ABSTRACT
Certain communities, such as religious or ideological communities, and even nations, have as one of their first principles that the preservation of community, community values, and identity takes precedence over individual rights. To summarize the communitarian argument of Amitai Etzioni (one made in essence long ago by Jean-Jacques Rousseau), for communities and nations to remain cohesive, community morality and well-being, not individual morality and well-being, must define virtues. Etzioni challenges the perspective of liberals, libertarians, and even “laissez-faire conservatives,” who argue that the individual, not the community, should be deciding what is best. They see community morality as a threat to democratic values because it is based on majoritarian, not individual, values. Once a community determines what its values are, they believe “these will be used to suppress dissent and minorities, to violate individual and civil rights….” By contrast, communitarians believe that even though most democracies are based on majority rule, they are nevertheless concerned that minority and individual rights and values be respected. (This was especially true for the United States, a country founded by dissenters who wanted to escape dogma.) 1
