Amitai Etzioni on the value of community

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Amitai Etzioni on the value of community

14 Jul 2009

Speakers: Amitai Etzioni

Professor Amitai Etzioni, Director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at Georgetown University speaks on the need to re-establish the 'demo' part of democracy. Drawing on his German-Israeli past, he discusses the transition of communities throughout history, and how modern society has abandoned its sense of moral purpose.

Discussing the motion “Do people need community anymore?”, Etzioni talks about how in good society we are each other's keeper, and that the sense of community within a good society allows people to be better than they are. On the new self-enforcing norms that result from a structured moral debate, he discusses how the recent debates over gay marriage and the Iraq war in America show that participation in a collective moral dialogue can change societal perception for the better.

Etzioni states that now is the time for a discussion in modern society about what is ‘the good life’. Posing the notion that society's aspiration has focused on a misplaced greed, argues that once basic comforts are ensured, society's aspirations should be focused towards community as that is where ‘the good life’ truly lies.

This video was kindly provided by The RSA