The Uncommonplace

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In a capitalist society, a public driven by its own values of efficiency, profit, private ownership, and independence, communities of all kinds are gradually eroded by exploitation and domination. This is the situation Berry has in mind when he says the following: 5/

While the fight for individual rights has led to significant breakthrough with regard to social justice, individual rights has (from an ethical perspective) little to do with communal values like responsibility, fidelity, trust, love, and care. 4/

Since a public must accommodate several communities who hold different sets of values, public governance often chooses to adopt the individuated liberal subject as its foundational building block. As a result, governance becomes a mode of securing rights for individuals. 3/

Berry understands the public not as a placed community, but as a (public) space where difference communities and their individual members interact with one another. The presence of multiple communities necessarily gives rise a kind of pluralism. 2/

In our latest episode, we talked briefly about Berry’s understanding of “publics” and “localities.” For Berry, the fundamental difference between the two lies in the distinction between individual rights and community health. This is a thread on that distinction. 1/11