Word: walzer
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...limited too sharply, if all political groups can move out of the existing politico-legal framework, then the state will lack the power to intervene on behalf of the oppressed. The civil rights progress since 1957 has come through purposeful state coercion. While letting group pluralism run amok, Walzer should have affirmed the duties of power-the responsibility of the state to preserve itself and the nation, and to provide for the common welfare...
Alas, this may also be seen as a warrant for repression. It depends on the nature of the state. One wonders how far Walzer is proposing to dismantle the state and deny it the power to inhibit group formation. It would be unwise to hope that the struggle of right and left can regulate itself. In a capitalist society, such a struggle has only one outcome. Ultimately the state must impose its own law and order. Like it or not. American dissent subsists on creative state intervention...
...Because Walzer sees the state as aloof and parenthetical, pluralism itself must keep peace in society. Mediated group activity combats the alienation effect of the state on the individual. In Walzer's model of confrontation, the organized group resists the state, but citizens relate to the group as isolated individuals. An obligation to the group may collide with an obligation to the state. It may also conflict with personal honor. A man's comrades demand his cooperation. On the other hand, each man must use his own eyes. How, Walzer ponders, does one resign his comrades? Behind his Lenin-flavored...
...same ambiguity pervades Walzer's discussion of "The Obligation to Die for the State." One must agree with his conclusion that it is never possible to say a particular man should die for a particular moral good. He may also be right in saying that a man is obligated to fight only if he feels the obligation-but at least there should be agreed-upon criteria, laid down by the general will, through which one comes to such decisions. His conclusion from the essays on war, you-are-obligated-if-you-think-so, pushes individual responsibility past the breaking point...
Indeed, as Walzer argues, an oppressed minority should be able to judge the quality of their oppression and the extent of their obligations. But even in racist America, blacks have disagreed when they have tried to be precise about their situation. This raises the thorny issue of who speaks for the oppressed. According to Walzer, political activists emerge because the masses are unable to act for themselves. They must perform as unauthorized agents, or virtual representatives...