ized, unitary bureaucracy we live by. I believe, although Incannot be sure, that more and more responsible people arengiving thought to alternative patterns, not driven by the spurnof crisis.nI am struck too by the continuing rise of interest innintermediate groups, associations, and patterns of indirectnrather than direct authority. Such interest was largelynlacking in this country — though not in Europe, especiallynFrance — even three decades ago. It is one thing for thenplanning government to look out on an imagined mass ofn235 million discrete, even isolated individuals, and it isnsomething else for that planning mind to look instead at thenreality of the groups and associations in which that 235nmillion people tend for the most part to live. Such groups asnfamily, neighborhood, church, school, and township are farnfrom being excrescences; they are very much parts ofnhuman personalities. Interestingly, perhaps auspiciously, thenidea of intermediation in government and society appears tonbe transideological at the present time. Both the left and thenright have discovered it in recent years. They do not haventhe specters of dead communities before their eyes as do thenprophets of the unitary national community. They do notnsee the population as one of lost, alienated, estranged soulsnstriving vainly and hopelessly to live in households, grasp atnreligion, be tormented by job, and live in asphalt jungles.nAnd, as noted, they see very clearly the importance andnpopularity of groups intermediate to individual and state.nSuch is the seeming spread of the concept of intermediationnthat one of the best articles of the year on the subjectnappeared a few months ago in The New Republic (annadmirable journal, of course), but I couldn’t help thinkingnof its old founders, Croly, Dewey, and Lippmann, spinning,nsurely, in their graves. There is no talismanic power in thenidea of intermediation; it will never attract enthusiasticncrowds or rallies any more than a sound military strategy ornreform in the budgetary process will. But it’s a retreat fromncrisis-thinking.nIt is within that theoretical context that the recentnrejuvenation of the states, or many of them, is best seen.nThe Brookings Institution report some months ago on 14nstates the Institution had been studying for years is contributory.nThese states, far from going into passive retrenchmentnas the result of revenue-sharing and other deploymentnmeasures taken by the federal government, proved themselvesnboth buoyant and innovative in the new life givenncultural as well as economic and social services. Somenjournalists have commented on the unwonted, almostnforgotten, political liveliness — these days — of the statencapitals and the increase in the quality of those in positionsnof leadership.nThere is a general, perhaps rising movement of the timesnperhaps best called the Antibureaucracy. There is morenawareness of the sheer fact of the nahonal, federal bureaucracy;nand with this awareness a focused hostility. ThenAntibureaucracy reminds me of an inverted cargo cult. Thenpeople are pleased with the usufruct of central bureaucracy,nbut instead of praying to, they curse the cargo ships. Theynsee it as Karl Marx did, as “an appalling parasitic body,” andnas Max Weber did, “an iron cage . . . filled with robots.”nPaul Volcker, from his vantage point of member of anpresidential commission to seek the causes of an apparentndecline in the quality of government service, opined that anvicious circle is created: the lower the quality of the service,nthe more the confidence of the citizen in his government isnshaken; and the more respect for government goes down,nthe worse the quality of those seeking employment. Somethingnlike a Perestroika is needed in this country, and whonknows? It may be under way; not only in the federalngovernment but at the great corporations like IBM andnGeneral Motors.nFinally, there is a substantial difference in the intellectualnscene regarding government and the social order, one thatn30 years ago I would never have expected to see in mynlifetime. A second ideology was, as we now know, justnbeginning to come into existence in the 50’s, a conservativenideology, an entry that within another decade or two made antwo-ideology, bipolar, political society. Historians had fornyears been proving that a conservative movement wouldnnever rise in the United States; the reasons given were thatnAmerica had never known a feudal stage in its history, andnthis, it was said, was a prime requirement in all countries fornan emergent conservative mentality. Well, either Americandid have a feudal stage or else one isn’t necessary after all fornthe rise of a distinctly conservative polihcal ideology.nIn any event, it would seem that conservatism, howeverndefined from one week to the next, is here and is likely tonremain for awhile. It is of little consequence in this respectnhow the Reagan coalition cracks up. The important forcesnare institutional: there are large, wealthy conservative foundations,ninstitutes and think tanks, respected columnists, andna regular harvest of books and articles which somehow makenthe best-seller lists. Intellectually, conservatism is no morenmonolithic than is liberalism. Each can seem chameleonicnmost of the time, especially to the true believer. We can’tndefine ideology either, but we do know that it’s there.nThrough its 200 years of history, mostly in Europe,nconservatism has commonly manifested a serious interest inninstitutions like the family, church, the local community, thenprivate sector for their value as buffering or mediating forcesnand for their role in preserving a more diverse and pluralisticnsocial order. All indications are that we shall remain anbipolar society ideologically for awhile yet.nIn conclusion, if I am correct in my impressions — andnthey are hardly mine alone — of a gathering distrust ofnmammoth bureaucracies and their stultifying effects uponnhuman energies, of a distinct renascence of the states, of anrising interest in the whole theory and policy of thenintermediate strata and groups and of their vital influencesnupon the individual’s perception of himself as well as of thennational state, and of an intellectual pluralism in thisncountry that was largely absent 30 years ago, if I am correctnin this, then surely there will be a rethinking of the state ofncommunity — in both senses of the word “state” — innAmerica. In addition to the by now well-ensconced, crisisborn,nrenaissance-lifted idea of the nation as a communitynof individuals resembling the famous frontispiece of Hobbes’snLeviathan, that is, the unitary, centralized nationalncommunity, there will be, there may already be, a secondnenvisagement of community, one sprung perhaps from thenancient ideal of a communitas communitatum, a communitynof communities: perhaps even a change in our nationalninscription from e pluribus unum to in pluribus unum.nnnJUNE 1988 j 17n