While I agree with the current conflict of values that Joe Gannon analyzes in his latest column (“It’s time to awaken from our ‘spiritual death,” Aug. 10), I disagree with the terms that he uses to classify them.
On the one side are individualist values, and on the other, communitarian values. The historical origin of the former is Adam Smith’s selfishness principle, that of the latter is Rousseau’s concept of a general will, which strongly influenced Jefferson. So, the conflict is: capitalism versus democracy. But most of today’s “liberals” are capitalists.
Gannon’s labeling of the conflict as “conservative” vs. “liberal” only further muddies some already very muddy Democratic Party waters.
Don Schneier
Northampton