One for All

...His illustrations range from plumbing to philosophy...

...The reason is not only (and in most cases not primarily) the echo of old ways, to which Heclo is impressively attentive...

...namely, the neglect or abuse of our institutions...

...This is important practically, not just theoretically, because it means that how one might shore up institutions differs in different cases...

...I wonder if, by looking so much at contemporary individualism’s excesses, Heclo has not underestimated our original Enlightenment individualism, and its resources for directing us toward common goods...

...As examples of those who think institutionally, Heclo names, among others, Enron and WorldCom whistleblowers, military offi cials who complained about Abu Ghraib or fought to have it investigated honestly, George Washington, James Madison (as opposed to Thomas Jefferson), and Colin Powell...

...One diffi culty is that Heclo does not differentiate types and varieties of institutions...

...Heclo’s goal is to counteract these ills by defending the possibility of “thinking institutionally...

...One answer is to see that individualism based on equal rights is not only a matter of restricted self-interest, but also involves its own strength of character...

...Were academic social scientists to glance at it, it might open their reptilian squints...

...Heclo believes that George Washington thinks institutionally when he serves the cause of “republican liberty...

...In other cases it is not, as love of one’s own family differs from commitment to marriage or family generally...

...Heclo sees much of this, of course, and he is concerned about institutions’ penchant for stultifi cation...

...Heclo patiently shows how the rational choice account of the birth and utility of institutions misses this inwardness...

...Preserving the possibilities of radical questioning and of equality in individual rights is no easier (perhaps, in the course of time, more diffi cult) than advancing authoritative institutional perspectives, and is no less (indeed, perhaps, more) important...

...How, then, can one retain some direction to institutions given this fact, which stems from rights and freedoms one would not want diminished...

...What makes them so...

...One reason we abuse and do not care for our institutions is that they have failed us...

...Heclo too much absorbs these passions into commitment to institutions, many of which are more abstract than concrete, however appreciative our stance toward them...

...Although one might imagine that Heclo has in mind only broad and compelling institutions— church, country, family—he begins by contrasting the Barry Bondses of the world who use the game only to advance themselves with the Cal Ripkens and Ryne Sandbergs who play the game the right way and modestly respect baseball’s traditions and forebears...

...Indeed, there is an odd absence of discussion of character here...

...But they do not grasp what it is like to think within an institution, to absorb, see, and react within its point of view...

...Despite its considerable virtues, Heclo’s argument is limited and, in certain ways, misleading...

...It fi ts together with much respect for institutions, yet is portable in a way that respect in depth for particular institutions is not...

...As with critical thinking, social science stops short where the important problems of what is worth choosing, and why powerful men sometimes limit the aggrandizement open to them and instead serve common goods, begin...

...For some to signifi cant degree, and for almost all to some degree, the “self ” and its interests expand...

...Moreover, they do not obviate the need for refl ection on what is genuinely good, or altogether displace the need for reverence, including reverence for some institutions...

...Heclo further enhances his account by discussing the source of our antiinstitutionalism...

...He recognizes that one might say that slavery and the Third Reich look suspiciously like the institutions that he favors, with their long time horizons, apparent self-sacrifi ce, affective stance, and seeming respect in depth...

...He means by this “living out” the “appreciative stance” that characterizes someone who takes “the internal point of view of institutional values...

...By sometimes identifying serving higher purposes with having an institutional point of view, and by absorbing the particular and passionate within the institutional, Heclo risks misjudging (in the conservative direction) the proper combination of radical and authoritative that we must attempt to achieve...

...Conservatives and community-minded liberals will recognize that Heclo brings to light a phenomenon that causes many of their complaints...

...We attend churches and synagogues...

...Yet they go a long way toward alleviating many of our institutional ills without requiring a degree of respect in depth that is at odds with our voluntarism...

...The same selfi sh, individualistic, nonevaluative point of view that limits social science’s understanding and makes “critical thinking” pointless or harmful opposes our ordinary ability to think institutionally...

...This “respect-in-depth” involves looking to its long-term health, as a classic steward presides over the property with which he is entrusted...

...Of course, they are evil...

...This “wisdom . . . is not obscure or inaccessible to the common man,” he writes...

...Their stance toward the principles of natural rights is inherently radical and universal...

...Heclo’s frequent invocation of the need for (or presence of) “commitment” to institutions sounds too much like the artistic creation of self that he decries...

...We forget that freedom must be formed and elevated if it is to be suffi ciently worthwhile...

...If most baseball players were decent, it would hardly matter that almost none shared a quasi-mysticism about The Game...

...Good character and judgment that remain allied with individual interest are not enough to secure attention to common forms, for one also needs regulation, and punishment of rulebreakers...

...It is not easy to achieve, yet is still the norm in our country, despite our concerns...

...Heclo presents a disturbingly instructive fi ve-page chart of business and political scandals from 1958-1999, and points to the continuing scandals in the years since, and to failings in churches, the media, law, and sports...

...it is also the link between the virtues we require to exercise our rights equally with others, and the self-direction of these virtues to larger institutions...

...In some cases, the site for one’s attachment is largely an accidental place where one’s general institutional connection comes to rest, as this parish or college might be subordinate to the Church or to Learning...

...Heclo supplements his constructive understanding of institutions with a fi ne presentation (and criticism) of social science’s alternative view of them, and of some academics’ current infatuation with “critical thinking...

...Thinking institutionally means living by an institution’s rules even if this diminishes one’s immediate pleasure and success, or living within the duties that constitute one’s offi ce or job...

...Mark Blitz, the Fletcher Jones professor of political philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, is the author, most recently, of Duty Bound: Responsibility and American Public Life...

...The practice of medicine does not suit physicians as well as it once did, and some of its elements are also more annoying to patients...

...It looks beyond seeing institutionally, even when it is combined with love of a Constitution that conserves these principles...

...Many modern institutions are rational economically, but they also become a fi eld in which the character we require to use our rights effectively stretches itself, taking on larger and larger responsibilities...

...To consider an institution’s purpose is already to step outside it and no longer to think within it...

...This fact makes wholesale allegiance to at least the deeper kinds of institutions that Heclo has in mind unlikely...

...There are few enforceable standards for the media, for example, yet some outlets exist whose audience and family control enable them to take risks that others might not, or to take responsibility for the whole...

...Even Socrates, that master of impudence, might be amused to read that irresponsible plumbers “ultimately” are betrayers “of being...

...We should attend to the dangers to which Enlightenment individualism is prone, but in these days especially we also should defend the Enlightenment and its natural sources...

...But I mean them to encourage argument, and not to discourage potential readers, for this fi ne and intelligent book surely deserves serious refl ection...

...A related diffi culty is that Heclo does not effectively distinguish between thinking institutionally and devoting oneself to a particular instance of an institution...

...From this abandonment stems much of the selfi shness, immorality, and rootlessness that plagues us...

...Were the Founders primarily institutionalists, however, they would have remained loyal to the Crown...

...BY MARK BLITZ On Thinking Institutionally is intelligent, deeply felt, and engagingly written...

...It allows one to serve others, yet (and this is a source of strength) accords with selfinterest, generously understood...

...Institutions ultimately serve what “is good for us as human beings,” and “human beings fl ourish in seeking conditions of justice, freedom, equality and community with each other...

...Connected to this question is Heclo’s not following through the implications of the distinction he must make between good and bad institutions...

...When the leading papers and networks no longer believe themselves able fi nancially to conduct business the old way, however, there is no one to fi re or hector, because no equivalent to judges or baseball commissioners existed in the fi rst place...

...Heclo, of course, may believe some or all of my concerns are misguided or addressed suffi ciently in his discussion...

...All our attachments today are voluntary and optional, not simply, but to an unprecedented degree...

...Discussing these limits is the proper way to give his signifi - cant discussion the attention it deserves...

...We should see, however, that the standpoint of the human good places us outside any authoritative institution, and that the meaning and bearing of the goods Heclo mentions are not as easily grasped or maintained as he suggests...

...We obey the law and defend the country...

...We devise new media that, as a whole, are as attentive to politics as the old ones...

...One also might well argue that an institution’s purpose, which Heclo believes is its heart, is sometimes better served by changing the institution than by preserving it...

...Therefore, some of the powerful things he says that arguably are true of one set of institutions are not true of others...

...The deeper reason we neglect institutions is that our individualism, our wish to stand apart, or to make of our own lives works of art, corrodes them...

...One might say (although Heclo does not say it precisely this way) that our problem is that too few people attend to the general conditions that make possible their own success in business, politics, and the professions...

...Good character goes much of the way toward securing professional reliability and competence, assuming the skill is there...

...It opens possibilities for radical reform, and for newly weighing the rank of ends and their possibilities for being achieved...

...Love and spirited protection of particular things explains much of our devotion to what stands beyond our selfi shness...

...What the useful plumber and plutocrat share is responsibility and industry in pursuing their equal rights...

...But we need less irrational commitment, even if we are committed to good things, and more character—good dispositions open to (practical) reason...

...Social scientists discuss institutions more than they did a generation ago...

...Others do not...

...This will lead some—the plumber who becomes George Meany or the privileged son who becomes Franklin Roosevelt— to pay attention to the “institutional” conditions that make possible, or might make possible, their own freedom and success...

...Some institutions have offi ces well positioned to care about or enforce practices that often are not in participants’ immediate interests but are needed by all, as judges differ from attorneys...

...But he does not make this concern an active part of his analysis...

...But for many, lives are longer and health is better...