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prerequisites preclude such a shift, but even if it were possible , such
backpedclling would be undesirable because traditional communities have
been too constraining and authoritarian. Such traditional communities
were usually homogenous. What we need now are communities that
balance both diversity and unity. Thus we need to strengthen the com–
munitarian elements in the urban and suburban centers, to provide social
bonds that sustain the moral voice, but at the same time avoid tight
networks that suppress pluralism and dissent.
In
short, we need new
communities in which people have choices and readily accomodate di–
vergent subcommunities, but still maintain common bonds."
At the other pole of human social experience, at the national level,
we also need to renovate our perspective. Nationalism, which gave im–
pulse to the English Industrial Revolution and inspired the U .S. projec–
tion of it, must be transformed. According to Robert Reich, in
The
Work oj Nations. Preparing Ourselves Jor 21st Century Capitalism,
the
change from "the economic nation" to "the global web" is already
taking place. At the same time, there is a widening divergence of income
between '''symbolic analysts," on the one hand, and "in-person servers"
and "routine producers" on the other hand. There is as well a "political
secession" of the first category of workers vis-a-vis the two other cate–
gories. "For without strong attachments and loyalties extending beyond
family and friends," he explains, "symbolic analysts may never develop the
habits and attitudes of social responsibility.... Without a real political
community in which to learn, refine, and practice th e ideals of justice
and fairness, they may find these ideals to be meaningless abstractions."
There arises, therefore, the need for a new type of national solidar–
ity, "in which each nation's citizens take primary responsibility for en–
hancing th e capacities of their countrymen for full and productive lives,
but who also work with other nations to ensure that these improve–
ments do not come at others' expense." Reich concludes, "We can assert
that our mutual obligations as citizens extend beyond our economic
usefulness to one another and act accordingly."
The refashioning of itself in terms of a culture with a new sense of
community at the grass-roots and a new type of solidarity, inside or out–
side the nation, is the horizon towards which modernity, in its de–
velopment, aims to be led by those who live in it or strive for it. These
men and women will not be Baroque hedgehogs or Gothic foxes, just
plain human beings.
Peter B erger:
Thank you very much. Well, whatever we can be accused
of, it is not of being uncritical. Claudio, do you have some initial
