note to carrol: i'm going to use the word "individualism" as a shortcut b/c i don't really feel like getting into all the ins and outs of the problems with individualism. it's elementary stuff for us, anyway. so please nash your fist to your mouth or something instead of typing something dismissive about my use of the word. i know already! :)
i realize that, apparently, wolfe was a dick at The New School, but bracketing that...
depending on what i'm talking about, my tendency can be in that direction too.
"the communitarians" don't seem to have a platform about enforcing marriage as a norm. last i checked, the communitarian platform has nothing in it regarding marriage other than that it's a good thing, that they don't want to eliminate divorce. it was pretty vague. but i suspect all of them would have no problem with gay marriages--tho perhaps a few are idiots, i don't know. and i doubt that they care whether people actually get married, but they do think that two adults are better than one. i can't agree more! i seriously doubt that many want to reinforce heterosexist norms or gender ideologies that reinforce separate spheres. i happen to think that before we struggle for some communist elimination of the family, we might actually want to socialize the work of reproductive labor involved in raising children and taking care of a household --in the way that marx spoke of the socialization of production that occurs under capitalism. hope that's clear. also, i happen to agree with a number of communitarian criticisms of individualism, of the U.S., of capitalism, of the state, etc. i was at one of the meetings where the Telos folks got together to talk about communitarianism and critical theory, if they shared anything... it was just before Lasch was writing his last book there, can't think of the name. i don't remember much except that Paul Piccone was loud and chomped on a ceegar. at any rate, i don't recall much talk of it then. like libertarianism or populism or, perhaps better, feminism, i think there are left and right version and i don't think there is anything about communitarian thinking that means that one must inevitably want to legislate marriage convenants or somesuch.
as for Wolfe, _Whose Keeper_ has a chapter in it devoted quite specifically to women, women's oppression and, for a book that is a critique of individualism, that particular chapter is an examination of _why_ individualism is good. that is, it is a book that is quite aware of the feminist critique of the ideology of separate spheres where a communitarian orientation isn't such a good thing for women. that individualism was a 'good' thing for women who too often stick it out in bad marriages, subsuming themselves for another. i believe his critique of Scandinavian countries' welfare state is similarly aware of feminist issues and how the welfare state was used to fight sexism, etc.
but, of course, don't let me stop anyone from a bash communitarians day. but before you do, pick up _Habits of the Heart_ and read their indictment of capitalism in the foreward to the latest edition where they point out that commentators on their first book sorta kinda got it wrong.