Probably
the purest radical middle manifesto of the 90s is the “Responsive
Communitarian Platform” prepared in 1991 by Amitai Etzioni (author
of The New Golden Rule), Mary Ann Glendon (Rights Talk : The Impoverishment
of Political Discourse), William Galston (later to become deputy assistant
for domestic affairs at the Clinton White House), and a supporting cast
of ethicists, activists, and social scientists from across the U.S.
“We
were troubled by pressures [in the political culture] to be labeled
either conservative or liberal, pro-life or pro-choice, or for or against
the death penalty,” Etzioni says. “More deeply, we were
troubled by the finding that many Americans are rather reluctant to
accept responsibilities [as opposed to rights].”
Preamble
American men, women, and children are members of many communities--families;
neighborhoods; innumerable social, religious, ethnic, work place, and
professional associations; and the body politic itself. Neither human
existence nor individual liberty can be sustained for long outside the
interdependent and overlapping communities to which all of us belong.
Nor can any community long survive unless its members dedicate some
of their attention, energy, and resources to shared projects. The exclusive
pursuit of private interest erodes the network of social environments
on which we all depend, and is destructive to our shared experiment
in democratic self-government. For these reasons, we hold that the rights
of individuals cannot long be preserved without a communitarian perspective.
A communitarian
perspective recognizes both individual human dignity and the social
dimension of human existence.
A communitarian
perspective recognizes that the preservation of individual liberty depends
on the active maintenance of the institutions of civil society where
citizens learn respect for others as well as self-respect; where we
acquire a lively sense of our personal and civic responsibilities, along
with an appreciation of our own rights and the rights of others; where
we develop the skills of self-government as well as the habit of governing
ourselves, and learn to serve others-- not just self.
A communitarian
perspective recognizes that communities and polities, too, have obligations--including
the duty to be responsive to their members and to foster participation
and deliberation in social and political life.
A communitarian
perspective does not dictate particular policies; rather it mandates
attention to what is often ignored in contemporary policy debates: the
social side of human nature; the responsibilities that must be borne
by citizens, individually and collectively, in a regime of rights; the
fragile ecology of families and their supporting communities; the ripple
effects and long-term consequences of present decisions. The political
views of the signers of this statement differ widely. We are united,
however, in our conviction that a communitarian perspective must be
brought to bear on the great moral, legal and social issues of our time.
Moral
Voices
America's diverse communities of memory and mutual aid are rich resources
of moral voices--voices that ought to be heeded in a society that increasingly
threatens to become normless, self-centered, and driven by greed, special
interests, and an unabashed quest for power.
Moral voices achieve
their effect mainly through education and persuasion, rather than through
coercion. Originating in communities, and sometimes embodied in law,
they exhort, admonish, and appeal to what Lincoln called the better
angels of our nature. They speak to our capacity for reasoned judgment
and virtuous action. It is precisely because this important moral realm,
which is neither one of random individual choice nor of government control,
has been much neglected that we see an urgent need for a communitarian
social movement to accord these voices their essential place.
Within
History
The basic communitarian quest for balances between individuals and groups,
rights and responsibilities, and among the institutions of state, market,
and civil society is a constant, ongoing enterprise. Because this quest
takes place within history and within varying social contexts, however,
the evaluation of what is a proper moral stance will vary according
to circumstances of time and place. If we were in China today, we would
argue vigorously for more individual rights; in contemporary America,
we emphasize individual and social responsibilities.
Not
Majoritarian But Strongly Democratic
Communitarians are not majoritarians. The success of the democratic
experiment in ordered liberty (rather than unlimited license) depends,
not on fiat or force, but on building shared values, habits and practices
that assure respect for one another's rights and regular fulfillment
of personal, civic, and collective responsibilities. Successful policies
are accepted because they are recognized to be legitimate, rather than
imposed. We say to those who would impose civic or moral virtues by
suppressing dissent (in the name of religion, patriotism, or any other
cause), or censoring books, that their cure is ineffective, harmful,
and morally untenable. At the same time divergent moral positions need
not lead to cacophony. Out of genuine dialogue clear voices can arise,
and shared aspirations can be identified and advanced.
Communitarians favor
strong democracy. That is, we seek to make government more representative,
more participatory, and more responsive to all members of the community.
We seek to find ways to accord citizens more information, and more say,
more often. We seek to curb the role of private money, special interests,
and corruption in government. Similarly, we ask how "private governments,"
whether corporations, labor unions, or voluntary associations, can become
more responsive to their members and to the needs of the community.
Communitarians do
not exalt the group as such, nor do they hold that any set of group
values is ipso facto good merely because such values originate in a
community. Indeed, some communities (say, neo-Nazis) may foster reprehensible
values. Moreover, communities that glorify their own members by vilifying
those who do not belong are at best imperfect. Communitarians recognize--indeed,
insist--that communal values must be judged by external and overriding
criteria, based on shared human experience.
A responsive community
is one whose moral standards reflect the basic human needs of all its
members. To the extent that these needs compete with one another, the
community's standards reflect the relative priority accorded by members
to some needs over others. Although individuals differ in their needs,
human nature is not totally malleable. Although individuals are deeply
influenced by their communities, they have a capacity for independent
judgment. The persistence of humane and democratic culture, as well
as individual dissent, in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union demonstrate
the limits of social indoctrination.
For a community
to be truly responsive--not only to an elite group, a minority or even
the majority, but to all its members and all their basic human needs--it
will have to develop moral values which meet the following criteria:
they must be nondiscriminatory and applied equally to all members; they
must be generalizable, justified in terms that are accessible and understandable:
e.g., instead of claims based upon individual or group desires, citizens
would draw on a common definition of justice; and, they must incorporate
the full range of legitimate needs and values rather than focusing on
any one category, be it individualism, autonomy, interpersonal caring,
or social justice.
Restoring
the Moral Voice
History has taught that it is a grave mistake to look to a charismatic
leader to define and provide a moral voice for the polity. Nor can political
institutions effectively embody moral voices unless they are sustained
and criticized by an active citizenry concerned about the moral direction
of the community. To rebuild America's moral foundations, to bring our
regard for individuals and their rights into a better relationship with
our sense of personal and collective responsibility, we must therefore
begin with the institutions of civil society.
Start
With the Family
The best place to start is where each new generation acquires its moral
anchoring: at home, in the family. We must insist once again that bringing
children into the world entails a moral responsibility to provide, not
only material necessities, but also moral education and character formation.
Moral education
is not a task that can be delegated to baby sitters, or even professional
child-care centers. It requires close bonding of the kind that typically
is formed only with parents, if it is formed at all.
Fathers and mothers,
consumed by "making it" and consumerism, or preoccupied with
personal advancement, who come home too late and too tired to attend
to the needs of their children, cannot discharge their most elementary
duty to their children and their fellow citizens.
It follows, that
work places should provide maximum flexible opportunities to parents
to preserve an important part of their time and energy, of their life,
to attend to their educational-moral duties, for the sake of the next
generation, its civic and moral character, and its capacity to contribute
economically and socially to the commonweal. Experiments such as those
with unpaid and paid parental leave, flextime, shared jobs, opportunities
to work at home, and for parents to participate as volunteers and managers
in child-care centers, should be extended and encouraged.
Above all, what
we need is a change in orientation by both parents and work places.
Child-raising is important, valuable work, work that must be honored
rather than denigrated by both parents and the community.
Families headed
by single parents experience particular difficulties. Some single parents
struggle bravely and succeed in attending to the moral education of
their children; while some married couples shamefully neglect their
moral duties toward their offspring. However, the weight of the historical,
sociological, and psychological evidence suggests that on average two-parent
families are better able to discharge their child-raising duties if
only because there are more hands--and voices--available for the task.
Indeed, couples often do better when they are further backed up by a
wider circle of relatives. The issue has been wrongly framed when one
asks what portion of parental duties grandparents or other helpers can
assume. Their assistance is needed in addition to, not as a substitute
for, parental care. Child-raising is by nature labor-intensive. There
are no labor-saving technologies, and shortcuts in this area produce
woefully deficient human beings, to their detriment and ours.
It follows
that widespread divorce, when there are children involved, especially
when they are in their formative years, is indicative of a serious social
problem. Though divorces are necessary in some situations, many are
avoidable and are not in the interest of the children, the community,
and probably not of most adults either. Divorce laws should be modified,
not to prevent divorce, but to signal society's concern. . .
Schools--The
Second Line of Defense
Unfortunately, millions of American families have weakened to the point
where their capacity to provide moral education is gravely impaired.
And the fact is that communities have only a limited say over what families
do. At best, it will take years before a change in the moral climate
restores parenting to its proper status and function for many Americans.
Thus, by default,
schools now play a major role, for better or worse, in character formation
and moral education. Personal and communal responsibility come together
here, for education requires the commitment of all citizens, not merely
those who have children in school.
We strongly urge
that all educational institutions, from kindergartens to universities,
recognize and take seriously the grave responsibility to provide moral
education. Suggestions that schools participate actively in moral education
are often opposed. The specter of religious indoctrination is quickly
evoked, and the question is posed: "Whose morals are you going
to teach?"
Our response is
straightforward: we ought to teach those values Americans share, for
example, that the dignity of all persons ought to be respected, that
tolerance is a virtue and discrimination abhorrent, that peaceful resolution
of conflicts is superior to violence, that generally truth-telling is
morally superior to lying, that democratic government is morally superior
to totalitarianism and authoritarianism, that one ought to give a day's
work for a day's pay, that saving for one's own and one's country's
future is better than squandering one's income and relying on others
to attend to one's future needs.
The fear that our
children will be "brainwashed" by a few educators is farfetched.
On the contrary, to silence the schools in moral matters simply means
that the youngsters are left exposed to all other voices and values
but those of their educators. For, one way or another, moral education
does take place in schools. The only question is whether schools and
teachers will passively stand by, or take an active and responsible
role. . . .
Within
Communitites
A Matter of Orientation
The ancient Greeks understood this well: A person who is completely
private is lost to civic life. The exclusive pursuit of one's self-interest
is not even a good prescription for conduct in the marketplace; for
no social, political, economic, or moral order can survive that way.
Some measure of caring, sharing, and being our brother's and sister's
keeper, is essential if we are not all to fall back on an ever more
expansive government, bureaucratized welfare agencies, and swollen regulations,
police, courts, and jails.
Generally, no social
task should be assigned to an institution that is larger than necessary
to do the job. What can be done by families, should not be assigned
to an intermediate group--school etc. What can be done at the local
level should not be passed on to the state or federal level, and so
on. There are, of course, plenty of urgent tasks--environmental ones--that
do require national and even international action. But to remove tasks
to higher levels than is necessary weakens the constituent communities.
This principle holds for duties of attending to the sick, troubled,
delinquent, homeless and new immigrants; and for public safety, public
health and protection of the environment--from a neighborhood crime-watch
to CPR to sorting the garbage. The government should step in only to
the extent that other social subsystems fail, rather than seek to replace
them. . . .
Many social goals
. . . require partnership between public and private groups. Though
government should not seek to replace local communities, it may need
to empower them by strategies of support, including revenue-sharing
and technical assistance. There is a great need for study and experimentation
with creative use of the structures of civil society, and public-private
cooperation, especially where the delivery of health, educational and
social services are concerned.
Last, but not least,
we should not hesitate to speak up and express our moral concerns to
others when it comes to issues we care about deeply and share with one
another. It might be debatable whether or not we should encourage our
neighbors to keep their lawns green (which may well be environmentally
unsound), but there should be little doubt that we should expect one
another to attend to our children, and vulnerable community members.
Those who neglect these duties, should be explicitly considered poor
members of the community.
National and local
service, as well as volunteer work, is desirable to build and express
a civil commitment. Such activities, bringing together people from different
backgrounds and enabling and encouraging them to work together, build
community and foster mutual respect and tolerance. . . .
Duties
to the Polity
Being informed about public affairs is a prerequisite for keeping the
polity from being controlled by demagogues, for taking action when needed
in one's own interests and that of others, for achieving justice and
the shared future.
Voting is one tool
for keeping the polity reflective of its constituent communities. Those
who feel that none of the candidates reflect their views ought to seek
out other like-minded citizens and seek to field their own candidate
rather than retreat from the polity. Still, some persons may discharge
their community responsibilities by being involved in non-political
activities, say, in volunteer work. Just as the polity is but one facet
of interdependent social life, so voting and political activity are
not the only ways to be responsible members of society. A good citizen
is involved in a community or communities, but not necessarily active
in the polity.
Paying one's taxes,
encouraging others to pay their fair share, and serving on juries are
fully obligatory. One of the most telling ills of our time is the expectation
of many Americans that they are entitled to ever more public services
without paying for them (as reflected in public opinion polls that show
demands to slash government and taxes but also to expand practically
every conceivable government function). We all take for granted the
right to be tried before a jury of our peers, but, all too often we
are unwilling to serve on juries ourselves.
Cleaning
Up the Polity
We need to revitalize public life so that the two-thirds of our citizens
who now say they feel alienated or that the polity is not theirs, will
again be engaged in it.
Campaign contributions
to members of Congress and state legislatures, speaking fees, and bribes
have become so pervasive that in many areas of public policy and on
numerous occasions the public interest is ignored as legislators pay
off their debts to special interests. Detailed rationalizations have
been spun to justify the system. It is said that giving money to politicians
is a form of democratic participation. In fact, the rich can "participate"
in this way so much more effectively than the poor, that the democratic
principle of one-person one-vote is severely compromised. It is said
that money buys only access to the politician's ear; but even if money
does not buy commitment, access should not be allotted according to
the depth of one's pockets. It is said that every group has its pool
of money and hence as they all grease Congress, all Americans are served.
But those who cannot grease at all or not as well, lose out and so do
long-run public goals that are not underwritten by any particular interest
groups.
To establish conditions
under which elected officials will be able to respond to the public
interest, to the genuine needs of all citizens, and to their own consciences
requires that the role of private money in public life be reduced as
much as possible. All candidates should receive some public support,
as presidential candidates already do, as well as some access to radio
and TV.
To achieve this
major renewal and revitalization of public life, to reinstitute the
prerequisites for attending to the public interest, requires a major
social movement, akin to the progressive movement of the beginning of
the century. For even good causes can become special interests if they
are not part of such a movement, keeping their strategies and aims in
constant dialogue with larger aims and multiple ends. Citizens who care
about the integrity of the polity either on the local, state, or national
level, should band with their fellows to form a neo-progressive communitarian
movement. They should persevere until elected officials are beholden--not
to special interests--but only to the voters and to their own consciences.
Freedom
of Speech
The First Amendment is as dear to communitarians as it is to libertarians
and many other Americans. Suggestions that it should be curbed to bar
verbal expressions of racism, sexism, and other slurs seem to us to
endanger the essence of the First Amendment, which is most needed when
what some people say is disconcerting to some others. However, one should
not ignore the victims of such abuse. Whenever individuals or members
of a group are harassed, many non-legal measures are appropriate to
express disapproval of hateful expressions and to promote tolerance
among the members of the polity. For example, a college campus faced
with a rash of incidents indicating bigotry, may conduct a teach-in
on intergroup understanding. This, and much more, can be done without
compromising the First Amendment. . . .
Social
Justice
At the heart of the communitarian understanding of social justice is
the idea of reciprocity: each member of the community owes something
to all the rest, and the community owes something to each of its members.
Justice requires responsible individuals in a responsive community.
Members of the community
have a responsibility, to the greatest extent possible, to provide for
themselves and their families: honorable work contributes to the commonwealth
and to the community's ability to fulfill its essential tasks. Beyond
self-support, individuals have a responsibility for the material and
moral well-being of others. This does not mean heroic self- sacrifice;
it means the constant self-awareness that no one of us is an island
unaffected by the fate of others.
For its part, the
community is responsible for protecting each of us against catastrophe,
natural or man-made; for ensuring the basic needs of all who genuinely
cannot provide for themselves; for appropriately recognizing the distinctive
contributions of individuals to the community; and for safeguarding
a zone within which individuals may define their own lives through free
exchange and choice. . . .
Public
Safety and Public Health
The American moral and legal tradition has always acknowledged the need
to balance individual rights with the need to protect the safety and
health of the public. The Fourth Amendment, for example, guards against
unreasonable searches but allows for reasonable ones. . . .
We differ with the
ACLU and other radical libertarians who oppose sobriety checkpoints,
screening gates at airports, drug and alcohol testing for people who
directly affect public safety (pilots, train engineers, etc.). Given
the minimal intrusion involved (an average sobriety checkpoint lasts
ninety seconds), the importance of the interests at stake (we have lost
more lives, many due to drunken drivers, on the road each year than
in the war in Vietnam), and the fact that such measures in the past
have not led us down a slippery slope, these and similar reasonable
measures should receive full public support.
There is little
sense in gun registration. What we need to significantly enhance public
safety is domestic disarmament of the kind that exists in practically
all democracies. The National Rifle Association suggestion that criminals
not guns kill people, ignores the fact that thousands are killed each
year, many of them children, from accidental discharge of guns, and
that people--whether criminal, insane, or temporarily carried away by
impulse--kill and are much more likely to do so when armed then when
disarmed. The Second Amendment, behind which NRA hides, is subject to
a variety of interpretations, but the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled,
for over a hundred years, that it does not prevent laws that bar guns.
We join with those who read the Second Amendment the way it was written,
as a communitarian clause, calling for community militias, not individual
gun slingers.
When it comes to
public health, people who carry sexually transmitted diseases, especially
when the illness is nearly always fatal, such as AIDS, should be expected
to disclose their illness to previous sexual contacts or help health
authorities to inform them, to warn all prospective sexual contacts,
and inform all health care personnel with whom they come in contact.
It is their contribution to help stem the epidemic. At the same time,
the carriers' rights against wanton violation of privacy, discrimination
in housing, employment and insurance should be scrupulously protected.
The
Human Community
Our communitarianism is not particularism. We believe that the responsive
community is the best form of human organization yet devised for respecting
human dignity and safeguarding human decency, and the way of life most
open to needed self-revision through shared deliberation. We believe
that the human species as a whole would be well-served by the movement,
as circumstances permit, of all polities toward strongly democratic
communities. We are acutely aware of the ways in which this movement
will be (and ought to be) affected by important material, cultural,
and political differences among nations and peoples. And we know that
enduring responsive communities cannot be created through fiat or coercion,
but only through genuine public conviction.
We are heartened
by the widespread invocation of democratic principles by the nations
and peoples now emerging from generations of repression; we see the
institutionalization of these principles as the best possible bulwark
against the excesses of ethnic and national particularism that could
well produce new forms of repression.
Although it may
seem utopian, we believe that in the multiplication of strongly democratic
communities around the world lies our best hope for the emergence of
a global community that can deal concertedly with matters of general
concern to our species as a whole: with war and strife, with violations
of basic rights, with environmental degradation, and with the extreme
material deprivation that stunts the bodies, minds, and spirits of children.
Our communitarian concern may begin with ourselves and our families,
but it rises inexorably to the long-imagined community of humankind.
In
Conclusion
A Question of Responsibility
Although some of the responsibilities identified in this manifesto are
expressed in legal terms, and the law does play a significant role not
only in regulating society, but also in indicating which values it holds
dear, our first and foremost purpose is to affirm the moral commitments
of parents, young persons, neighbors, and citizens, to affirm the importance
of the communities within which such commitments take shape and are
transmitted from one generation to the next. This is not primarily a
legal matter. On the contrary, when a community reaches the point at
which these responsibilities are largely enforced by the powers of the
state, it is in deep moral crisis. If communities are to function well,
most members most of the time must discharge their responsibilities
because they are committed to do so, not because they fear lawsuits,
penalties, or jails. Nevertheless, the state and its agencies must take
care not to harm the structures of civil society on which we all depend.
Social environments, like natural environments, cannot be taken for
granted.
It has been argued
by libertarians that responsibilities are a personal matter, that individuals
are to judge which responsibilities they accept as theirs. As we see
it, responsibilities are anchored in community. Reflecting the diverse
moral voices of their citizens, responsive communities define what is
expected of people; they educate their members to accept these values;
and they praise them when they do and frown upon them when they do not.
Although the ultimate foundation of morality may be commitments of individual
conscience, it is communities that help introduce and sustain these
commitments. Hence the urgent need for communities to articulate the
responsibilities they expect their members to discharge, especially
in times, such as our own, in which the understanding of these responsibilities
has weakened and their reach has grown unclear.
Further
Work
This is only a beginning. This platform is but a point in dialogue,
part of an ongoing process of deliberation. It should not be viewed
as a series of final conclusions but ideas for additional discussion.
We do not claim to have the answers to all that troubles America these
days. However, we are heartened by the groundswell of support that our
initial efforts have brought to the communitarian perspective. If more
and more Americans come forward and join together to form active communities
that seek to reinvigorate the moral and social order, we will be able
to deal better with many of our communities' problems while reducing
our reliance on governmental regulation, controls, and force. We will
have a greater opportunity to work out shared public policy based on
broad consensus and shared moral and legal traditions. And we will have
many more ways to make our society a place in which individual rights
are vigilantly maintained, while the seedbeds of civic virtue are patiently
nurtured.
Civil
Society und Kommunitarismus. Kontroversen in der politischen Soziologie
Die modernen
Demokratien sind in eine Krise geraten - in kommunitaristischen Theorieansätzen
wie in liberaldemokratischen Zeitdiagnosen wird die Ursache dieser Krise
in der Unfähigkeit moderner Gesellschaften gesehen, ihre moralischen
Grundlagen zu reproduzieren. Verschiedenen konzeptionellen Lösungsvorschläge
sind zB. die Wiederbelebung traditioneller Gemeinschaftsformen, Ethik
des guten Lebens oder Verfassungspatriotismus vorgestellt werden. Gleichzeitig
mit dieser Debatte entwickelten die osteuropäischen Demokratiebewegungen
Konzepte der Demokratisierung ihrer Gesellschaften, indem sie das den
Begriff „Civil Society" wiederbelebten, um die notwendigen
Freiräume der Menschen gegenüber totalitären Staaten
zu beschreiben. Hier diskutierten die Theoretiker eine Moral der freien
Assoziation, Formen republikanischer Öffentlichkeiten, Selbstorganisation
der BürgerInnen etc., jenseits von Staat und Recht. Wo treffen
sich die beiden Konzepttypen, wo sind Widersprüche?
Kommunitarismus
Definition
Eine aus den USA kommende Bewegung, die den demokratischen
Gemeinschaftsgeist zu beleben versucht und zu mehr Solidarität
und Gemeinsamkeit aufruft. In dem Zusammenhang mit Kommuntitarismus
wird „community" nicht nur im Sinne von Gemeinschaft verwendet,
sondern bedeutet auch Nachbarschaft, eine Verbindung mit Kommunismus
verbietet sich.
Gründer dieser Bewegung sind Sozialwissenschaftler
und Philosophen wie der Soziologe Amitai Etzioni von der Georg-Washington-Universität
und Michael Walzer Soziologe aus Princeton. Diese sammelten eine Gruppe
Gleichgesinnter um sich und verabschiedeten am 18. November 1991 die
erste „kommunitaristische Plattform." „Die amerikanische
Gesellschaft ist krank", so lautet ihre Botschaft und sie wird
nur wieder gesund, wenn sich die Amerikaner mehr uneinander kümmern,
wenn sie Gemeinschaften bilden. (Die Zeit Nr.29, 1996)
Die Bewegung kritisiert den Kapitalismus von links und
den Sozialstaat von rechts. Sie ist eine parteiübergreifende Bewegung,
d.h. in Amerika sind Demokraten und Republikaner in ihr vertreten. In
Deutschland reicht das Spektrum ihrer Anhänger von Schwarz bis
Grün (Biedenkopf, Scharping, Fischer).
Ausgehend von einem Satz von M. Thatcher „Es gibt
keine Gesellschaft, es gibt nur Individuen", kritisieren die Kommunitarier
den radikalen Kapitalismus. Für sie setzt ein funktionierender
Kapitalismus eine funktionierende Gesellschaft voraus. Kommunitarismus
als ein Protest gegen den reinen Kapitalismus, gegen die Ausrichtung
der Gesellschaft am Profitstreben, gegen rücksichtslosen Individualismus.
Allerdings ist auch der Sozialstaat Zielscheibe der
Kritik. Dieser hat nach ihrer Meinung in der Vergangenheit zu schnell
eingegriffen, zu viele Pflichten übernommen und somit den ausgeprägten
Individualismus gefördert.
Ziel
Das erklärte Ziel der Kommunitarier ist durch einen
Wertediskurs den Gemeinschaftssinn zu fördern. Sie wollen keine
Werte aufzwingen sondern einen Wertediskurs, in dessen Mittelpunkt Toleranz
stehen soll, anregen. Nach ihrer Meinung ist die Frage der Moralisten
nach den fehlenden Werten richtig, nur verwenden sie das falsche Rezept,
indem sie ihre Werte als die einzig richtigen bezeichnen. Ein wesentlicher
Grundgedanke ihrer Sozialpolitik ist, daß auch sozial Schwache
Pflichten gegenüber der Gemeinschaft wahrnehmen sollten. Ein Schlüsselbegriff
der Kommunitarier ist die Gemeinschaft. Soziale Probleme sind leichter
zu lösen, wenn die Individuen in eine Gemeinschaft eingebunden
sind, folglich gewinnen alle durch die Gemeinschaft.
Individuen statt Gemeinschaft zeichnen unsere heutige
Gesellschaft aus. Die alten Werten wurden abgesetzt, an ihre Stelle
sind keine neuen getreten. Es fand der Triumpf des Individuums über
die Gesellschaft statt. Der „ Mensch als soziales Wesen,"
geht bei diesem „Neben-einander-leben" immer mehr verloren.
Durch das ausschließliche Verfolgen privater Interessen wird das
Netz gesellschaftlicher Bezüge zerstört.
Teil ihres Ansatzes ist der Appell an das Individuum-
„Rights and Responsibilities", bzw. Rechte und Pflichten
des Einzelnen. Das Individuum hat Rechte, aber aus Rechten folgen auch
Pflichten, die es an die Gesellschaft entrichten muß. Die Menschen
klagen ihre Rechte ein, die Frage, was die Pflicht des Einzelnen gegenüber
der Gemeinschaft ist, bleibt unbeantwortet. Ein Großteil des kommunitaristischen
Diskurses beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, wie Rechte und Pflichten
der BürgerInnen in ein Gleichgewicht gebracht werden können.
Der Kommunitarismus kann als theoretischer Ansatz für
die Projekte des Bürgerschaftlichen Engagements , wie sie in Baden-Württemberg
bestehen, verstanden werden.
Kritik
am Kommunitarismus
Von Kritikern wird die Frage nach der Definition von
Gemeinschaft gestellt - ab wann sich Gemeinschaften auf geschlossene
Weltbilder zurückziehen und sich der liberalen Gesellschaft verweigern.
Desweiteren wird darauf hingewiesen bis zu welchem Grad Ansprüche
der Gesellschaft an das Individuum noch als legitim gelten und welche
dann die Freiheit des Einzelnen in zu hohem Maße einschränken,
also wo die legitimen Ansprüche der Gesellschaft an das Individuum
enden.
Zwischen
den Polen
- Idealisierung von Gemeinschaftlichkeit
- Infragestellen individueller Rechte
bewegt
sich die Diskussion über den Kommunitarismus. In der Kommunitarismusdebatte
wird versucht, eine Balance zwischen der Freiheit und den Rechten des
Individuums und den Interessen der Ordnung des Gemeinwesens, den Pflichten
des Einzelnen gegenüber dem Gemeinwesen zu finden. Gegner des Kommunitarismus
warnen vor einer Überwertung des Gemeinschaftssinnes und dessen
negativen Folgen. Deutschland mit seiner Vergangenheit als Volksgemeinschaft
ist gegenüber solcher Kritik besonders empfänglich. Die freie
Entfaltung des Einzelnen ist verfassungsrechtlich geschützt. Letztendlich
stehen sich Liberalität und Gemeinschaftssinn gegenüber -
die Frage, ist wieviel Freiheit die Gemeinschaft und wieviel verpflichtete
Gemeinschaft die Freiheit verträgt.