The Monochrome Society

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by Amitai Etzioni

Princeton University Press

Due/Published May 2001, 272 pages, cloth

ISBN 0691070903

Etzioni challenges those who argue that diversity or multiculturalism is about to become the governing American creed. On the surface, America may seem like a fractured mosaic, but the country is in reality far more socially monochromatic and united than most observers have claimed. In the first chapter, Etzioni presents evidence that Americans, whites and African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans, new immigrants and decedents of the Pilgrims, continue to share the same core of basic American values and aspirations. He goes on to show that we need not merely a civil but also a good society, one that nurtures virtues. He assesses key social institutions that can serve such a society ranging from revived holidays to greater reliance on public shaming. The most effective sources of bonding and of shared ideas about virtue, he insists throughout, come from the community, not from the state.

Etzioni also challenges moral relativists who argue that we have no right to "impose" our moral values on other societies. He responds to those who fear that a cohesive community must also be one that is oppressive, authoritarian, and exclusive. And he explores and assesses possible new sources and definitions of community, including computer-mediated communities and stakeholding in corporations.

Review

Etzioni's wide-ranging new collection of essays brings sociological analysis and ethical reasoning together in an uncommonly original exploration of virtues (understood here as firmly anchored conceptions of good) and community. Throughout the essays Etzioni speaks in the voices of both an academic and a public intellectual as he examines the ways in which virtues are established and maintained in a society. Another major theme in Monochrome Society is the path that can be taken to insure the cohesion of community. Etzioni's communitarian bent, however, is balanced by his careful analysis of the tension between individual rights and the hopes of the community. These central themes lead Etzioni to a variety of theoretical and public policy issues. In the opening essay he argues that contemporary Americans, diverse as they are, basically believe in the same virtues and have similar aspirations. He also examines the role of shaming as an informal method of social control, the rise of the less-is-more philosophy, the benefits and drawbacks of on-line communities, the question of V-chips and other filtering devices amidst criticism from civil libertarians, the need for a return to more traditional celebrations of holidays, how communities can foster virtues, and the possibility and necessity of making cross-cultural judgments. Etzioni's provocative analysis of these issues is at once passionate, rigorous, and accessible, shedding new light on the issues at hand.

Also recently by Amitai Etzioni: Next: The Road to a Good Society.