What is Communitarianism?

• Communitarianism is a contemporary school in Western political theory aiming to restore the bond between individual and society.

• It emphasizes that individuals owe their existence and personality to society and are not isolated units.

• Individuals are threads in the social fabric, with their individual good linked to the common good.

• Individuals can achieve their good only by pursuing the common good, not just self-interest.

• Unlike liberalism, which stresses individual rights, communitarianism focuses on duties and obligations.

• Communitarianism arose as a criticism of liberalism’s view on human happiness.

• Liberals believed happiness comes from pursuing individual self-interest and the common good is aggregate of individual goods.

• This liberal view worked in early market society (late 18th to early 19th century) but was challenged later.

• In late 19th and early 20th centuries, socialists challenged liberals, viewing society as a site of conflict between ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.

• Socialists sought to resolve conflicts via force (e.g., dictatorship of the proletariat) which suppressed individual freedom and was hostile to happiness.

• Communitarianism, emerging in the late 20th century, proposes a way to human happiness based on individuals’ moral sense.

• Modern individuals have better living conditions but lack emotional satisfaction and security, leading to loneliness and lack of belonging.

• Prosperity can cause ‘normlessness’, loss of life purpose, cheating, frustration in love, drug abuse, and suicide.

• This can be prevented by restoring commitment to social values and inculcating time-honored virtues.

• Sociologically, the sense of community is characteristic of primitive communities composed of kinship groups where community is natural.

• Philosophically, communitarianism attempts to transfer this sense of community from primitive to modern urban societies.

• Modern urban societies are composed of diverse racial, religious, linguistic, cultural, and occupational groups without natural community bonds.

• Primitive communities are organized around common pursuits of life, whereas modern societies are unified by interdependence of diverse interests.

• In primitive communities, common bonds are spontaneous; in modern society, they must be created deliberately and artificially.

• The goal of communitarianism is to inculcate a sense of community deliberately in modern society.