Americans are losing sense of community

We are rapidly losing our sense of community, becoming a place where individualism prevails and the community is forgotten. What made our nation great was that healthy balance between our respect for the individual while working together for the common good.

Our society thrived as long as that balance existed. It kept us together through tough times, brought us closer and made our nation stronger. It was those common values that forged the quality of life we have come to enjoy. Now we appear to have fallen victim to our own success.

Too many of us seem content with individualism, materialism and becoming the ultimate consumers on the planet. We worry about our children having self-esteem, when, in reality, self-esteem is not given, it is earned. Somehow, many of us have gotten soft and are losing the values the "greatest generation" and others fought to protect and pass on to us — perseverance, hard work and willingness to sacrifice self for the common good.

Our nation is now confronted with threats brought about by globalization and rapid change. While we worry about outside threats, the greatest danger we face may be from within. Indulging in too much self-congratulation and individualism has resulted in the loss of the capacity for self-examination. Most dangerous is the American tendency to solve problems by looking for scapegoats and quick fixes without considering the consequences.

Some of us seem to have mastered the art of blaming others for our ills, including complaints that we are losing our culture because of the influx of immigrants or advocating for the breakup of our public education system as though it had nothing to do with the breakdown of our American way of life. Public schools have been the basic institution where we learned common values, language and principles of our democratic society; schools became the laboratory where we practiced and lived the American way of life with kids from all walks of life.

The consequences of the concern for self over the common good need to be examined. Rather than collectively working to improve our schools, our communities are now polarized by talk of dividing school districts between higher- and lower-income neighborhoods and/or families leaving public schools.

Unlike previous wars where the draft was still in place, all families and young people felt the sacrifice, including the loss of life. Now, with this war, there is a lack of sacrifice the public has to make, except for those men and women in the armed services and their families — sometimes, the ultimate sacrifice.