On May 31, Amitai Etzioni, Israeli-American author and pioneer of the modern Communitarian movement, passed away at the age of 94. Though his passing reaffirms our inevitable mortality, his words will continue to inspire countless Americans posthumously.

I count myself as one such American. I only became acquainted with Etzioni’s writing fairly recently. When reading the works of Robert Putnam, Alan Ehrenhalt, and Francis Fukuyama, I frequently came across the term “communitarian.” This term, though very intuitive (especially in social-capital literature), was foreign to me. After conducting some light research, I came across the works of Etzioni, sometimes referred to as “the Godfather of Communitarianism.”

Etzioni envisioned an America wherein we did not see each other as isolated, self-maximizing individuals, but rather as a “community of communities.” In this America, morality would be of paramount importance, neighbors would come to each other’s aid, two-parent families would stay intact, and the state would remain limited. In 2023, this may all seem pie-in-the-sky. But Etzioni never despaired. Rather, he always tried to see the good in people.

Consider one of Etzioni’s most-lauded books: The Spirit of Community: The Reinvention of American Society (which I recently finished reading). First published in 1993, it is an accessible work with plenty of prescription for America’s societal maladies. Instead of just describing the “Radical Individualist” America that we now inhabit, Etzioni provides the reader with various calls to action. These include, but are not limited to: sobriety checkpoints to curtail drunk-driving accidents, the elimination of political PACs to ensure that politicians are chiefly responsive to their constituencies, and paid leave so that parents could look after their children without worrying about the financial toll of staying at home.

Libertarian-oriented thinkers, however, thought that, if Etzioni’s policy prescriptions were ever to be implemented, they would erode American’s prized civil liberties. After reading some of his work, though, I see little foundation for this concern. Etzioni never calls for the stripping away of our liberal rights, but for a reinvigoration of civil society and a shared moral compass. Some may argue that his stance on PACs, for example, is a tad egregious and perhaps a violation of decades of jurisprudence. And some have smartly noted that PACs can actually enhance the democratic process by allowing individuals to contribute relatively small contributions.

Generally speaking, the Communitarian ethic is not at odds with classical liberalism. Etzioni never advocated for a post-liberal America.

Let’s take freedom of speech as an example. Etzioni is quite clear about his support for the First Amendment, but he still proclaims that we should abhor hateful speech (especially that driven by racial, ethnic, and religious bigotry) and seek to curtail it as much as possible. This curtailing, though, should not be the job of the state. Hate-speech legislation, aside from being an obvious violation of the First Amendment, would be a topical, rather than a foundational solution to pernicious hateful rhetoric. Instead, people ought to think it incumbent on themselves to call out such bigotry.

In The Spirit of Community, Etzioni provides us with the Communitarian approach to combating bigoted speech:

We should inform people who spout prejudice and spread hate that we consider them to be bigoted, uncivilized boors, people whose company we shun. ‘Sure’, we may tell them, ‘you have a right to say most anything you want, but using this right in certain ways is not morally appropriate or socially acceptable.’ If enough people make that clear, they are likely to put their First Amendment rights to better use than insulting others.

Here, Etzioni argues that citizens, not government bureaucrats, should determine what is and is not socially acceptable speech. This, I think, is the correct way to approach hateful people who irrationally target other groups.

Etzioni’s insights, though seemingly commonsensical, are much needed in America today. Many would agree that we’ve lost our sense of “we-ness” and have descended into a cold, anti-social, me-centric country of strangers. While the concept may seem foreign to us now, we have to engage in small Communitarian acts.

The man may have died, but his message is evergreen. Gone, but certainly not forgotten. Thank you, Professor Etzioni.