When the political history of the last 30 years is written, scholars will no doubt describe a rightward revolution that jolted this country out of its embrace of New Deal, big-government progressivism and into a love affair with small-government conservatism. But this change, significant as it is, has been undergirded by a less apparent but no less monumental revolution that has transformed the nation's values, ideals and aspirations. Over those same 30 years, we have become a different country morally from what we were.

The United States has always had a complex national moral system. On the one hand, there is the Puritan-inflected America of rugged individualism, hard work, self-reliance and personal responsibility in which you reap what you sow, God helps those who help themselves, and our highest obligation is to live righteously.

On the other hand, there is also an America of community, common cause, charity and collective responsibility. In this America, salvation comes from good works, compassion is among the greatest of virtues, and our highest obligation is to help others.

These two moralities managed to coexist — often within the same person — because they were not seen as mutually exclusive, especially in the 20th century. Nor was either the province of one political party or the other. Conservatives could subscribe to the ideals of generosity and compassion, just as liberals could subscribe to hard work and individual responsibility. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson's famous declaration in his first inaugural address after the contentious 1800 election that "we are all Republicans, we are all Federalists," one could say that Americans in general were all believers in the Protestant ethic, all believers in the Social Gospel.

Or at least that is the way it was.