The Responsive Community: A Communitarian Perspective Author(s): Amitai Etzioni Source:
American Sociological Review
, Feb., 1996, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Feb., 1996), pp. 1-11 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2096403
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THE RESPONSIVE COMMUNITY:
A COMMUNITARIAN PERSPECTIVE*
1995 Presidential Address
Amitai Etzioni
George Washington University
Authentic communities, ones that are responsive to the "true needs" of all
community members, reflect the appropriate balance of order and autonomy. The traditional contradiction between order and autonomy can be minimized
by responsiveness that considers the community's historical position. When centripetal forces pull too much toward order, an emphasis must be placed
on autonomy. When centrifugal forces pull too much toward autonomy, order
must be given greater weight. The relationship between centripetal and cen-
trifugal forces is peculiar Like a symbiotic relationship, the forces enhance
each other However, at a point where one force gains undue supremacy over the other, they become antagonistic. This relationship, labeled inverting sym-
biosis, informs communitarian analysis of the current social conditions and therefore must be applied within context. As communities develop particu- laristic identities, boundaries between members and nonmembers evolve. To
reduce the potential for conflict, layered loyalties (allegiances to multiple
communities) must be fostered. Ultimately, an overarching "community of
communities" must develop to respond to the needs of constituent communi-
ties as those communities are responsive to their constituent members.
M y thesis is that sociology can pro-
vide a compelling answer to an age-
old problem, an exit from an entrapping di-
lemma: how to maintain both social order
and personal autonomy in one and the same society; in other words, how to construct a
society that protects its members from one
another-from civil war to violent crime-
and does so without oppressing them.1 This
dilemma, which in one form or another has
occupied social philosophers and sociolo- gists from the first days of the discipline, still
confronts contemporary societies, from Rus- sia to Iran to the United States.
The quest for such a peaceful society is sig-
nificant. Yet major social thinkers have ar-
gued that the concept is too narrowly framed.
Simply seeking to prevent hostilities will not guarantee social justice to members of the so-
ciety, other than indirectly, when it is argued
that the absence of justice leads to violence.
And, aiming at peace alone will not reveal the ways a society can reduce alienation or
enable its members to grow as persons with-
out becoming highly dependent on the state. Only a community that is responsive to the
"true needs" of all its members, both in the substance of its core/shared values and in its social formation, can minimize the penalties
of order and the dangers of autonomy. I refer
to such a community as an authentic commu-
nity and to all others as partial or distorted
communities. While a fully authentic com-
munity might well be a utopian vision, it is a
vision that can guide the personal and col-
lective efforts of social actors and one that
can be approximated.
Responsiveness is the cardinal feature of
authentic communities. If the values the
* I am indebted to William J. Goode for exten-
sive comments, suggestions, and criticisms of a
previous draft. I also benefited from comments by
Alan Wolfe, William D'Antonio, David Sciulli,
and Daniel A. Bell. Much thanks is due to David E. Carney for research assistance and to Laura
Brodbeck for editorial suggestions.
1 The concepts of order and autonomy have
parallels in the concepts of civility and piety as
examined by Selznick in The Moral Common-
wealth (1994:387-427).
American Sociological Review, 1996, Vol. 61 (February: 1-11) 1
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AMRCANSOCOLOGCALREVEW
community fosters and the form of its struc-
ture (allocation of assets, application of
power, shapes of institutions, and mecha-
nisms of socialization) do not reflect its
members' needs, or reflect only the needs of
some, the community's order will be ipso
facto imposed rather than truly supported.
And in the long run, imposed order is un-
stable (indeed ultimately disorderly) and
threatens the autonomy of individual mem-
bers and subgroups. Thus far, then, I assume that (1) there is a
strong measure of built-in contradiction be-
tween the common good and the needs of
community members; (2) as the community's
responsiveness is enhanced, the scope of this
fundamental contradiction can be signifi-
cantly reduced (but not eliminated); and (3)
the ways a community can be made more re-
sponsive can be specified.
I draw on previously advanced ideas
strictly as markers to indicate the intellectual
place of my presentation and, more gener-
ally, of communitarian thinking. I stress that
when I refer to Talcott Parsons, Sigmund
Freud, or Karl Marx, I make no attempt to
summarize their positions, let alone to do
justice to the rich complexity of their theo-
ries; I reference their theories merely to place
the discussion in a context.
RESPONSIVE COMMUNITIES:
BEYOND PARSONS, MARX,
AND FREUD
Sociological theories vary greatly in their as- sumptions as to how difficult it is to provide order and maintain autonomy for community
members. Parsons's ideas are at the optimis- tic side of a continuum. He sees societies as having a set of collective needs and a core of
shared values. These values are internalized
through socialization, so society members
voluntarily seek to accomplish what the so- -ciety needs. Social control mops up recalci- trant deviants. Wrong (1961) has captured
this implied notion of the pliability of human
nature (also see Wrong 1994).
The underlying idea is that one can bring
members of a community to truly affirm their
societal formation. Little attempt is made to
assess the particular societal regime or to ex-
amine whether the society could or should adapt to the members, at least to some ex- tent. For example, according to this Par-
sonian view, a traditional society that expects
all its members to marry and labels women
who do not do so in derogatory terms, such
as "spinsters," would not be expected to
change to accommodate the needs of women
who do not seek marriage.
Marx approaches the issue rather differ-
ently; surprisingly, he largely defines away
the dilemma. Within history, Marx views the notion of a social order that serves all mem-
bers of a society as a false conception ad-
vanced by one class of members to hold the
others at bay. There is no one society. Exist-
ing class consciousness and organization do
not reflect the objective needs of the
people" as a whole; at best they reflect the
needs of the oppressors. In short, in the terms
I use here, there is no one order into which
society members fit or that can be modified to meet members' needs part of the time. At
the "end of history," though, this basic con-
tradiction will be resolved, and the society and its members will live in basic harmony.2
Marx's prescription, hence, advances con-
flict, to hurry society to the end of history.
Freud approaches the order/autonomy di- lemma with much less optimism, and at the
same time he shows greater respect for these
two cardinal elements of the human condi-
tion. Disregarding differences among his
various writings and conflicting interpreta-
tions, he argues that while order (civiliza-
tion) can be attained, such an order exacts
considerable costs from the individual.
Moreover, individuals can only be partially
socialized; the veneer of civilization is thin
and troubled. Although Freud moves us for- ward by not defining away the problem of order and autonomy, he too fails to seriously entertain the possibility of recasting society to reduce the distance between the societal
needs for order, the claims on individuals that such order poses, and the needs of the
members of the society.
A review of sociological evidence-the re-
cent collapse of communist regimes, the high
level of alienation in capitalist countries, the
disaffection and restlessness in social demo-
cratic societies, the rise of religious funda- 2 Marx does see the possibility for some lim-
ited individual antagonism even in a communist
society (Marx and Engels 1970:183).
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THE RESPONSIVE COMMUNTY A COMMUNTARIAN PERSPECTIVE
mentalism in Islamic nations-strongly indi- cates that there are indeed limits to the ex-
tent to which members of a society can be
fully socialized. From a normative view-
point, I find this conclusion rather reassur-
ing. If people could be successfully social-
ized, using a Soviet, Madison Avenue, or
some other propaganda technique, one could
make slaves sing with joy in their galleys or teach the oppressed to cheer their oppressors.
This hardly seems a commendable world.
I put forth, then, that there is a fundamen-
tal contradiction between the society's need for order and the individual's quests for au-
tonomy. I use the term autonomy rather than
liberty because much more than individual
rights is involved-including opportunities to follow one's own subculture, for indi-
vidual self-expression Maslow-style, and for creativity-all of which are diminished when
the pressure to maintain order is unduly high. I maintain that this fundamental contradic- tion can be reduced by means other than fit-
ting people into social roles-namely, by ren-
dering the social order more responsive to
the members'true needs.
I digress briefly here to explain "true" ver-
sus "false" needs. One can empirically deter-
mine whether the wants a people express re-
flect their true nature or have been falsely
implanted. One indication is the direction
that human behavior moves when mecha-
nisms of socialization and social control
slacken: Does a behavior persist or decrease?
For example, the true need for many
women to work outside the home is sup-
ported by the observation that women seek
to work even when they are well-off and are
not under economic pressure. On the other
hand, the fact that rich people do not line up
to work on assembly lines tells us volumes
about the compatibility of assembly-line jobs
with true human needs (Etzioni 1968a,
1968b). Another indication of true needs is
that, generally, people's behavior reveals
what they truly believe. The fact that practi-
cally all smokers try strenuously to stop
smoking suggests that they are addicted to cigarettes and do not truly prefer to smoke
(Goodin 1991; Wolfe 1991).
To return to my main argument, I choose my words carefully: I suggest that a society
can be made "more responsive" rather than
fully responsive, because evidence strongly
suggests that the built-in contradictions can
be significantly reduced but not eliminated.
Even the Israeli kibbutzim, communal settle-
ments, which in their heyday, were highly re-
sponsive, have been unable to bring their so-
cial formation and their members' needs into
full harmony. Again, behavior offers evi-
dence: For every person who stayed in a kib- butz, several left, and frequently there have
been internal pressures to dismember many
kibbutz institutions. In short, I conclude that while the order/autonomy contradiction built
into the human condition can be eased by
enhancing responsiveness (not merely
through more socialization and social con-
trol), it cannot be eliminated.
THE PROCESSES OF
RESPONSIVENESS
Libertarians,3 whose influence has been ris- ing in social science, law, philosophy, and
society over the last two decades, take a
highly voluntaristic and individualistic ap-
proach to both the basic issue of reconciling the order/autonomy dilemma and to finding
ways to reduce the built-in contradiction.
Expressions of libertarian thinking are found
in the Chicago School, especially in the
works of Richard Epstein, Richard Posner,
and Terry Eastland; it is reflected in the
works of rational-choice sociologists; and it
has roots in the earlier texts of Robert
Nozick, Ronald Dworkin, and John Rawls,
although the latter two have moved toward a
partial recognition of some elements of
communitarian thinking.
The libertarian perspective, put succinctly,
begins with the assumption that individual
agents are fully formed and their value pref-
erences are in place prior to and outside of
any society. It ignores robust social scientific 3 The terms "liberals," "classical liberals,"
"contemporary liberals," and "libertarians" have
all been used to characterize the critics of corn- munitarians. These labels are confusing; for in-
stance, many readers do not realize that the la-
bels are not confined to or even necessarily in-
clusive of those who are called liberals in typical
daily parlance. Most importantly, because the de-
fining element of the position is the championing
of the individual, "libertarian" seems both the less obfuscating term and the one that is substantively
most appropriate.
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