The Communitarian Critique of Liberalism Author(s): Michael Walzer Reviewed work(s): Source: Political Theory, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Feb., 1990), pp. 6-23 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/191477 . Accessed: 24/08/2012 12:14 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Sage Publications, Inc. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Political Theory. http://www.jstor.org THE COMMUNITARIAN CRITIQUE OF LIBERALISM MICHAEL WALZER Institutefor A dvanced Study 1. Intellectualfashions are notoriously short-lived, very much like fashions in popularmusic, art, or dress.But thereare certainfashions that seem regularlyto reappear. Like pleated trousers or short skirts, they are inconstant featuresof a largerand more steadily prevailing phenomenon - in this case, a certainway of dressing. They have brief but recurrent lives; we knowtheir transienceand excepttheir return. Needless to say,there is no afterlifein whichtrousers will be permanentlypleated or skirtsforever short. Recur- renceis all. Althoughit operatesat a muchhigher level (an infinitelyhigher level?) of culturalsignificance, the communitarian critique of liberalismis likethe pleatingof trousers:transient but certainto return.It is a consistently intermittentfeature of liberalpolitics and social organization.No liberal successwill make it permanently unattractive. At thesame time, no commu- nitariancritique, however penetrating, will everbe anythingmore than an inconstantfeature of liberalism.Someday, perhaps, there will be a larger transformation,like the shiftfrom aristocratic knee-breeches to plebian pants,rendering liberalism and its critics alike irrelevant. But I see nopresent signsof anythinglike that, nor am I surethat we shouldlook forward to it. Fornow, there is muchto be saidfor a recurrentcritique, whose protagonists hope onlyfor small victories,partial incorporations, and whenthey are rebuffedor dismissedor coopted,fade away for a timeonly to return. Communitarianismis usefully contrasted with social democracy,which has succeededin establishinga permanent presence alongside of andsome- A UTHOR'SNOTE: Thisessay wasfirstgiven as theJohnDewey lecture at HarvardLawSchool intSeptember 1989. POLITICAL THEORY,Vol. 18 No. 1, February1990 6-23 ?c 1990 Sage Publications,Inc. 6 Walzer/ COMMUNITARIAN CRITIQUE 7 timesconjoined with liberal politics. Social democracyhas itsown intermit- tentlyfashionable critics, largely anarchist and libertarian in character.Since it sponsorscertain sorts of communalidentification, it is less subjectto communitariancriticism than liberalism is. But it can neverescape such criticismentirely, for liberals and social democrats alike share a commitment to economicgrowth and cope (althoughin differentways) with the deraci- natedsocial formsthat growth produces. Community itself is largelyan ideologicalpresence in modern society; it has no recurrentcritics of its own. It is intermittentlyfashionable only because it no longerexists in anything likefull strength, and itis criticizedonly when it is fashionable. The communitariancritique is nonethelessa powerful one; itwould not recurif it were not capable of engaging our minds and feelings. In thisessay, I wantto investigate the power of its current American versions and then offer a versionof myown -less powerful,perhaps, than the ones withwhich I shall begin,but more available for incorporation within liberal (or social democratic)politics. I do not mean (I hardlyhave the capacity)to lay communitarianismto rest, although I wouldwillingly wait for its reappear- ance in a formmore coherent and incisivethan that in whichit currently appears.The problem with communitarian criticism today - I amnot the first to noticethis - is thatit suggeststwo different, and deeplycontradictory, argumentsagainst liberalism. One of thesearguments is aimedprimarily at liberalpractice, the other primarily at liberaltheory, but they cannot both be right.It is possiblethat each one is partlyright -indeed, I shallinsist on just this partialvalidity -but each of the argumentsis rightin a way that undercutsthe value of the other. [I. The firstargument holds that liberal political theory accurately represents liberalsocial practice. As ifthe Marxist account of ideological reflection were literallytrue, and exemplified here, contemporary Western societies (Amer- ican societyespecially) are takento be the home of radicallyisolated individuals,rational egotists, and existentialagents, men and womenpro- tectedand divided by their inalienable rights. Liberalism tells the truth about theasocial society that liberals create -not, in fact,ex nihiloas theirtheory suggests,but in a struggleagainst traditions and communities and authorities thatare forgotten as soon as theyare escaped, so thatliberal practices seem tohave no history. The struggle itself is rituallycelebrated but rarely reflected on. The membersof liberalsociety share no politicalor religious traditions; 8 POLITICAL THEORY /FEBRUARY 1990 theycan tellonly one story about themselves and that is thestory of ex nihilo creation,which begins in thestate of natureor theoriginal position. Each individualimagines himself absolutely free, unencumbered, and on his own- andenters society, accepting its obligations, only in order to minimize hisrisks. His goal is security,and security is, as Marxwrote, "the assurance of hisegoism." And as he imagineshimself, so he reallyis, thatis, an individualseparated from the community, withdrawn into himself, wholly preoccupiedwith his privateinterest and actingin accordancewith his privateca- price.... The onlybond between men is naturalnecessity, need, and private interest.1 (I haveused masculine pronouns in orderto fit my sentences to Marx's.But itis an interestingquestion, not addressed here, whether this first communi- tariancritique speaks to the experience of women: Are necessity and private interesttheir only bonds with one another?) Thewritings of the young Marx represent one of the early appearances of communitariancriticism, and his argument,first made in the 1840s, is powerfullypresent today. Alastair Maclntyre's description of theincoher- enceof modem intellectual and cultural life and the loss of narrative capacity makesa similarpoint in updated, state-of-the-art, theoretical language.2 But theonly theory that is necessaryto thecommunitarian critique of liberalism is liberalismitself. All thatthe critics have to do, so theysay, is totake liberal theoryseriously. The self-portraitof the individual constituted only by his willfulness,liberated from all connection,without common values, binding ties,customs, or traditions- sans eyes,sans teeth,sans taste,sans every- thing- needonly be evokedin order to be devalued:It is alreadythe concrete absenceof value. Whatcan thereal life of sucha personbe like?Imagine himmaximizing his utilities,and societyis turnedinto a warof all against all, thefamiliar rat race, in which, as Hobbeswrote, there is "no othergoal, norother garland, but being foremost."3 Imagine him enjoying his rights, and societyis reducedto thecoexistence of isolatedselves, for liberal rights, accordingto this first critique, have more to do with "exit" than with "voice."4 Theyare concretely expressed in separation,divorce, withdrawal, solitude, privacy,and politicalapathy. And finally,the very fact that individual life can be describedin thesetwo philosophicallanguages, the languageof utilitiesand the language of rights, is a furthermark, says Maclntyre, of its incoherence:Men and womenin liberalsociety no longerhave access to a singlemoral culture within which they can learnhow theyought to live.' Thereis noconsensus, no public meeting-of-minds, on the nature of the good life,hence the triumph of private caprice, revealed, for example, in Sartrean existentialism,the ideological reflection of everyday capriciousness. Walzer/ COMMUNITARIAN CRITIQUE 9 We liberalsare free to choose, and we havea rightto chose,but we have no criteriato govern our choices except our own wayward understanding of ourwayward interests and desires.And so ourchoices lack thequalities of cohesionand consecutiveness. We can hardlyremember what we didyester- day;we cannotwith any assurance predict what we will do tomorrow.We cannotgive a properaccount of ourselves.We cannotsit together and tell comprehensiblestories, and we recognizeourselves in thestories we read onlywhen these are fragmented narratives, without plots, the literary equiv- alentof atonalmusic and nonrepresentational art. Liberalsociety, seen in thelight of thisfirst communitarian critique, is fragmentationinpractice; and community is the exact opposite, the home of coherence,connection, and narrative capacity. But I am lessconcerned here withthe different accounts that might be providedof this lost Eden than I am withthe repeated insistence on the reality of fragmentation after the loss. This is thecommon theme of all contemporarycommunitarianisms: neoconserva- tive lamentation,neo-Marxist indictment, and neoclassicalor republican hand-wringing.(The need for the prefix