The Monochrome Society

Amitai Etzioni is one of the most insightful observers of American society, a brilliant intellectual, and a great writer. He has best articulated the political and social "third way" between Left and Right that has powerfully shaped the agendas of the Clinton administration, Tony Blair's New Labour Party in Great Britain, and the new administration of George W. Bush. The Monochrome Society can serve as either a provocative introduction to Etzioni's thinking for first-time readers or as a fascinating demonstration of the power of communitarian thought for readers familiar with his work. Neither group should miss this book.

The Monochrome Society (along with the recent Next: The Road to the Good Society) continues Amitai Etzioni's role as a leading voice in 'communitarian' thought. In chapters ranging from social philosophy to sociology, law, and social policy, he pursues practical means of understanding and evaluating the challenges of modern culture and society. What's more, Professor Etzioni brings clarity and civility to an often confusing and combustible public debate.At the book's more philosophical end, Etzioni stresses the complex intellectual and affective sources of individual choice. One example, explored in 'Suffer the Children', is the penchant of civil libertarian groups to portray children as 'mini-adults'. Based largely on tacit and deeply questionable assumptions about human agency, this approach significantly distorts attempts to address the needs of children. More generally, in 'Social norms: the Rubicon of Social Science', Etzioni notes that the failure of jurists and political theorists to appreciate social norms may seriously effect the approach to, and efficacy of, social policy. A person's choices, he writes, 'reflect the culture or values of their community, their social formulations of the good.... often in ways of which they are unaware (229)'. Similarly, Etzioni asks 'Is Shaming Shameful?' or is shaming, on the basis of social norms, a more humane, effective, and democratic alternative to punishment?While The Monochrome Society revolves around a 'concern with social virtues and the social foundation on which they rest (xiii)', most of the book focuses on specific public issues. Etzioni discusses, for example, both the possibility of cross-cultural moral judgments and the related, surprisingly widespread, agreement on values among America's diverse racial and ethnic groups. In 'The Post-Affluent Society', he notes the movement towards, and virtues of, a lifestyle of 'voluntary simplicity' and modest consumption. He writes as well about the role of holidays, of a 'stakeholder' approach to corporate governance, and the potential of 'virtual' communities. Each of these chapters provide hopeful and constructive contributions to public debate.Throughout the book, Professor Etzioni underscores the fact that advocates of 'civil society' must be clearer about the substance of the institutions they champion. A voluntary group may as easily be dedicated to racial hatred as to bowling. Ultimately, it is the part institutions may play in the creation of a 'good' society that matters most. Written in an uncomplicated style and gracious manner, The Monochrome Society is a significant and practical contribution to that end.

Etzioni has written an emphatically modern book. His interest is in how and what kind of community can be built out of the materials modernity has to offer. His characteristic move is to turn what others see as infertile ground for community into seedbeds of virtue. Many fear that increasing ethnic diversity will divide America into separate camps and make it less communitarian. Etzioni, in the title essay, argues that such diversity, properly understood, will weaken identity politics and make America more communitarian. Many fear that the Internet, like television, will entice its users away from meaningful contact with flesh and blood human beings. In a nuanced essay on virtual communities, Etzioni argues that virtual communities have important advantages that face-to-face communities lack, and should be combined with them. Few readers will find all of Etzioni's arguments persuasive but together they add up to a powerful defense against the oft repeated charge that communitarianism is nostalgic or moribund.The Monochrome Society also carries forward an argument Etzioni has made before about the advantages of modern communities. Many fear that the revival of community will also revive unwanted invasions of privacy, and dangerous restrictions on freedom. But Etzioni argues that this fear is unwarranted in contemporary pluralistic societies, in which individuals are "able to choose, to a significant extent, the communities to which they are psychologically committed" Others have the opposite fear, that communities in contemporary pluralistic societies are too weak to foster virtue. But Etzioni argues that the weakness of contemporary communities, while troubling, is also exaggerated. The story of a "woman, convicted of welfare fraud [who] preferred to be jailed rather than wear a sign admitting, "I stole food from poor people," indicates the moral authority of at least one modern community, and Etzioni has many such stories to tell. Modernity has weakened communities, so that they will not be puritanical, while leaving them some resources, so that their task of fostering social virtues will not be quixotic.In this way, Etzioni plants his communitarianism firmly on the middle ground between extreme advocates of liberty and extreme advocates of community. However, it is hard to see exactly where Etzioni stands on this vast middle ground because The Monochrome Society contains two communitarian visions. Call one Communitarianism A and the other Communitarianism B.Communitarianism A, represented in such essays as "Is Shaming Shameful," argues that liberty depends on moral norms that are transmitted partly through the laws but mainly through institutions like the family and civic associations. It argues, also, that a good society promotes a limited set of core values and virtues. To support the arguments of Communitarianism A, one need not be a communitarian. One can be a liberal, like Arthur Schlesinger, who defends the idea that the