I’m on study leave for a few days, at our Adirondacks place. I’ve got quite a pile of accumulated books and journals to plow through.The first thing I pick up to read is the September 9th issue of The Christian Century, whose news briefs section cites some political commentary from a column by E.J. Dionne. U.S. history, Dionne observes, is a back-and-forth tug of war between individualistic and communitarian impulses. The Century summarizes Dionne’s argument: “Dionne thinks there is a communitarian correction after a period of time when the individualistic metaphor of free markets reigned supreme. McCain’s notion of honor associated with the military is more communitarian than individualistic, and Obama’s slogan ‘Yes we can’ reflects deep communitarian commitments.”
My generation, the Baby Boomers, advanced communitarian ideals through the social upheavals of the 1960s, then settled in for a long period of individual striving. Many of us traded George McGovern for Ronald Reagan, backpacks and sandals for briefcases and wing-tips. We trekked from Woodstock to Wall Street.
Our parents’ generation, the “Greatest Generation,” traversed similar territory in their time. They cheerfully pitched in with Victory Gardens and rationing coupons during the World War II years, then traded in their communitarian values to raise nuclear families in the up-and-coming suburbs.
Ronald Reagan’s political revolution was an emphatic, angry resurgence of individualism. The recent near-collapse of the financial markets – brought on by the absence of government regulation – is the natural conclusion of the Great Communicator’s program. These developments have exposed the central economic dogma of Reaganism – that unfettered individual striving will result in “trickle-down” communal benefits – as a fraud. Greed has done what greed always does, left to itself. It has nearly wrecked our society. Now, as Dionne astutely observes, both presidential candidates are speaking communitarian language again. The one who is most adept at it – Obama – seems poised to win the election.
The other night, I attended the monthly blood cancer support group sponsored by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. What could be more communitarian than a bunch of people sitting around in a circle, sharing their stories and seeking to uphold one another? It would seem the way to health – for us as well as for our nation – lies in facing the beast together, rather than alone.
