On Obama and Community

[akirlu]

Eventually I will stop being All Obama All the Time. But not yet.

Mark Schmitt considers Obama's speech, and his religion, as an expression of his core identity as a communitarian.

I hadn't explcitly seen Obama this way before. But for me, a core piece of the appeal of Obama's candidacy is that identity as a builder of community. I have a sort of instinctive tropism for his persistent appeals to community and unity as basis for political change.

Practically all my life, certainly since the time I was first taken out of the home town where I had my first childhood friends, and my extended family, I have been fumbling after community. Long before I had the words for it, long before the concept was fully formed, I was reaching for the sense of people who belonged to me, and belonged to each other. Not only was I yearning for the sense of being part of that buoying network of human connection, but at some really deep level I believed that communities are the basic fonts of creative foment, of political will, and intellectual progress. (Which, come to think of it, may be why I had to give up on libertarianism. It's like grammar -- sentences give words meaning; communities give individual liberties meaning, not vice versa.)

I can't claim to have done nearly so much for building community as Senator Obama, but in my own way, I may be feeling in him a kindred spirit. Rugged individualists will undoubtedly think I'm spouting nonsense at this point.

Comments

[urlgirl.livejournal.com]

I harbor a bit of resentment about the libertarians' use of the word "communitarian" as a slur. I understand that when they say it, they associate it with economic communitarianism. It still doesn't lessen my disappointment over the fact that I feel compelled to explain that community is still a very good word for me, despite my "rugged individualism." I don't think the two concepts are mutually exclusive at all. And I do have very similar views and experience toward this idea of building community, despite my lack of effectiveness at it.

I like your Obama posts :-)

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

My relationship with libertarianism is complex, and probably contradictory in places. I'm still working out how to think and feel about it.

Many of the fundamental hypotheses of libertarianism turn out to sound much better in the abstract than they work out to be when faced with actual human beings living actual lives. Still, the philosophy informs a great many of my most fundamental beliefs, even as I wade farther into these uncharted waters of what I call lapsed libertarianism. (The analogy to Catholicism, and the implication of forswearing taking things on faith, is not accidental.) To a great extent, I'm thinking "aloud" here, and trying to work out implications as I go.

When it comes to libertarianism, and community, I'm just starting to formulate my thoughts. I think there is a natural tension between a lot of libertarian (or possibly "libertarian") thinking, and community. The reason is, libertarianism holds individual autonomy -- liberty -- as the soul source of moral authority. But communitarians, I think, will hold that the community of agents is itself a distinct source of moral authority from the sum of its individual agents' autonomies. There is a moral significance to the collective identity. Collective values matter. And, in fact, I think that to a very great degree, individual liberty is meaningless outside the context of some human community or other. In a phase space of human interaction where no collective rules, no agreed parameters, no common values apply, having the autonomy to do as you choose is drowned in the noise of the chaotic, unpredictable, random behavior of others.

I would still hold that individual liberty -- personal autonomy -- is a core source of moral authority. But it is not the soul source of moral authority, nor can it be, given its dependence on community to give it form and meaning.

So, no, community and liberty are not mutually exclusive at all. But if I'm right, and both are separate sources of moral authority, it's probable that there will be times when those authorities will be at odds about what is right or just. And so there is a tension, and a balance to be struck.

I don't get the sense that you are ineffective at building community. I remember a well built community of the early days of the web. Rather that humans are currently collectively ineffective at keeping online communities stable in the face of infinite "mobility" of individuals with respect to the virtual agora. When we have been doing virtual community as long as we have been doing the meatspace kind, virtual communities may achieve better stability. Or perhaps we will feel less need for individual community stability as we all coalesce into one flock, disperse, and coalesce as another.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

And when I say "soul," here, I obviously mean "sole." "Sole source." Homophones will be the death of me yet.

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

I don't see Libertarianism as equivalent to Rugged Individualism. The former is an idea about government, the latter an idea about life. Libertarianism and Collectivism can certainly coexist - in fact that would come close to my ideal society. Libertarians want less government, particularly less central government; the only way that can really work is if people think of themselves as part of the community, and act accordingly. That's how you escape the "zero-sum thinking" Obama described.

I think this ties in with what I said on my journal as well. What kind of country are we becoming? How will we deal with the awful challenges of the next decade or so? Extrapolating current trends gives a dismal view of the near future. Can anyone, even as gifted an orator as Obama, change that?