LETTERS : Community begins at home
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.THE sudden discovery by Nick Cohen of communitarianism as a "new ideology" ("The -ism now arriving . . .", 5 February), supported by your leading article, indicates the dangers of cultural transplants.
What goes under the label of communitarianism in the United States is a largely conservative backlash against a humanist individualist tradition, one of the most prominent achievements of Western liberalism. That communitarianism aims - through the mirage of a shared morality - to exercise social control over the attempts of individuals and groups to cultivate diversity.
Rather than import this ideological variant into Britain, Labour and Liberal theorists should examine Britain's own ideological heritage. They would discover that a collectivism which sought to promote social welfare and individual liberty was at the heart of the work of Liberal thinkers such as LT Hobhouse and JA Hobson, and Labour thinkers such as GDH Cole, RH Tawney and HJ Laski. The richness of the British political tradition is sufficient to provide material for those anxious to combine self-development with mutual responsibilities underpinned by a democratic state.
Were we not so prone to assimilate soundbites from America, it would not be necessary to re-invent a sophisticated debate that our own society was instrumental in generating and exporting to the world.
Dr Michael Freeden
`Journal of Political Ideologies'
Oxford
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments