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Overemphasizing Civil Rights Undermines Civic Responsibility

America's Victims , 1996

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Communitarians believe that the source of America's decline of civic responsibility lies in an excessive emphasis on civil rights. In the following viewpoint, Amitai Etzioni argues that to restore a sense of community responsibility, Americans should place a moratorium on the creation of new rights and begin to focus more attention on public safety and community. Etzioni is a founder of the Communitarian Network, the editor of the quarterly communitarian journal the Responsive Community, and author of The Spirit of Community: Rights, Responsibilities, and the Communitarian Agenda, from which this viewpoint is excerpted.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1.According to John Leo, quoted by the author, how does rights talk polarize

debate?

2.What example does Etzioni give of a responsibility that does not entail a right?

3.What is the best way to curb authoritarianism and right-wing tendencies, in the

author's opinion?

From time to time there's a finding of social science that may by itself be of limited importance but illuminates a major conundrum: A 1983 study has shown that young Americans expect to be tried before a jury of their peers but are rather reluctant to serve on one. This paradox highlights a major aspect of contemporary American civic culture: a strong sense of entitlement—that is, a demand that the community provide more services and strongly uphold rights—coupled with a rather weak sense of obligation to the local and national community. Thus, most Americans applauded the show of force in Grenada (in 1983), Panama (in

1989-1990), and in the Persian Gulf (in 1991), but many were reluctant to serve in the armed forces or see their sons and daughters called up.

First prize for capturing this anticommunitarian outlook should be awarded to a member of a television audience who exclaimed during a show on the savings and loan mess, "The taxpayers should not have to pay for this; the government should," as if there really were an Uncle Sam who could pick up the tab for us all.

A 1989 study by People for the American Way notes:

Young people have learned only half of America's story. Consistent with the priority they place on personal happiness, young people reveal notions of America's unique character that emphasize freedom and license almost to the complete exclusion of service or participation. Although they clearly appreciate the democratic freedoms that, in their view, make theirs the "best country in the world to live in," they fail to perceive a need to reciprocat e by exercising the duties and responsibilities of good citizenship.

Only one out of eight (12 percent) of the respondents felt that voting was part of what makes a good citizen. When asked what was special about the United States, young people responded: "Individualism and the fact that it is a democracy and you can do whatever you want." And: "We really don't have any limits."

The imbalance between rights and responsibilities has existed for a long time. Indeed, some argue that it is a basic trait of the American character. However, America's leaders have exacerbated this tendency in recent years. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy could still stir the nation when he stated: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." But Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, backed up by some Democrats in Congress, proposed a much less onerous course: they suggested that

ever-increasing economic growth would pay for government services, and taxpayers would be expected to shell out less—implying that Americans could have their cake and eat it, too....

Correcting the current imbalance between rights and responsibilities requires a four-point agenda: a moratorium on the minting of most, if not all, new rights; reestablishing the link between rights and responsibilities; recognizing that some responsibilities do not entail rights; and, most carefully, adjusting some rights to the changed circumstances. These pivotal points deserve some elaboration.

We should, for a transition period of, say, the next decade, put a tight lid on the manufacturing of new rights. The incessant issuance of new rights, like the wholesale printing of currency, causes a massive inflation of rights that devalues their moral claims.

When asked whether certain things are "a privilege that a person should have to earn, or a right to which he is entitled as a citizen," most Americans (81 percent) considered health care a right (versus 16 percent who said it was a privilege). Two-thirds (66 percent) considered adequate housing a right (as opposed to 31 percent who called it a privilege). Indeed, why not? Until one asks, as there are no free lunches, who will pay for unlimited health care and adequate housing for all? The champions of rights are often quite mum on this question, which if left unanswered makes the claim for a right a rather empty gesture....

Once, rights were very solemn moral/legal claims, ensconced in the Constitution and treated with much reverence. We all lose if the publicity department of every special interest can claim that someone's rights are violated every time they don't get all they want. Suspending for a while the minting of new rights, unless there are unusually compelling reasons to proceed, will serve to restore the special moral standing and suasion of rights.

We need to remind one another that each newly minted right generates a claim on someone. In effect, new rights often arouse or play upon feelings of guilt in others. There is a limited amount of guilt, however, that one can lay upon other people before they balk. Unless we want to generate a universal backlash against rights, we need to curb rights inflation and protect the currency of rights from being further devalued.

Moreover, the expression of ever more wants, many quite legitimate, in the language of rights makes it difficult to achieve compromises and to reach consensus, processes that lie at the heart of democracy. A society that is studded with groups of true believers and special-interest groups, each brimming with rights, inevitably turns into a society overburdened with conflicts. Columnist John Leo of U.S. News & World Report declares: "Rights talk polarizes debate; it

tends to suppress moral discussion and consensus building. Once an agenda is introduced as a 'right,' sensible discussion and moderate positions tend to disappear."

Even if lawyers and judges realize among themselves that individual rights are limited by the rights of others and the needs of the community, as the language of rights penetrates into everyday discourse, the discourse becomes impoverished and confrontational. It is one thing to claim that you and I have different interests and see if we can work out a compromise; or, better yet, that we both recognize the merit or virtue of a common cause, say, a cleaner environment. The moment, however, that I claim a right to the same piece of land or property or public space as you, we start to view one another like the Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland or the Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East.

A return to a language of social virtues, interests, and, above all, social responsibilities will reduce contentiousness and enhance social cooperation.

People treat rights-based arguments, unlike many others, as "trump cards" that neutralize all other positions. Cass R. Sunstein, professor of jurisprudence at the University of Chicago, put it well when he pointed out that rights can "be conclusions masquerading as reasons." For example, he writes, those who defend even the most extreme kinds of what he labels violent pornography state that it is a form of free speech, period. Sunstein suggests that perhaps a person is entitled to this particularly abusive form of speech. But, he argues, an individual's entitlement should be established in detailed argumentation that would weigh the right at issue against the rights of those who are hurt by the given act, rather than simply asserting that it is a right, as if its evocation closed off all debate.

Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard Law professor and leading Communitarian, shows that we treat many rights the way we treat property, which we tend to view as intrinsically "ours" and which we are therefore free to do with as we wish. Actually, we readily accept that there are many things we may not do with things we own, such as burning leaves, which may endanger others, or playing the stereo loud enough to be heard five blocks away. To put it differently, we all

know on one level that our liberties are limited by those of others and that we can do what we want only as long as we do not harm others. Rights talk, however, pushes us to disregard this crucial qualification, the concern for one another and for the community. Soon "I can do what I want as long as I do not hurt others" becomes "I can do what I want, because I have a right to do it."

A telling case in point is the opposition to seat belts and motorcycle helmets. Libertarians have long argued adamantly that the government should not require people to use these safety devices. They blocked the introduction of seat belt and motorcycle helmet laws in many jurisdictions and ensured the repeal of such regulations in several localities where they had been in place. The main libertarian argument is that people have a right to do with their lives what they wish, including endangering them. People are said to be the best judges of what is good for them, because they will have to live with the consequences of their acts. Therefore we should treat people as adults and not as children, without paternalism. (Some libertarians apply the same idea to the use of narcotics.)

Reckless individuals, however, do not absorb many of the consequences of their acts. Drivers without seat belts are more likely than those wearing belts to lose control of their cars in an accident and hurtle into others. They are also more likely to die and leave their children for society to attend to and pick up the pieces. And, of course, they draw on our community resources, from ambulance services to hospitals, when they are involved in accidents, for which they pay at best a fraction of the cost. To insist that people drive safely and responsibly is hence a concern for the needs of others and the community; there is no individual right that automatically trumps these considerations....

Claiming rights without assuming responsibilities is unethical and illogical. Mary Ann Glendon puts it well: "Buried deep in our rights dialect," she writes, "is an unexpressed premise that we roam at large in a land of strangers, where we presumptively have no obligations toward others except to avoid the active infliction of harm." She notes in her book Rights Talk:

Try, for example, to find in the familiar language of our Declaration of Independence or Bill of Rights anything comparable to the statements in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that "everyone has duties to the community," and that everyone's rights and freedoms are subject to limitations "for the purposes of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society."

The Constitution, while not nearly as explicit on obligations to the community as the other documents cited, does open with the quest "to form a more perfect Union" and speaks of the need to "promote the general welfare" for that purpose.

To take and not to give is an amoral, self-centered predisposition that ultimately no society can tolerate. To revisit the finding that many try to evade serving on a jury, which, they claim, they have a right to be served by, is egotistical, indecent, and in the long run impractical. Hence, those most concerned about rights ought to be the first ones to argue for the resumption of responsibilities. One presumes the other. Much of the discussion about the conditions under which moral commitments can be strengthened in the family, schools, and in communities speaks directly to the shoring up of our responsibilities. Indeed, many of our core values entail concern for others and the commons we share. As we restore the moral voice of communities (and the web of social bonds, the Communitarian nexus, that enables us to speak as a community), we shall see, we will also be more able to encourage one another to live up to our social responsibilities.

Although it is difficult to imagine rights without corollary responsibilities, we must recognize that we have some duties that lay moral claims on us from which we derive no immediate benefit or even long-term payoff. Our commitment to a shared future, especially our responsibility to the environment, is a case in point. We are to care for the environment not only or even mainly for our own sakes (although we may desire some assurance of potable water, breathable air, and protection from frying because the ozone layer is thinning out). We have a moral commitment to leave for future generations a livable environment, e ven perhaps a better one than the one we inherited, certainly not one that has been further depleted. The same observations hold true for our responsibility to our moral, social, and political environment.

Finally, some areas in which legal rights have been interpreted in ways that hobble public safety and health are to be reinterpreted. Thus, the Fourth Amendment outlaws unreasonable searches and seizures. The question of what is deemed reasonable versus unreasonable is subject to change over time. In several areas of public life, the times now call for a modest increase in what we can reasonably be asked to do for the sake of the community, for public safety and public health.

Radical Individualists, such as libertarians and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have effectively blocked many steps to increase public safety and health. Among the measures they systematically oppose are sobriety checkpoints (which can play an important role in reducing slaughter on the highways), all drug testing (even of those who have the lives of others directly in their control), and limiting the flood of private money into the pockets, drawers, and war chests of local and national elected representatives.

Having presented this fourth part of the Communitarian agenda before scores of groups, my colleagues and I have learned that this element of balancing rights and responsibilities is the most controversial.... Such adjustments can be made without opening the floodgates to a police state or excessive intrusion by public health departments. On the contrary, the best way to curb authoritarianism and right-wing tendencies is to stop the anarchic drift by introducing carefully calibrated responses to urgent and legitimate public concerns about safety and the control of epidemics.