What is Communitarianism?

[kandrathe]

Anyways, I would hate to see these guys associated with political communitarianism of the kind you're describing. In fact, in many ways, I think there's an element of communitarianism in your own views: if I've read you right over the years, you seem to think that libertarian rights are in some sense "quintessentially American" and part of the shared ethical heritage of America. If part of your reason for believing in such rights is fundamentally cultural and not entirely based on a natural law conception of rights, then there's an element of communitarianism in your own thought.

I agree, Taylor, Sandel and Walzer approach communitarianism from a philosophical discipline and I respect their work.

What I find concerning is the increasing use of communitarian principles in justifying the use of force ( the laws of the State) in implementing the common good at the expense of individual liberty. You are correct that I have a communitarian nature, and that I value community and I value things that contribute to the common good. I am a volunteer in many community activities, and pretty active in insuring that my community functions well. I fall short of this Neo-communitarian moniker however in seeing the State as an instrument of coercing that good at the expense of individual liberty. I am also against any State interest in the "thousand points of light" by the way. What I am railing against is the emergence again of the elite, or the authoritarians who would do that thinking for us rather than depend upon the people. There is an agenda to which Mr. Clinton referred, and it is a blueprint for remaking our society in a way that treats individual liberty as something much different than what it meant to our nations founders.