Think deeply about the words sustainable and renewable, and how wide a net they can cast into so many fundamental aspects of our potential social future.  Upon these rocks is the new world built.

Oh, and dancing all night.

Skennah Kowa

I think Helen caught that 'something' with the single phrase 'communitarian values'. In many ways the distinction between left and right --in particular in the U.S. -- breaks down along the same lines as individual vs. social. The reason for such a strong right wing tilt I suspect is the bias towards individualism in the American psyche that might in large part be driven by the excessive amount of physical space fate alloted to us over 200 years ago
( compared to the relatively cramped quarters a typical continental European must learn to live with). In the US, no such adjustments were necessary and we're paying the price.

Intellectually, as a culture we've bought into an  underlying individualistic/libertarian 'philosophy' built on certain insane ideas about individualism that are reflected in everything from our infrastructure( we're still building suburban sprawl and living in cities like LA with "no there there") to our ideas about taxes (from a social perspective most reasonable individuals understand the necessity of taxes; except, of course, in the U.S. where reasonable talk about taxes went out the window about the same time that Reagan came into office ) to the constant denigration of any mandated 'social' programs or nanny state regulations  that we try to reduce and eliminate as rapidly as possible. The fact that disasters --both physical and cultural--are the end result of this so called 'philosophy' is just now beginning to be understood (I hope).

The positive thing you want is the assertion--almost completely ignored or devalued in the US--that a 'we' transcends an 'I', that what makes the community stronger and better able to cope with crisis is also a benefit to the individual; and conversely, what makes the individual able to become strong and rooted is a  strong sense of responsibility to the community and vis versa.

I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but I suspect years from now the kind of resource wasting, community destroying 'individualism' that's worshipped in the U.S. today will be looked upon with the same kind of anthropological awe that we feel when we gaze at the ancient Mayans who occasionally pierced their penises with threads and practiced ritual sacrifice to obscure gods with strange habits and names; an amazing culture, really, but, in many ways, gross and ultimately, self-defeating.