual rights, common good and coronavirus

And it’s pulling the country in all these different directions,” says Colin Woodard, author of “American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good.”Though polls show a majority of Americans still support some level of shutdown, the cries to reopen have grown in the past few weeks as job losses continue to mount. And the only way to do it is to say, ‘I trust the government,’” says Elspeth Wilson, an assistant professor of government at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania.While the catalyst is an unprecedented pandemic, the collision of individual rights and the common good is as old as the republic itself: Where does one American’s right to move around in public without a mask end, and another American’s right to not be infected with a potentially fatal virus begin?“This is economic paralysis by analysis for some people. In short, doing what one wants is a lot easier when you have the means (health care, money, privilege) to deal with the impact it causes.That’s particularly relevant when the direct impact of one’s individualism — in the form of virus-laden droplets — can ripple out to others.“We fail to recognize how interdependent we really are,” says Lenette Azzi-Lessing, a clinical professor of social work at Boston University who studies economic disparity.“The pandemic and dealing with it successfully does require cooperation.