Editor's notebook
Baumann, Paul
tributed to machinations by leaders of the Catholic church, accusations that recall the nineteenth-century nativists who saw immigrant Catholics marching to the papal baton. An Afri-...
...That envy accounts for much of communitarianism's appeal...
...After all, when they had kings and corrupt nobles, we had idence that the Democratic party is interested in moral consensus Jefferson, Adams, and Tom Paine...
...shared moral sentiments" on the horizon...
...Thus, what the polling data tell us about citizen sup- There are various ways, in addition to tranquilizport for the rights of homosexuals needs to be tempered by the ers, of coping with the fissiparous and contingent recognition that the moral views of most Americans are not like- nature of modern life...
...We are all liberals now, and that means we see these questions...
...If abortion is any indication, compro- At the beginning of the 1992 presidential campaign, we seemed mise is viewed as tantamount to betrayal...
...Other moderated the city's diversity of cultures, moral views, and life politicians, civic leaders, and bureaucrats joined in...
...In and responsibilities, and embraces traditional mediating instiacademia, PC has proved a powerful vehicle through which mi- tutions such as the family, churches, and neighborhoods in an norities enforce their claims upon the majority...
...Still, there may be some government where opposing views must be openly and honestly lessons in this for normal America...
...On the most neuralgic to have lost that feeling of exceptionalism...
...Solving problems requires a more explicit and binding moral Communitarianism's hope for mediating institutions seems commitment-a firmer institutional identity if you will-than forlorn as well...
...But some homosexuals want more than tol- orable working life...
...Galston, for our role in world history that the late hisexample, claims that such alchemy is evident in the civil rights torian Richard Hofstadter was once moved and environmental movements...
...We were glad so cultural issues, the pursuit of group self-interest remains the many other countries were turning to democracy, but sensed paradigm...
...When they had Hitler and on issues such as abortion, crime, welfare, feminism, homo- Stalin, we had Roosevelt and Truman...
...a great liberation, at least for those who can take advantage of If we are serious about pluralism, we may have to live with such freedoms...
...Chancellor Fernandez treated opposition to the Rainbow the genuine strength of the pluralism by which New Yorkers Curriculum as a species of bigotry...
...In a New York Times op-ed piece, Richard Vigilante deny a public voice to those who oppose treating heterosexual argues, "Rather than asking us to live together in peace despite and homosexual relationships as moral equivalents...
...No parents those on the liberal end of the spectrum, includwho honestly hold such a belief could responsibly allow their ing Commonweal, look to communitarianism as children to sit in a class where such approval is promoted...
...As a result our deepest disagreements, enforced diversity asks us to sur- of the showdown with District 24's board, what had been treatrender those disagreements, to pretend that our deepest beliefs ed as a fracas over educational policy making is gradually redo not matter and to shed them for a government-enforced least vealing itself as a species of political strong-arming...
...As campaign speeches and bility...
...terest-group liberalism offers a "`third' way of conceiving gov- Clinton has been something of a genius in bringing togethernment and policy...
...Philosophically many of ly to regard homosexual relationships with favor...
...The media's styles...
...No less than classic market capitalism, interest-group poliideas and rhetoric ("New Covenant," etc...
...In fact, the religious beliefs of most Americans still hold that homosexual acts are wrong...
...Communitarians argue that we can achieve a common good W e Americans have such a heroic view of without sacrificing essential liberal prerogatives...
...Lesson 3. Political correctness is a fatal barrier to open Communitarianism emphasizes the reciprocal nature of rights and honest debate about such moral disagreements...
...As PAUL BAUMANN David Carlin writes in this issue, an "institutional identity" is archaic in a mobile and achieving society such as ours...
...borhoods, are hardly the crucibles of identity they were even I hope Clinton proves me wrong and that Galston is right on forty years ago...
...sexual rights, or race...
...Church officials have testified against the curriculum, but Mary Cummins, the president of District 24's board, for better or worse, marches to her own drummer...
...Her opposition galvanized other school boards and parents, many of whom are not Catholic, and many of whom are deeply troubled about what their children will be taught in schools on the subject of homosexuality...
...I have strong sympathy for the communitarian stood will only continue to erode the idea of moral consensus...
...I hope he's right, but I wonder...
...This has proved alistic appraisal of the fractious conditions we face...
...increasingly absolutist notions of the autonomous self...
...Families and churches, not to mention neigh- liberalism seems capable of tolerating...
...But politically and socially it means that susa public language that has few words for solidarity and perhaps taining any community of obligation or any organizational efeven fewer about the common good...
...The civil rights and en- inaugural addresses regularly remind us, we are a "shining city vironmental agendas are problematic, to say the least...
...And exactly on the hill," a "beacon of liberty," an experiment and an exwhat are our "shared moral sentiments" about the family...
...Galston thinks the tics holds that the whole is best served by the minimally recommunitarian critique of Reaganism and of rights-based, in- strained ambitions of its competing parts...
...That's a recipe for polit- fort over time is very difficult, for that requires making choices, ical frustration, but ironically we probably have little choice in not just praising choice...
...tributed to machinations by leaders of the Catholic church, accusations that recall the nineteenth-century nativists who saw immigrant Catholics marching to the papal baton...
...agenda, and some version of it is doubtless the best hope for And ultimately, I don't see how communitarianism can overthe Democratic party...
...Homosexuals want gay bashing to stop, they want crimination against gays and of nurturing tolerance in a city discrimination in jobs and housing to end, and most Americans where a tradition of "live and let live" has had a long and honagree with them...
...Live and let live" has been debate...
...The Gay and Lesbian Teachers' Association CLINTON SOUNDS GOOD lobbied the curriculum office to include materials on gay rela- BUT NOW A WORD FROM SCROOGE tionships...
...Where choice is the first principle of social and po- ing and securing an always precarious loyalty-as Clinton's litical organization, moral inconclusiveness is the admission representational cabinet suggests-not solving problems...
...aggrieved group (sometimes justifiably aggrieved), even when The ins and outs of this continuing saga are marked by all those particular views may be wrong or wrong-headed...
...But at the moment I just don't see many ourselves as free to choose even our most basic associations...
...Japan and Germany were dication of how Democrats will govern, dividing up the pie re- working better than the United States, so we kept telling ourCommonweal 15 January 1993: 5...
...jority to seem to be intolerant of views advanced by a small but In the Chronicle of Higher Education (December 2, 1992) 4: 15 January 1993 Commonweal the political philosopher William A. Galston wrote enthusias- mains a much greater passion than either sharing or expanding tically of President-elect Bill Clinton's use of communitarian it...
...price...
...I fear that the logic of liberalism as popularly undersimplified...
...standably envied in a society where too many people experience "mobility" as the fall beyond institutional protections of any kind...
...Coming on the heels of a brutal battle over AIDS education Lesson 2. Don't introduce moral conflicts into the class- and condom distribution in the high schools last year, this year's room when adults themselves are deeply and honestly con- struggle has subverted the justifiable goal of reducing disflicted...
...Where WHAT THE ELECTION HATH WROUGHT the rub comes is in the ineffectuality of liberal institutions such as public schools or welfare agencies...
...Our liberal faith and sense of self compelling idea of the common good is finally sentimental- demand that all social relations, from marriage to religion, be more a symptom of what we have undoubtedly lost than a re- freely chosen and freely terminated if so desired...
...If Clinton's cabinet appointment process is any in- democracy was decaying at home...
...Mayor David Dinkins gave have long survived, just as a spirit of agreeing to disagree has whole-hearted support to the curriculum and Fernandez...
...What of the Byzantine maneuvering the rest of the country expects may seem to work in academia, however, is fatal in a representative from New Yorkers and their politics...
...common denominator of values" (December 12, 1992...
...The social and moral strength of traditional institutions-their ability to sustain re- SKEPTICISM SOFTENS lationships, solve problems, and care for their own-is under- CAN AMERICANS LOVE POLITICS AGAIN...
...In the end, I susThe idea that a church or any other organization might exert pect that we come to share moral sentiments when we share insome self-evident moral claim on anyone is hard to square with stitutional commitments, and not the other way round...
...power of this ingenious tactic lies in the unwillingness of a ma- It's modern liberalism's somewhat dowdy and sensible cousin...
...er his party, but it remains to be seen whether a "third way" This is a complex argument and it can be too easily over- exists...
...Yet I suspect that communitarianism's come the problem of voluntary association inherent in the broadhope of marrying a liberal sense of self-determination with some er liberal vision it embraces...
...Gay-rights groups, emboldened by the election of openly gay and lesbian candidates in New York and around the country AN EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK but vulnerable because of political setbacks elsewhere, view the gay curriculum as a measure of acceptance" (New York Times, December 15, 1992...
...The moral effort to forge a sense of moral cohesion and political momentum...
...An African-American district in Queens and a Hispanic one in the Bronx have also rejected the curriculum, and none of the remaining districts has accepted it without substantial revisions...
...Now we are seeing a new kind of pluralism, "enforced own biases served until recently to obscure the issues and to diversity...
...He hopes more dramatic po- to comment that ours was the only counlitical progress based "on widely shared moral sentiments" lies try which saw itself as starting with perahead in the areas of the family, work, and citizen responsi- fection and aspiring to progress...
...erance...
...Those who want such relationships to be regarded as the equivalent of heterosexual marriages should know that most Americans don't agree with them...
...When democracy needs refreshment, it turns to America Aside from Clinton's skillful use of rhetoric, I see little ev- first...
...Our political energies go into attractthe matter...
...considered...
...a way of ameliorating the distortions of liberal individualism...
...In the case of the "Rainbow Curriculum," the views Lesson 1. "Love me, love my lifestyle" cannot be the foun- of parents, school board members, and probably a majority of dation for the tolerance, respect, and civil rights that gays New Yorkers were denied legitimacy by being ruled out of the and lesbians want and deserve...
...emplar...
Vol. 120 • January 1993 • No. 1
