I did pretty well on the communitarian-virtue test drawn up by Jamie Stiehm in a recent issue of The Nation.
I took the subway just the other day, even though I was carrying two suitcases. I know many of my neighbors by name, have served on a jury, eschew health club membership, use public libraries and other civic amenities and conduct quite a bit of business with the post office, in person.
The only questions I failed outright were blood donation (can’t) and religious attendance (don’t believe in God, so it would be kind of pointless).
Volunteer work? Well, once a week or so I walk through Riverside Park with a big garbage bag picking up disgusting items deposited there by my fellow citizens. And I bake cookies for the PTA, even though it’s always the moms who do it.
It’s not exactly rescuing the homeless, but then, if Michael Walzer counts editing Dissent and Amitai Etzioni gets to claim that “all we `communitarians’ do is civic service,” then surely I get credit just for writing these words-at Nation rates yet.
“And so what?” you are probably asking.
Well, for one thing, it shows how toothless communitarianism is if I can meet its criteria for model citizenship while devoting my days to promoting the “radical individualism” it holds responsible for the breakdown of community.
True, Stiehm’s questions are not very demanding, and the communitarians themselves might not agree that they fairly represent their views.
Still, I ran down the checklist of “action you can take to help your community” that was included with a wad of PR materials in my review copy of Etzioni’s Spirit of Community, and I did all right there too (“vote in all elections,” “consider family counseling if divorce is discussed between you and your partner,” “speak up when neighborhood children are rowdy or when trash is dumped on your street”).
I fell behind on the numerous questions that measured one’s willingness to be an insensitive busybody (“encourage people to volunteer for HIV testing as long as their privacy, job, housing and insurance are properly protected”), but I picked up bonus points on “drive slower.” I don’t even have a license-can’t get much slower than that.
I have three overlapping theories about communitarianism. One is that it’s essentially a marketing device, a way for a dozen or so politically minded academics to magnify their public presence by marching under a common banner. Poets do this all the time (cf. the New Formalism, the New Narrative, etc.), so why not policy types?
This would explain why, for all their claims to be tough-minded, bold and challenging, they take no group stand on divisive issues that people actually care about-abortion and gay rights, for example. It would explain, too, why the whole thing seems to be all chiefs and no Indians. Have you ever met a rank-and-file communitarian?
My second theory is that it’s antifeminism redux. Note its nostalgia for traditionally differentiated sex roles, its romanticized view of marriage and striking lack of interest in that institution’s darker side (domestic violence, for instance), its absurd habit of blaming family breakdown on women’s frivolous quest for self-development.
Oh, don’t get me started.
My third theory is that communitarianism offers a particular social mini-stratum-middle-aged white academics with children and fading memories of once having been happier and more liberal-a way to see themselves as political actors without having to do much that is difficult, boring, scary or expensive.
It’s a little like those articles in women’s magazines (“What’s Your Love Quotient?” “Are You a Good Mom?”) that seem to identify all sorts of terrible quasi-universal problems but are cleverly rigged to exempt the reader.
At the personal level, most communitarian prescriptions are either easy to follow, in which case you are probably already fulfilling them (Laid off and spending more time with your children? See, you’re a communitarian and didn’t even know!), or impossible to follow (Office insists you bring work home? Sorry, kids), in which case you simply move along to the next item, drive slower, etc.
There isn’t a lot in the communitarian agenda that its intended audience will find much of a stretch: knowing one’s neighbor’s name is nice, but it’s not exactly loving him as oneself.
Just as communitarianism allows its followers individually to see themselves as virtuous, it encourages them collectively to see what’s wrong with contemporary America as the fault of-other people. It isn’t one’s own divorce that causes social breakdown; it’s everyone else’s divorces.
The communitarians like to speak of balancing rights with responsibilities, which sounds good, but somehow the objects of this tradeoff tend to be others: the young (curfews, national service), the poor (checkpoints in drug-ridden communities, work requirements for welfare), women (family values-and what about that silence on abortion?).
What is communitarianism, finally, but Republicanism for Democrats-Reaganism with a human face? It’s the perfect philosophy for our emerging one-party state: Travail, Famille, Patrie, plus campaign finance reform and paid parental leave; more volunteerism, less government activism; more “arbitration,” less access to legal redress; more police, less Bill of Rights. (Indeed, its affection for the expansion of police powers-curfews, checkpoints, “drug-free zones” and such-is one of its salient features.)
Although communitarians claim they represent a third way, neither left nor right, look what they blame for America’s ills: not corporate capitalism, poverty, bigotry and inequality, but “radical individualism.” You’d think the ACLU ran the country.
Alas, no. Bill Clinton runs the country, and the communitarians like to boast that he is one of them.
