Communitarianism and Its Critics (ISBN 0198279221)

A Book For Both Philosophers and Non-Philosophers.:
I am not a philosopher and I do not have any knowledge of communitarianism prior to reading Bell's work. Still, I find this doctorate thesis which Bell wrote at Oxford a very interesting, engaging and thought-provocative one. Bell traces the history of communitarianism and illustrates the main pillars in this paradigm. In so doing, he also argues that communitarianism is closer to the natural aspirations of human beings and its political implications offer more protection on human freedom than the liberals would otherwise suggest. This is not a typical doctorate thesis that one would normally expect - one that is very dry and has citations appearing almost at the end of every sentences. Rather, Bell presents the thoughts of communitarians and those of its critics (mostly libertarians) in an often lively dialogue format - not indifferent from those in Plato's time. I highly reccommend this book to those who are dissatisfied with liberalism and the current political system it shapes. Bell and his fellow communitarians may offer you important insights to human aspirations. It may also give you inspirations for a new form of participatory democracy which emphasizes more on the common good and overcomes the challenges of individualism.

Is this the future for society?:
Communitarianism occupies an interesting place between liberalism and conservativism. Many of the conclusions that Daniel Bell reaches seemed to be progressive, but not all of the underlying theory is liberal some is a lot closer to conservativism. This is what makes Communitarianism such an intriguing philosophy for many people. The first part of the book is concerned with what people are really like, what people really are. Bell's answer to the question is what people really are is determined by the communities that they belong to. At least some of the communities we belong to determine, what we really are. So for Bell, who we are is really determined by the communities that we belong to. Bell believes that there are some communities that we belong to that are responsible for making us who we are not necessarily that every community we belong to has an effect on us. Moreover, largely, these are not communities that we can choose to belong to or largely that we can choose to get out of, since they are a part of who we are as a person. Moreover, the significance of this is that the communities that we ultimately belong to in some sense has a determination on the kind of life that ultimately, we ought to lead. We live in the communities, we have certain roles in these communities, and ultimately the way we reaffirm life will be successfully determined on how we complete our roles in these communities. Bell is saying that the good life for people is about all the different communities that they belong to and how they deal and them. We belong to a family. We belong to a neighborhood. We belong to religion. We belong to a nation and the good life is going to be how we successfully complete all of the roles in the different communities. The book talks allot about constitutive communities and Bell is talking about communities that we all have grown up in and belong to, such as our nation and the city that we grew up in, our family, our nation. For Bell, what is really important is where you grow up. So we have these communities that we are socialized into, most of our lines are more or less on automatic pilot just acting in ways that we've learned to act in these different communities. Bell thinks it is the learning from our constitutive to communities, which is the determining factor in how we make decisions. Bell seems to imply that one cannot convert from a religion or come out of our community and I think that this raises all kinds of problems with his theory. In addition, if you were raised without any kinds of communities then Bell uses a phrase in his book, which implies that you are going to go through life always having problems. The phrase "you are bitched from the start." There is a lot of Rousseau in communitarianism however, communitarians would say that you can have large nations and belong to large groups and Rousseau did not think that that was the case. Rousseau would also say that the only way change society is through revolution. Rousseau is actually more interested in making society. Rousseau said, you can only do this on a small scale, and people like Bell say no. All of Western civilization can be communitarian. In addition, part of why this is true is that communitarians are interested in smaller communities and not just state or national communities. They are not just talking about the communities that Rousseau would they are also talking about communities such as family and religion. Communitarians do believe that real communities are possible. There is an idea out this book that I want to emphasize. It is the idea that communities share the same values and "shared meanings" the phrase Bell uses, within a community. This then raises the question on, what are the shared meanings or shared values that a community shares? The other thing that falls under the heading of advocacy is that the government should act in ways that makes people take all of their constituent communities seriously. They should encourage people to accept and indorse the constitutive communities that they have. There is not a lot of detail in the book. However, there is a notion that the government should give some type of economic incentive to keep people in their communities and that they do not move away. In other words, change the economic system so that people could stay in their community, and people moving would become less often. The important thing to get out of this book is the opposition between the communitarianism that certain communities we are a part of, we just can't stop being a part of; versus the liberal view that says that we can choose, that we can step back and reflect on different community attachments and cut ourselves off from some of these. Bell would say as for instance that you cannot cut yourself off from your family and all of the psychological effects and a liberal would say yes you could. For Bell, free will really means acting on the moral basis or framework that your community gave you. Those who are actually spurning their communities are the ones that Bell thinks really do not have free will, and are acting in a restricted manner. I read this book for a graduate class in Philosophy. Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, and history.