For Commentary

Communitarian philosophy argues that liberalism's emphasis on individual rights and autonomy neglects the social bonds and shared meanings that make human life and political community possible. Sandel's critique of the 'unencumbered self,' Etzioni's emphasis on the balance between rights and responsibilities, and Walzer's theory of shared meanings all express Community's philosophical orientation.

The civic republican tradition holds that political freedom depends on active civic participation and that citizens who withdraw from public life into private pursuits eventually lose the capacity for self-governance. Arendt's concept of the public realm as the space where citizens appear to one another and act together provides the philosophical foundation for Community's political claims.

Durkheim's analysis of social solidarity, including the distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity and the concept of anomie as the pathological absence of social bonds, provides the sociological foundation for Community's political concerns. His argument that modern societies need new forms of solidarity to replace the traditional bonds that industrialization has dissolved directly addresses Community's central question.