the communitarian cop-out

THE COMMUNITARIAN DEBATE

THE COMMUNITARIAN

COP-OUT One oundation of democratic self-government is public debate

expansion or re-interpretation of rights. By calling for a diminution of civil rights advocacy, communitarians

undermine an essential feature of our democracy, as well as a movement that has extended full membership in our society to

traditional 1 y excluded groups.

an d discussion of issues, including rights and the occasional

SAMUEL WALKER t is time to declare a ”moratorium” on the ”manufacturing of new rights”; time I to match individual rights with an equal

concern with ”social responsibilities.”’ So argues Amitai Etzioni, founder and leader of the communitarian movement. In just two years, communitarianism has emerged as a new force in American political and intellectual life. President Clinton and Vice President Gore have reportedly said that communitarianism expresses their values. Gore, moreover, attended the first communitarian “teach-in” on Capitol Hill in late 1990, along with such odd bedfellows as Senators Daniel Moynihan and Alan Simpson. With a journal, anofficalplatform, a recent book by Etzioni, and the Clinton- Gore connection, communitarianism has

received an enormous amount of attention.2

What is communitarianism? Ac- cording to the offical platform it seeks to restore a ”moral voice” to our political dia- logue, a concern for ”the social dimensions of human existence.” This includes strengthening the family, restoring moral education to the public school curriculum, and rebuilding communities.

The source of our current ills, communitarians argue, is society’s excessive concern with rights. Our ”hyperindividualism,” they say, has fos- tered a self-centered outlook that is heed- less of the common interest. Mary Ann Glendon, professor of law at Harvard and co-drafter of the communitarian platform,

246 SUMMER 1993 NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW


argues that our language of rights is ”morally incom- plete,’’ with no concern for our responsibility to others? Etzioni calls for a new sense of ”we-ness.” The self-centered ethos of today under- mines the family and leads to rampant divorce and neglect of children, hesays. Excessive concern for Fourth Amend-

Glendon argues that the “strident” and

“absolutist” quality of our rights rhetoric precludes mutual

understanding and compromise,

ment rights harms public safety, for example, by preventing the police from con- ducting random stops for drunk drivers. The pursuit of group rights has balkanized American society into hostile sub-communities, obliterating any sense of a common culture. Glendon argues that the “strident” and ”absolutist” quality of our rights rhetoric precludes mutual understanding and compromise.

The communitarians offer a number of specific remedies for all this. In addition toa ”moratorium” on new rights, we should discourage divorce, grant police expanded powers and restore “moral education” to the publicschoolcurriculum. Etzioniisquick to assure us that this does not mean “religious indoctrination,” or a fundamentalist take-over of the schools. A mainstream liberal, Etzioni argues that the best way to combat the far right is to end the anarchy that our obsession with rights has brought upon us.

The communitarians are particularly disturbed about the degeneration of American politics: the dominance of sim- plistic “sound bites,” the enormous power of special interest groups, and the increas- ing cynicism and apathy of the electorate.

They propose limits on political campaign contributions and call for a new commit- ment to the “public interest,” in thespirit of pre-World War I Progressivism.

Communitarianism has at- tracted so much attention so quickly in large part because it expresses the concerns of a broad segment of the Ameri-

can people. Conserva tiies and liberals alike are deeply alarmed over crime and the crisis of the family. Many people are in- creasingly disturbed over the rise of group consciousness, as represented by the de- mands for Afro-centric education. Liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. deplores this trend in his latest book, pointedly entitled The Disuniting of Arnerica.4 Art critic Robert Hughes incorporates many of the same objections to group consciousness in his current best-seller, CultuveofCornplaint? Conservatives have been waging a holy war on the growth of rights for 25 years. Communitarianism’s appeal lies in linking an unease over rights with a wider range of issues and a seemingly attractive call for a new moral vision in politics and social policy.

eyond the slogans, what do the communitarians propose? Do they point us in the direction of a revitalized

politics and a healthier society? The short answer is no. Despite the high-sounding rhetoric, communitarians do not offer a program likely to build a stronger sense of community in America. First, many of their proposals are without any real substance.

NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW SUMMER 1993 247


Second, they consistently refuse to challenge estab- lished economic orthodoxy, even though their arguments inescapably point in that direction. Third, a few of their ideas represent a drastic ex- tension of coercive government intervention in private lives, all in the name of community. Fourth, they consistently fail to appreciate the positive contributions of the modem “rights revolution”

Instead of attempting to outlaw hate speech, the comrnunitarian

platform advises, we should respond to racist incidents

through non-legal steps, such as campus teach-ins on racism.

in creating a-more meaningful community in this country. The communitarian attack on rights, wittingly or unwittingly, serves the right-wing agenda.

The question of divorce, which is central to their concern about the family, illustrates the intellectual emptiness of the communitarian program. They don’t like divorce, but can’t bring themselves to outlaw it, or even make it more difficult to obtain. Instead they exhort us to “discourage” it (unless otherwise noted, all references to communitarian policies are taken from their offical platform). This is a nice idea but oneunlikely tohaveany effect on thedivorce rate. Many of their other proposals are little more than exhortations to ” be nice” and “do good.”

To help families, the communitarians call for a comprehensive program of family-oriented socialservices: family leave programs, work place child care facilities, and so on. Such programs are long overdue in this country, but they are not inconsistent witheither a reinvigorated liberalism or the continued pursuit of rights. There is noth-

ing unique to communitarianism here. More serious is the fact that they do not attack the real culprits behind our scandal- ously inadequate social ser- vice system: the conservative political movement that for generations has attacked ’%big government,” ‘’government spending” and “socialized medicine.” Instead, they argue that the problem is too much concern with riights. as

ifit isall thefaultof theNAACP, the ACLU, NOW, and other rights groups.

The communitarian position on hate speech dramatizes its intellectual short- comings. Communitarians argue that while we may have a legal right to call someone an offensive name, we should not exercise that right: Right does not mean “rightness.” Voluntary restraint in the name of the common good is one of the central tenets of communitarianism.

This is a nice idea, but not much help in a society tom by racial and religious conflict. Of course we should not call people names. I doubt that anyone reading this pieceeverdoes. Butalotofotherpeopledo. Telling a skinhead to ”be nice” isn’t likely to curb expressions of hate. In the end, the communitarian platform affirms the im- portance of protecting free speech. Instead of attempting to outlaw hate speech, the communitarian platform advises, we should respond to racist incidents through non- legal steps, such as campus teach-ins on racism.

The communitarian hate speech

248 . SUMMER 1993 NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW

THE COMMLJNITARIAN DEBATE

policy is, in fact, identical to the ACLU’s ~o l i cy .~ This is a bit odd, because on most issues, the communitarians use the ACLU as their favoritewhippingboy. The ACLU’s “radical individualism” is the cause of all our problems, they say. Yet, if the ACLUs absolutist approach is wrong on theFourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, why is it right on the First Amendment? The communitarians never provide a good ex- planation of how and when we should ”balance” rights.

Mary Ann Glendon strongly recom- mends the balancing and communal ethos expressed in most international human rights declarations. Article 19 ofthe InternationalCovenant on Civil and Political Rights (1 966), for example, holds that the rights of free speech, equality, due process, and others can be limited in the interest of protecting “the rights and reputations of others,” ”national security,” ”public order,” or ”public m~rality.”~She seems blithely

Communitariuns advise us to teach

tolerance and eq~ality, but they attack the

rights groups that have fought for

these values.

store the “moral education’’ role of the public schools is vague and empty. They assure us that it does not mean “religious indoctrination.” They do not support the agenda of Christian fundamentalists. Historically, however, local majorities have used the public schools as instruments for promot- ing their religious views, which is to say, their view of community values. The communitarian platform says they are “not majoritarians,” butthey donotexplainwhat the majority can and can not do with the public school curriculum.

The communitarian idea of moral education involves inculcating the “shared

values” of America: the dig- nity of all people, tolerance, and non-discrimination. These happen to be very secular values that form the core values of the ACLUs vision of civil liberties. Once again, the communitarians seek to score points by bash- ing libertarianism, but end up endorsing its basic values. Cornunitariansadviseus to

unaware that these have k e n the traditional rationales for suppressing civil liberties in the United States. Critics of the government were jailed during World War I in the name of national security; Urysses and many other works of art were banned to protect public morality; civil rights demonstrators were arrested for violating public order; and so on.*Glendon, the most articulateof all theleadingcommunitarians, never explains the exact scope of acceptable limitations on rights.

The communitarian proposal to re-

teach tolerance and equality, but they attack the rights groups that have fought for these values.

he question of corporate responsibility to local communities exposes the T communitarians’ grotesque political

cowardice. Etzioni and Glendon both point out that local communities have been dev- astated by factory closings. The impact includes loss of jobs, massive unemployment, the demise of local small businesses, loss of

~ tax revenues, and a bleak future for the

NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW SUMMER 1993 9 249


THE COMMUN~~ARWU COP OUT

community’s children. Glendon cites the unsuccess- ful case of one Detroit, Michigan community ( ”Poletown”) that sued tostop their neighborhood from be- ingdemolished tomake room for a Cadillac factory. She cor- rectly points out that the individual rights orientation of current law provides no rem- edy for such community-wide harms.’ There are, in fact, no legal limits on the power of private corporations to open,

Despite their talk about a society based

on mutual understanding (as opposed to legally

enforced rights), the communitariuns

propose some very intrusive and coercive

measures.

close, expand, or contract-out their local operations (environmental laws and other regulations govern only how a factory may operate, not the basic decision to open or close it).

Having identified one of the major problems facing communities today, the communitarians refuse to pursue the logic of their own analysis. Making corporations responsible to local communities necessarily means limiting the power of private capital to maximize profits for the benefit of shareholders. This analysis threatens to bring upeither theunmentionable “Sword” - socialism - or the dreaded specter of government controls. What is needed to protect communities, presumably, is a federal law that would compel, say, Gen- eral Motors to continue operating an admit- tedly less efficient plant inMichigan instead of moving the operation to Mexico.

The communitarians flee from this line of thinking because the dreaded ”S- word” is guaranteed to scare away the Clintons, Gores, Moynihans, and others

who are enchanted by aIl the warm and fuzzy talk about ”restoring moral values.” Perhaps there is some way to achieve corporate responsibility to local communities other than socialism. If so, the communitarians do not discuss it. They don’t even discuss government controls over corporate business de- cisions because they know it is too radical an idea, particularly in a time when conventional thinking says we

must increase business efficiency. Gtead of confronting the ideology of corporate power, and the underlying values of profit maximization, they once again blame all of our ills on the excessive pursuit of rights. In other words, the economic devastation of Cleveland and Detroit is all the fault of the NAACP, the ACLU and NOW.

espite their talkaboutasocietybased on mutual understanding (as op- D posed to legally enforced rights),

the communitarians propose some very intrusive and coercive measures. An official position paper argues that it should be an “obligation” for dead persons to donate their organs for transplantation. Current policy (which reliesonvoluntary donations) is, in their view, too individualistic and fails to provide a sufficient number of organs.’” A mandatory donation law would represent one of the most radical extensions of government control over individual lives in modern history. While they would per- mit conscientious objection to such a policy,


THE COMMUNlTARIAN DEBATE

they explicitly deny that such objection is a “right.” Their entire discussion of the issue is utterly insensitive to the historic concern for the handling of the dead - a concern that is manifest in all cultures and across time. Perhaps better than anything else, the organ-donation proposal exposes the iron fist of state coercionconcealed by thevelvet- glove rhetoric of building a “moral” community.

On the subject of crime and public safety, the communitarians are seriously out of touch with reality. Etzioni hammers away at the need for sobriety check points to protect thepublicfromdrunkdrivers. He seems unaware of the fact that the Supreme Court found them constitutional in 1990. Despite this ruling, local police do not actually use them very much. They don’t for the simple reason that such measures are frightfully expensive in terms of personnel and very unproductive in terms of catching or deterring drunk drivers - points that were argued before the Supreme Court.” Sobriety checkpoints, like

havenotexaminedtherelationshipbetween Supreme Court rulings on the rights of suspects and actual police work. It is now the conventional wisdom among crimi- nologists that neither the exclusionary rule nor the Mirunda warning interfere with professional police work. The idea that thousands of cases are “lost” because of Supreme Court rulings is pure mythology. There is, in fact, a growing recognition among criminal justice experts that the Su- preme Court’s rulings on the rights of suspects has stimulated long-overdue police reforms: higher recruitment standards, better training and closer supervision, including prosecutorial screening of search war- rants.I2 While many serious police problems remain, the officer on the street today is far better educated, trained and super- vised than his or her predecessor 30 years ago.

Comunitarians argue that the so- called rights revolution - all this clamor- ing for “my rights” and ”ow rights” - has

destroyed community in many other “get tough” measures (e.g., sweep arrests of “gang” members) are actually exercises in public the- ater: undertaken for their publicity value and not because they are effective anti- crime measures. Neither Et- zioni nor the communitarian platform offers a single sub- stantive proposal for reduc- ing the high rate of murder, robbery, rape, and burglary in America.

The communitarians

, , ,the various rights that have

America. TO the contrary: The rights revolution has created a more meaningful

followed and been communityinAmerica.Italso goes without saying that membership is the essential condition of comrnunit~.’~ The communitarians admit, of course, that the civil rights movement wasoneof theepic

membership and eventsof recenthistory.From acomUniV PreSFtivefthe end of jim crow and disen-

groups. franchisement removed the formal barriers to member-

inspzred by the original Civil rights mOVmmt have secured a greater

measure of

pa yticipation foy other

NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW SUMMER 1993 * 251


ship in the community. Communitarians fail to appreciate

how the various rights movements that have followed and been inspired by the originalcivilrightsmovement havesecured a greater measure of membership and participation for other groups. The current struggle over gay and lesbian rights is the most obvious example. To secure formal rights for gay and lesbian people is to ac- knowledge that they arelegitimatemembers of the American community. Why, then, do the communitarians want us to lower our voices about rights? Do they

THE COMMUNITARIAN COP OUT

transformed the politics of their time- that is, they became participating members of the community by those acts alone. Segre- gationists understood this very well. The mass arrest of demonstrators wasdesigned to stop that participation and maintain Af- rican-Americansasless-than-full members.

In an earlier era, the First Amend- ment struggles surrounding birth control advocate Margaret Sanger ultimately in- volved the question of membership. When Boston Mayor James Curley banned Sanger from speaking, he knew full well that infor-

mation about contraception

terms. The very idea that prisoners have rights - enforceable legal rights - means that they are legitimate members of the community, albeit with some significant restrictions. The prisoners’-rights movement ended the old legal doctrine of prisoners as ”slaves of the state” - a phrase that expresses the denial of membership.

The First Amendment rights of speech, press and asssembly have historically been the principal guardians of the right of membership: the right to speak and to be heard. Even to assert one’s First Amendment rights is to become a participating member. When young African- Americans sat-in and demonstrated in the Deep South during the early 1960s they


versies over gay and lesbian issues follow the same pattern. The fundamentalists and homophobesunderstand perfectly well that even to discuss same-sex relationships is to confer legitimacy on them-and to say that gays and lesbians are entitled to the same respect as all members of the community.

By suggesting that we all cool our rhetoricaboutrights,communitariansserve the conservative agenda. How would the public at-large know that a group was the victim of discrimination unless that group asserted its claim to rights? To tell people to lower their voices is a polite way of telling them to sit down and shut up - in short, don’t disturb the status quo.

Mary Ann Glendon’s complaints


about the "strident" and "absolutist" quality of rights rhetoric is particularly puz- zling. If fundamental moral issuesareinvolved,shouldn't people express themselves in the strongest terms? Would she have counselled the abo- litionists to moderate their criticisms of slavery?

trident and absolutist rhetoric actually serves S a veryimportant educa-

tional function. When I was in college 30 years ago I never thought about when life be-

When they ask us to tone down our rhetoric

and to be less demanding about

rights, communitariuns are

really asking us to stop thinking, to lower our standards for society

and to halt the process of sociul change.

@,-even though it is obviously a pro- foundlyimportantquestion. Nor did1 think about a right to privacy, its scope, and whether the Constitution guarantees it. I think about these matters all the time now, because the abortion controversy has forced me to. The strident and absolutist rhetoric of the pro-lifers has forced me to examine my abortion rights position, to make sure

N o m 'Amitai Etzioni, The Spirit of Community (New York Crown, 1993), p. 5.

2The journal is The Responsive Community. The offical platform is found in Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter 1991-92) and in Etzioni, The Spirit of Community, pp. 250-267.

3MaryAnnGlendon, Rights Talk (NewYork The Free Press, 1991).

4Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disunitingof

that it is really the right position. In the same fashion, nearly everyone in this country has been forced to think about these and other issues.

In the end, that is the function of rights advocacy. The vigorous pursuit of rights makes us think- thinkabout things we never thought of before, or would prefer not to thinkabout. That advocacy is often strident, at times ob- noxious, sometimes even offensive. The uncompromis- ing pursuit of rights, however, is central to the process

of public debate that is the essential feature of a living and ever-changing democratic community. When they askus to tonedown our rhetoric and to be less demanding about rights, communitarians are really asking us to stop thinking, to lower our standards for society, and to halt the process of Social

change. C N R

America (New York W.W. Norton, 1992).

5Robert Hughes, Cultwe of Complaint (New York Oxford University Press, 1993).

6American Civil Liberties Union, Policy Guide, Policy No. 72A, "Free Speech and Bias on College Campuses."

T h e Covenant is available in many collec- tions, for example: Walter Laqueur and

NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW SUMMER 1993 253


THE C o w r r m COP OUT

Barry Rubin, eds., The Human Rights Reader (New York New American Library, 1989), pp. 215-225.

%amuel Walker, In Defense of American Lib- erties: A History of the ACLU (New York Oxford University Press, 1990).

'Glendon, 1991, pp. 229-230.

'The Communitarian Network, The Rights and Responsibilities ofPoten tial Organ Donors: A Communituriun Approach (Washington, D.C.: The Communitarian Network, 1993).

"On the problems of catching drunk driv-

ers, see, James B. Jacobs, Drunk Driving: An American Dilemma (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). The sobriety check- point case is Michigan Department of State Police ZI. Sitz, U.S. Supreme Court, 1990.

'0-1 the failure of "get tough policies and the positive impact of Supreme Court rulings, seeSamuel Walker, Senseand Nonsense About Crime, Third Edition (Belmont,Calif.: Wadsworthhblishing, forthcoming, 1994).

13Michael Walzer, Spheres of justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983), pp. 31-63.

14Walker, 1990, pp. 61-62. ~~ ~~

Samuel Walker is a rofessor of Criminal Justice at the Unuiersit of Nebraska at

American Civil Liberties Union. x Oma R a and a member of the board of directors o f t e

254 SUMMER 1 9 3 NATIONAL CIVIC REVIEW

the communitarian cop-out

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