A Whole Greater Than Its Parts?

The word stumbles awkwardly off the tongue, all 16 didactic letters, sounding like a fuzzy echo from a long-ago college lecture. Communitarianism. Was it a late-medieval religious heresy, a 19th century utopian philosophy or an aesthetic theory that predated socialist realism? The correct answer is none of the above. But if a new group of centrist academics -- sociologists, political scientists and law professors -- has its way, the term will soon take a place among the important isms that shape the U.S. political dialogue.

Communitarianism, loosely defined, is a fledgling and provocative effort to temper the excesses of American individualism with a strong assertion of the rights of the larger society. The social tension between the citizen and the community in democratic theory is at least as old as the 18th century differences between the rights-based philosophy of Locke and the majoritarian beliefs of Rousseau. But few voices in modern American intellectual life have challenged the primacy of the unfettered individual. To fill this void is the goal of the communitarians.

The group, under the leadership of prominent sociologist Amitai Etzioni, took public shape just a few weeks ago with the launching of a quarterly journal, Responsive Community. "To the A.C.L.U., libertarians and other radical individualists," Etzioni and his co-editors declared in their statement of purpose, "we say that the rights of individuals must be balanced with responsibilities to the community."

Rights and Responsibilities, the magazine's subtitle, represents shorthand for a public debate that extends far beyond Etzioni and his coterie. William F. Buckley Jr. in his latest book, Gratitude, puts an old-line conservative imprimatur on national service. The February issue of Harper's features a symposium on whether the Constitution needs a "Bill of Duties" to offset the Bill of Rights. The Harper's panel, which included Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon, a co-editor of Responsive Community, came to no firm conclusion. But Glendon conveyed a sense of how communitarians view personal responsibility with this hypothetical constitutional language: "The nurture and education of children are duties primarily incumbent on the parents."

The communitarians did not plan to make their assault on the public consciousness just as the nation began fighting in the Persian Gulf. But a rethinking of the relationship between a citizen and his country is particularly apt at a time when America is waging its first major war in this century with a volunteer army. Encouraged by the suddenly reawakened sense of national community, Etzioni observes that often "war brings out latent things in a society."