Communitarian Letter #34
Question
Love the Bomb?
Too Many Lawsuits? My Foot
Is Obama Punting on Human Rights?
Measures of Economic Health in France
Communitarian Governance in Britain
Meetup.com and Communities
The Veil and Democracy
Good Reads
Check It Out
Upcoming Events
Endorsements
Please email your comments, suggestions, communitarian news, and indications of support to .
Question:
In a recent article in The New Yorker, Atul Gawande states, “Human beings are social creatures. We are social not just in the trivial sense that we like company, and not just in the obvious sense that we each depend on others. We are social in a more elemental way: simply to exist as a normal human being requires interaction with other people.” After a discussion of the debilitating mental effects of isolation, he posits the question: Does long-term solitary confinement in prison constitute torture?
What say you?
Please email your thoughts to ss otherwise indicated, we assume we are free to post your response.
Love the Bomb?
Some years back I wrote an essay for Time magazine. When I met with the editor, he told me that he wanted "a forehead slapping piece." When I meekly replied that I did not know what this meant, he explained that he wanted the "reader to exclaim 'Wow, why did I not think about that?!'" The editor was much less keen to find out whether the idea could be well supported. All this came to mind when I read an article in a recent issue of Newsweek by a journalist, one Jonathan Tepperman. Time would have loved his essay.
Mr. Tepperman announced that we are all dead wrong: "Nuclear weapons may not, in fact, make the world more dangerous." Wait, wait, Mr. Tepperman is just warming up. "The bomb may actually make us safer," he claims. Mr. Tepperman finds that more nuclear-armed states are not dangerous and, in effect, are "agents of peace."
The Newsweek journalist modestly refers to this revelation as "the truth" and claims that his conclusion is based on a "growing and compelling body of research." Given that I have been trying to keep up with the field ever since I wrote two books about nukes in the mid-sixties, he surely got my attention…
To read the rest, go here.
Too Many Lawsuits? My Foot
Republicans seek to limit medical malpractice lawsuits. The AMA claims that million-dollar jury awards increase the cost of health care. Actually, for every patient who sues, there are several who should but don't.
A Harvard study that examined the records of 30,000 patients in New York discovered that 280 contained "strong or certain evidence of negligence." Extrapolated statewide, this equaled 13,000 cases of negligence in a single year. The study also found that only one out of every eight patients who had a valid medical malpractice claim actually filed a suit. The negligence included the surgical removal of the wrong leg or kidney, brain damage to newborns, and improper matching of donor and recipient…
To read the rest, go here.
Is Obama Punting on Human Rights?
First things first. As long as the United States is unable to provide basic security to Americans, the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, the Congo, and many others--it should not pursue higher goals. Dead people do not benefit from free speech, privacy, the right to vote nor from other rights. Libya did well when it stopped supporting terrorism, gave up its WMD, and did not commit genocide. Now, we can talk to them about democracy. (For more discussion see Security First, Yale 2007).
Originally posted by Amitai Etzioni, here.
Measures of Economic Health in France
President Sarkozy of France is broadening how his country measures economic well-being. Instead of simply measuring indicators like the gross domestic product, France will now also take into account factors such as vacation time, health care, and family relationships. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who participated in the commission organized by Sarkozy to look into new measures, commented that “What we measure affects what we do. If we have the wrong measures, we will strive for the wrong things.”
Original article in the Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2009.
Communitarian Governance in Britain
In “The Governance of Britain,” a 2007 report presented to the British Parliament by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, the British government lays out its vision and proposals for constitutional renewal. The proposals include the following communitarian ideas:
On empowering local communities
- “The transfer of assets to community control creates a catalyst for active citizenship, as people come forward to run and direct a local facility or service.”
- “To ensure that citizens have the opportunity to express their needs and concerns to those who are providing public services…the Government is placing on local authorities in England to consult and involve local people in the major decisions which affect them. This means that local authorities must take the views of their communities into account and will make services more responsive to their needs.”
On citizenship and national identity
- “…there is common ground between British citizens, and many cultural traits and traditions that we can all [recognize] as distinctively British. The Government believes that a clearer definition of citizenship would give people a better sense of their British identity in a globalised world. British citizenship – and the rights and responsibilities that accompany it – needs to be valued and meaningful, not only for recent arrivals looking to become British but also for young British people themselves.”
On rights and responsibility
- “At the heart of British citizenship is the idea of a society based on laws which are made in a way that reflects the rights of citizens regardless of ethnicity, gender, class or religion. Alongside this sits the right to participate, in some way, in their making…the idea that there is an appropriate balance to be drawn between the individual’s right to freedom and the collective good of all and that, in the final analysis, the Government is accountable for its actions to the will of the people…”
- “The Human Rights Act provides a contemporary set of common values to which all our communities can subscribe. The rights and freedoms set out in the Act…enunciate principles of decency, respect, dignity of the individual and the balance of rights and responsibilities that are now common to most of the democratic world. They represent protection of the individual from the state by guaranteeing our basic freedoms… At the same time most of the individual rights…are balanced with the need to protect the rights of others and the common good.”
To read the report in full, go here.
Meetup.com and Communities
In a recent New York Times article, Scott Heiferman, C.E.O. of Meetup, discusses how he came to create the website, an online tool with a mission to “to revitalize local community and help people around the world self-organize.” He began thinking about community after the September 11th attacks, and wanted to create a place where people could “get together and talk about what’s important to them.” Since its creation, people have organized more than 200,000 monthly Meetups in over 100 countries.
Original article in the New York Times, September 6, 2009.
The Veil and Democracy
Marnia Lazreg, a professor of sociology at City University of New York, does not believe that Muslim women should wear the veil. In fact, she has written a book about it, Questioning the Veil: Open Letters to Muslim Women. However, she, like us, does not believe that democratic government should impose dress codes by law. Her book is meant to persuade women to make one choice over another, and is a valuable part of an open dialogue.
Good Reads
Tim Luther, Professor of Political Science at CaliforniaBaptistUniversity, has published Hegel's Critique of Modernity: Reconciling Individual Freedom and the Community (Lexington Books, 2009), an outstanding, important, and timely book.
Steven V. Roberts, journalist and Shapiro Professorof Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University, has writtenFrom Every End of This Earth: 13 Families and the New Lives They Made In America (HarperCollins, 2009). The book follows the stories of thirteen immigrant families and takes a look into immigration in America today.
Amitai Etzioni’s article “The Capture Theory of Regulations – Revisited” was published in the July/August 2009 issue of Society. His book New Common Ground: A New America, a New Worldwas published by Potomac Books.
Check It Out
Go here to watch a video of Liam Byrne,British Chief Secretary to the Treasury, discussing the topic “Do People Need Communities Anymore?”
Visit the Communitarian Network’s YouTube channel, here, to see recently uploaded videos.
Sarah Lawhead of Oklahoma City started the Facebook Group “Oklahoma Communitarians.” To join, go here.
Upcoming Events
Tenth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities and Nations
Queen's University Belfast
Northern Ireland
19-21 July 2010
The Diversity Conference brings together scholarly, government and practice-based participants with an interest in the issues of diversity and community. The Conference examines the concept of diversity as a positive aspect of a global world and globalized society. The Conference will seek to explore the full range of what diversity means and explore modes of diversity in real-life situations of living together in community. The Conference supports a move away from simple affirmations that 'diversity is good' to a much more nuanced account of the effects and uses of diversity on differently situated communities in the context of our current epoch of globalization.
Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics’ Annual Meeting
Philadelphia, USA
2010, dates to be announced
Founded in 1989, the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) is an international, inter-disciplinary organization with members in over 50 countries on five continents.
The purpose of SASE is
- to advance the understanding of economic behavior across a broad range of academic disciplines;
- to support the intellectual exploration of economic behavior and its policy implications within the context of societal, institutional, historical, philosophical, psychological, and ethical factors; and
- to balance inductive and deductive approaches to the study of economic behavior at both micro and macro levels of analysis.
The academic disciplines represented in SASE include economics, sociology, political science, management, psychology, law, history, and philosophy. The membership of SASE also includes business people and policy makers in government and international organizations.
To participate in the Communitarianism section, please contact José A Ruiz San Román at
Endorsements
The Responsive Communitarian Platform can be found here. We invite all people who agree to endorse it by sending an email to with the subject “endorse RCP.”
The Diversity Within Unity Platform is here. We invite all people who agree to endorse it by sending an email to with the subject “endorse DWU.”
We welcome your thoughts, feedback, and communitarian news. Send them to .
Edited by Radhika Bhat
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