Community and Citizenship - Essay Example

Topic community The work of Joanne Finkelstein and Susan Goodwin, Community, offered two variations of the concept of community, the provincial and the modern. The former follows the traditional concept of communal living that is based on mutual aid and trust while the former is the consequence of urbanism and industrialization. (p. 122) The latter is mainly about how the elements of capitalism and urban living have transformed the dynamics of the community from the solid communal relationship to a mere arena of exchanges that promote the interests of individuals. The traditional community becomes the more interesting of the two and we can see this as Robyn Ferrel narrated a rural Australian experience. In the narrative, there was the European attempt in establishing settlements and, consequently, in building new communities in an unchartered land. Such experience is characterized by several elements that are fundamental in several other discourses such as in understanding utopia, democracy and citizenship. From both of the pieces, Community and Pinjarra 1970, one finds that communities evolve. It does not follow, however, that when change occurs, the very concept of community is threatened to be eliminated. There is the lesson of history to remind us of the significance of the past and the traditions that holds society together. Topic 2: Communitarian Identity In reading Mark Reinhardt and Seyla Banhabib’s works, it is easy to understand how communitarian identity is seen as the ideological opposition to the liberal identity. “The communitarians criticize the epistemic standpoint of the Enlightenment on the grounds that this standpoint and liberal political philosophies… presuppose an inherent and impoverished concept of human self.” (Benhabib 1992, p. 71) The bottom line here is that the communitarian identity requires an individual to conform to arbitrary moral ideals and world views that are deemed necessary by a specific community as some price for membership. Reinhardt is particularly critical of the communitarian identity when it is considered as a political program arguing that “it lacks an understanding of cultural struggle.” (p. 96) I believe that communitarian identity – its expectation or requirement (explicit or implicit) is inevitable in today’s societies, particularly in liberal democracies with their moral and intellectual demands. It is up to individuals to filter out what are the good from bad ideals and views that define their communitarian identities. In addition, individuals must be able to maintain a reasonable distance from this identity not just to avoid the pitfalls of contributing in a collective mistake but because it is called for to balance its relationship with other identities such as the civic identity. Topic 3: Community and Citizenship Citizenship is fundamental in the existence of a community. Although this idea is interpreted and modified in various historical circumstances, citizenship is essentially the basis of the framework in which the state or, in this case, a community can expect and require a reciprocal relationship from its constituents. Carol Pateman’s work, The Fraternal Social Contract, discussed an interesting angle in citizenship, one that downplays the social contract’s role in a universal conception of citizenship because it is supposedly slanted towards the male. For Pateman, society and the community is essentially patriarchal, and that, “fraternity” becomes necessary in order for a civil individual to be integrated in a community. (p. 50) While Pateman’s commentary adopted an essentialist conception of men and women in terms of political theory, it helped outline the dynamics of community membership, including the rights bestowed on the members as well as how they are treated. The feminist approach to explaining community and citizenship received greater emphasis in Moira Gatens opus, Embodiment, Ethics and Difference. Here, feminity was used to underscore how citizen’s right should be addressed, particularly in consideration of their diversity. (p. 102) This issue is indeed important particularly in regard to rights and the community or the state’s expectation from its members. Conflict would be inevitable amid the differences in the way members think, not just culturally but politically as well. Topic 4: Strangers and Difference Sarah Ahmed (2000) argued that when people meet strangers, these are not entirely strange because a stranger is supposedly somebody the knowing self already knows, since the stranger is already constituted as strange in the relationship with the familiar. (p. 21) What is significant about this proposition is that it shows that others can be loved or hated or that it could be, in fact, easier to reduce differences. This is true today more than ever as geographical boundaries are eliminated by technology and global trade. At this point it would seem proper to distinguish difference from alienation. A glaringly important lesson learned from reading Ahmed is that difference or strangeness is not an entirely negative thing and in some cases it could even be desired. This finds support in Iris Young’s discourse on the public space and the cosmopolitan city: “In such public spaces the diversity of the city’s residents come together and dwell side by side, sometimes appreciating one another, entertaining one another… always to go off as strangers.” (p. 319) Indeed, there are downsides to how people perceive strangeness and difference. It is inevitable, for instance, for this to breed racism and tension within a community but in the increasingly globalized world, such incidence are becoming less because of the attention and criticism it immediately receives. Topic 5: Difference and Democracy Unarguably, differences or social diversity in democracy has both its negative and positive side. It is, for example, inevitable to fail in eliminating the incidence of antagonism, conflict and disagreements that comes with the pluralistic form of government. Another pitfall, wrote Chantal Mouffe, there is presently an increasing disaffection with the democratic institutions due to the cynicisms on democratic politics and politicians in regard to whether the interests of the people are being taken into account. (p. 80) Nonetheless, democracy is widely regarded as the best form of government because of this very fact: people with all their differences are accommodated and, as much as possible, are not marginalized and, in fact, thoroughly represented and are involved in governance and policy-making. In regard to the problem about pluralism, there are new ways being developed in order to address the challenge. For example, there is what political theorists call as deliberative model of democracy where the citizens are more involved in the decision or policy-making process. The model is founded on the idea that a collective decision culled from differing perspective is better than those of a single individual’s. (Benhabib 1996, p. 71) This model underscores how difference in democracy can be a strength when tapped in a systematic and methodical approach. Works Cited Ahmed, Sara Recognising Strangers, Strange Encounters: Embodied others in Post-Coloniality, London, Routledge, 2000. Ferrell, Robyn ‘Pinjarra1970: Shame and the Country Town’, Cultural Studies Review, Vol 9 No 1, May 2003. Benhabib, Seyla Toward a Deliberative Model of Democratic Legitimacy, Seyla Benhabib, (ed), Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1996. Benhabib, Seyla Autonomy, Modernity and Community: Communitarianism and Critical Social Theory in Dialogue, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1992. Finkelstein, Joanne and Goodwin, Susan ‘Community’, The Sociological Bent: Inside Metro Culture, Southbank, Victoria, Thomson, 2005. Gatens, Moira Embodiment, ethics and difference, Imaginary Bodies: Ethics, Power and Corporeality, London, Routledge, 1996. Mouffe, Chantal For an Agonistic Model of Democracy, The Democratic Paradox, London, Verso, 2000. Pateman, Carole, The Fraternal Social Contract, The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism and Political Theory, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1989. Reinhardt, Mark The Song Remains the Same: Communitarianisms Cultural Politics, Jodi Dean, (ed), Cultural Studies and Political Theory, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2000. Young, Iris Marion The Ideal of Community and the Politics of Difference, Linda Nicholson (ed), Feminism/Postmodernism, New York, Routledge, 1990. Read More