COMMUNITARIANISM SOLVENCY 68

EXTENSIONS

AMERICANS LIKE COMMUNITARIANISM — AMERICANS VALUE PRIVACY, BUT ALSO FEEL IT ENTAILS OBLIGATIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

BOB EVANS, editor, InformationWeek, February 28, 2000 SECTION: Behind The News, Pg. 150, TITLE: Online Privacy: Protect It Or Lose It -- Businesses Must Own Up To Their Obligations Concerning Online Privacy-Or Pay The Price // acs-EE2001

Privacy played no small part in last year's impeachment shenanigans, too. We heard variations on the theme ranging from "everybody does it" to "nobody got hurt"-and all that hypocrisy rang as hollow as the nonsense that the Republicans attempted to spew in the early 1970s. We Americans tend to have incredibly diverse views on many things, but we do concur just about unanimously on some fundamentals. For instance, we take our right to be left alone very seriously, but we also feel very strongly that the right to privacy carries obligations and responsibilities that can't be taken lightly. It's too important, too precious to be misused and violated.

COMMUNITARIAN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY SOCIETY DOES NOT BECOME A DANGEROUS MERITOCRACY

PHILIP SELZNICK, professor emeritus of law and sociology at the School of Law, University of California at Berkeley, 1996; Social Justice: A Communitarian Perspective, The Responsive Community, Volume 6, Issue 4, Fall 1996, http://www.gwu.edu/~icps/selznick.html // acs-EE2001

Equal opportunity invites meritocracy, in which advancement depends wholly on ability and achievement. But meritocracy can undermine community. When everyone has the same chance to succeed, no one can take refuge behind oppression and discrimination. No one can save self-esteem by claiming lack of opportunity. If a person’s worth is bound up with achievement it is easy to suppose that high achievers are inherently more worthy than others.

We must conclude, therefore, that a society committed to moral equality needs to offer something more than the opportunity to seek reward through merit. It must find ways of upholding the ultimate worth of persons without regard to differences of talent, effort, or character. To truly embody a communitarian vision, the principle of equal opportunity must be embedded in a larger vision of social justice.

COMMUNITARIANISM CALLS FOR THE CRITICISM OF HATE GROUPS BY THE COMMUNITY OF COMMUNITIES

INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITARIAN POLICY STUDIES, 2000; The Communitarian Platform,

http://www.communitariannetwork.org/platformtext.htm // acs-EE2001

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.