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Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life
This landmark book about America's "habits of the heart"--Tocqueville's expression for the mix of traits essential to our national character--explores the tradition Americans use to make sense of themselves and their society, and it presents one of today's major moral dilemmas: the conflict between our fierce individualism and our urgent need for community and commitment to one another.
Basing their research on a massive five-year study of various American communities, the authors conclude that Americans, largely confined to a vocabulary of individualism, have lost the language needed to make moral sense of their lives.
Wives and husbands, managers, psychotherapists, local business people, and civic activists tell how hard it can be to commit yourself to others if you believe that "in the end you're really alone, and you really have to answer to yourself." Clearly a product and reflection of our times, Habits of the Heart offers us a forward-looking window on American's search for tradition and meaning in life.
"Habits of the Heart holds up a mirror to American values, makes us examine ourselves, and dares us to question where our society is going. [It] will make you question your own habits and look into your own heart. Not many books possess that ability."
-- George Keller, Baltimore Sun
Contents
Preface
INTRODUCTORY
1. The Pursuit of Happiness
2. Culture and Character: The Historical Conversation
I. PRIVATE LIFE
3. Finding Oneself
4. Love and Marriage
5. Reaching Out
6. Individualism
II. PUBLIC LIFE
7. Getting Involved
8. Citizenship
9. Religion
10. The National Society
CONCLUSION
11. Transforming American Culture
Appendix: Social Science as Public Philosophy
Basing their research on a massive five-year study of various American communities, the authors conclude that Americans, largely confined to a vocabulary of individualism, have lost the language needed to make moral sense of their lives.
Wives and husbands, managers, psychotherapists, local business people, and civic activists tell how hard it can be to commit yourself to others if you believe that "in the end you're really alone, and you really have to answer to yourself." Clearly a product and reflection of our times, Habits of the Heart offers us a forward-looking window on American's search for tradition and meaning in life.
"Habits of the Heart holds up a mirror to American values, makes us examine ourselves, and dares us to question where our society is going. [It] will make you question your own habits and look into your own heart. Not many books possess that ability."
-- George Keller, Baltimore Sun
Contents
Preface
INTRODUCTORY
1. The Pursuit of Happiness
2. Culture and Character: The Historical Conversation
I. PRIVATE LIFE
3. Finding Oneself
4. Love and Marriage
5. Reaching Out
6. Individualism
II. PUBLIC LIFE
7. Getting Involved
8. Citizenship
9. Religion
10. The National Society
CONCLUSION
11. Transforming American Culture
Appendix: Social Science as Public Philosophy
376 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
145 people are currently reading
2781 people want to read
About the author
Robert N. Bellah
50 books51 followersRobert N. Bellah was Elliott Professor of Sociology Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley.
Bellah graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College with a B.A. in social anthropology in 1950. His undergraduate honors thesis on “Apache Kinship Systems” won the Phi Beta Kappa Prize and was published by the Harvard University Press. In 1955, he received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in Sociology and Far Eastern Languages and published his doctoral dissertation, Tokugawa Religion, in 1957. After two years of postdoctoral work in Islamic Studies at McGill University in Montreal, he began teaching at Harvard in 1957 and left 10 years later as Professor of Sociology to move to the University of California, Berkeley. From 1967 to 1997, he served as Ford Professor of Sociology.
Other works include Beyond Belief, Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society, The Broken Covenant, The New Religious Consciousness, Varieties of Civil Religion, Uncivil Religion, Imagining Japan and, most recently, The Robert Bellah Reader. The latter reflects his work as a whole and the overall direction of his life in scholarship “to understand the meaning of modernity.”
Continuing concerns already developed in part in “Civil Religion in America” and The Broken Covenant, led to a book Bellah co-authored with Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven Tipton. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life published by the University of California Press in 1985. The same group wrote The Good Society, an institutional analysis of American society, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1991.
On December 20, 2000, Bellah received the United States National Humanities Medal. The citation, which President William Jefferson Clinton signed, reads:
The President of the United States of America awards this National Humanities Medal to Robert N. Bellah for his efforts to illuminate the importance of community in American society. A distinguished sociologist and educator, he has raised our awareness of the values that are at the core of our democratic institutions and of the dangers of individualism unchecked by social responsibility.
In July 2008, Bellah and Professor Hans Joas, who holds appointments in both the University of Chicago and Freiburg University in Germany, organized a conference at the Max Weber Center of the University of Erfurt on “The Axial Age and Its Consequences for Subsequent History and the Present,” attended by a distinguished group of international scholars interested in comparative history and sociology. At the conclusion of the conference, the University of Erfurt awarded Bellah an honorary degree. Harvard University Press published the proceedings of this conference as The Axial Age and Its Consequences in 2012.
In September of 2011 the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press published Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age, the result of Bellah’s lifetime interest in the evolution of religion and thirteen years of work on this volume.
Preview a book about Robert Bellah by University of Padua, Italy, Sociology Professor Matteo Bortolini.
News and Articles Commenting on Robert Bellah's Passing
Comments on the Passing of Robert N. Bellah by Jeffrey C. Alexander
American Journal of Cultural Sociology, July 31, 2013
Robert Bellah, Sociologist of Religion, Dies at 86
Tricycle, July 31, 2013
In Memoriam: Robert N. Bellah
Pacific Church News [The Episcopal Diocese of California], July 31, 2013
Robert Bellah, 1927-2013
Harvard University Press | Blog, July 31, 2013
The Passing of Robert Bellah
Association for the Sociology of Religion, July 31, 2013
Robert Bellah, preeminent American sociologist of religion, dies at 86 by Yasmin Anwar,
UC Berkeley News Center, August 1, 2013
Remembering Robert Bellah by Jeff Guhin
Jeff Guhin's blog , Thursday, August 1, 2013
Robert Bellah Departs by Mark Silk,
Religion News Service, August
Bellah graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College with a B.A. in social anthropology in 1950. His undergraduate honors thesis on “Apache Kinship Systems” won the Phi Beta Kappa Prize and was published by the Harvard University Press. In 1955, he received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in Sociology and Far Eastern Languages and published his doctoral dissertation, Tokugawa Religion, in 1957. After two years of postdoctoral work in Islamic Studies at McGill University in Montreal, he began teaching at Harvard in 1957 and left 10 years later as Professor of Sociology to move to the University of California, Berkeley. From 1967 to 1997, he served as Ford Professor of Sociology.
Other works include Beyond Belief, Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society, The Broken Covenant, The New Religious Consciousness, Varieties of Civil Religion, Uncivil Religion, Imagining Japan and, most recently, The Robert Bellah Reader. The latter reflects his work as a whole and the overall direction of his life in scholarship “to understand the meaning of modernity.”
Continuing concerns already developed in part in “Civil Religion in America” and The Broken Covenant, led to a book Bellah co-authored with Richard Madsen, William Sullivan, Ann Swidler and Steven Tipton. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life published by the University of California Press in 1985. The same group wrote The Good Society, an institutional analysis of American society, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1991.
On December 20, 2000, Bellah received the United States National Humanities Medal. The citation, which President William Jefferson Clinton signed, reads:
The President of the United States of America awards this National Humanities Medal to Robert N. Bellah for his efforts to illuminate the importance of community in American society. A distinguished sociologist and educator, he has raised our awareness of the values that are at the core of our democratic institutions and of the dangers of individualism unchecked by social responsibility.
In July 2008, Bellah and Professor Hans Joas, who holds appointments in both the University of Chicago and Freiburg University in Germany, organized a conference at the Max Weber Center of the University of Erfurt on “The Axial Age and Its Consequences for Subsequent History and the Present,” attended by a distinguished group of international scholars interested in comparative history and sociology. At the conclusion of the conference, the University of Erfurt awarded Bellah an honorary degree. Harvard University Press published the proceedings of this conference as The Axial Age and Its Consequences in 2012.
In September of 2011 the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press published Religion in Human Evolution: From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age, the result of Bellah’s lifetime interest in the evolution of religion and thirteen years of work on this volume.
Preview a book about Robert Bellah by University of Padua, Italy, Sociology Professor Matteo Bortolini.
News and Articles Commenting on Robert Bellah's Passing
Comments on the Passing of Robert N. Bellah by Jeffrey C. Alexander
American Journal of Cultural Sociology, July 31, 2013
Robert Bellah, Sociologist of Religion, Dies at 86
Tricycle, July 31, 2013
In Memoriam: Robert N. Bellah
Pacific Church News [The Episcopal Diocese of California], July 31, 2013
Robert Bellah, 1927-2013
Harvard University Press | Blog, July 31, 2013
The Passing of Robert Bellah
Association for the Sociology of Religion, July 31, 2013
Robert Bellah, preeminent American sociologist of religion, dies at 86 by Yasmin Anwar,
UC Berkeley News Center, August 1, 2013
Remembering Robert Bellah by Jeff Guhin
Jeff Guhin's blog , Thursday, August 1, 2013
Robert Bellah Departs by Mark Silk,
Religion News Service, August
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April 30, 2007This book made me want to bash my head in. Boring, repetitive, and I was forced to finish it for class. If the bookstore doesn't buy it back, I'm setting it on fire and laughing maniacally.
January 26, 2014
A canonical text of American sociology in the 1980s, sure to be at the center of reading lists about the 1980s. A quintessential examination of the mental space of middle class white America, in the late Cold War years, the book is a curiously normative document framed as a piece of positive sociology. Its immense popularity stems probably from precisely this balancing act, as well as the great learning wrapped up within Bellah's mellifluous if curiously relaxed and at times repetitive prose. Despite the nuances, at the end of the day, the argument is quite simple: that the narcissistic pursuit of material abundance (what Bellah in an earlier phase of his career had celebrated as "modernization") has revealed itself to Americans as quite empty (the book refuses the Marxist language of "alienation" though it could well be rewritten in that frame), and the choice over how to move forward is between what they refer to as the "therapeutic model," on the one hand, and a return to communitarian integration, focused around family and religion.
Certainly the critique of therapeutalism is sound. Basically, therapy is designed to make people accept the purely individualistic presmises of American social life that are the primary target of HotH: "The problem with therapy is not that intimacy is tyrannically taking over too much of public life. It is that too much of the purely contractual structure of the economic and bureaucratic world is becoming an ideological model for personal life.... The prevalence of contractual intimacy and procedural cooperation, carried over from the boardroom to bedroom and back again, is what threatens to obscure the ideals of both personal virtue and public good." (127) "While the emphasis on connectedness and community would seem to be an advance over 'noncaring self-actualization,' one must ask whether the relentless emphasis on self-interest does not raise doubts as to whether there has really been a shift." (135).
This quotes shows why HotH typifies one of the main directions that people could go as the invested technocratic hopes for what is here referred to as "the Administered society" fade away, especially if they refused to embrace what was not yet being called neoliberalism (e.g. the contractual structure of the economic as an ideological model for personal life) -- e.g. communitarianism, of which it is the great representative. Turning away from technocratic managerialism, the book also offers a deep critique of the enduring American cult of individualism, both in its "utilitarian" form (the rush to get ahead and/or keep up) and in its "expressive" form (the desire to "find oneself" by define one's own private ethics and system of belief).
So what should Americans do once the give up on these materialistic and personalized conception of fulfillment? At every page, the book reinforces the notion that the proper cure to what ails the American soul (here called "heart") is to return to republican political values and the communal integration, especially those offered by tolerant religious sects. The book closes with a methodological call for sociology to reassert itself as "public philosophy," that is, as the profession of norms: the assertion of belief and moral advocacy.
In other words, to be slightly anachronistic, HofH is "1000 points of light" for liberals. The text is highly symptomatic of that worldview for all the things it doesn't do, and for all the things it doesn't acknowledge not doing. It barely acknowledges that it is not about all of America, but specifically about white middle class, suburban America. It remains completely uninterested in any broader transnational context for the struggles it talks about. Its critique of contemporary economic life focuses more on what corporate practices does to the interior lives of workers, rather than on social injustices perpetrated or reinforced by these structures. It shamelessly blends fact and value, claiming that all Americans yearn for the solutions that they pose, whether or not they quite realize it (again, while they studiously avoid Marxist jargon, the shadow of "false consciousness" shrouds much of the argument). There is no acknowledgement of the darker aspects of the American soul, not just in the vicious inter-communal hatreds (these are treated as having faded), but also in the intra-communal repressiveness which is essential to the integrating function that communities serve. Bellah implicitly assumes that there is a basic compatibility between community and individual, that is, that communal endeavor is the best way to achieve individual fulfillment, rather than the abnegation of the same. To which one can only say, that really depends on what your community makes of your individual desires.
Finally, there is a curious note about the anxiety of influence: while Bellah returns obsessively to Tocqueville as the touchstone for the communitarianism he calls for, the book barely acknowledges (except via brief, largely dismissive footnotes) other sociological investigators who have plowed the same terrain with striking different results, notably the Lynds, David Riesman, and Christopher Lasch.
Certainly the critique of therapeutalism is sound. Basically, therapy is designed to make people accept the purely individualistic presmises of American social life that are the primary target of HotH: "The problem with therapy is not that intimacy is tyrannically taking over too much of public life. It is that too much of the purely contractual structure of the economic and bureaucratic world is becoming an ideological model for personal life.... The prevalence of contractual intimacy and procedural cooperation, carried over from the boardroom to bedroom and back again, is what threatens to obscure the ideals of both personal virtue and public good." (127) "While the emphasis on connectedness and community would seem to be an advance over 'noncaring self-actualization,' one must ask whether the relentless emphasis on self-interest does not raise doubts as to whether there has really been a shift." (135).
This quotes shows why HotH typifies one of the main directions that people could go as the invested technocratic hopes for what is here referred to as "the Administered society" fade away, especially if they refused to embrace what was not yet being called neoliberalism (e.g. the contractual structure of the economic as an ideological model for personal life) -- e.g. communitarianism, of which it is the great representative. Turning away from technocratic managerialism, the book also offers a deep critique of the enduring American cult of individualism, both in its "utilitarian" form (the rush to get ahead and/or keep up) and in its "expressive" form (the desire to "find oneself" by define one's own private ethics and system of belief).
So what should Americans do once the give up on these materialistic and personalized conception of fulfillment? At every page, the book reinforces the notion that the proper cure to what ails the American soul (here called "heart") is to return to republican political values and the communal integration, especially those offered by tolerant religious sects. The book closes with a methodological call for sociology to reassert itself as "public philosophy," that is, as the profession of norms: the assertion of belief and moral advocacy.
In other words, to be slightly anachronistic, HofH is "1000 points of light" for liberals. The text is highly symptomatic of that worldview for all the things it doesn't do, and for all the things it doesn't acknowledge not doing. It barely acknowledges that it is not about all of America, but specifically about white middle class, suburban America. It remains completely uninterested in any broader transnational context for the struggles it talks about. Its critique of contemporary economic life focuses more on what corporate practices does to the interior lives of workers, rather than on social injustices perpetrated or reinforced by these structures. It shamelessly blends fact and value, claiming that all Americans yearn for the solutions that they pose, whether or not they quite realize it (again, while they studiously avoid Marxist jargon, the shadow of "false consciousness" shrouds much of the argument). There is no acknowledgement of the darker aspects of the American soul, not just in the vicious inter-communal hatreds (these are treated as having faded), but also in the intra-communal repressiveness which is essential to the integrating function that communities serve. Bellah implicitly assumes that there is a basic compatibility between community and individual, that is, that communal endeavor is the best way to achieve individual fulfillment, rather than the abnegation of the same. To which one can only say, that really depends on what your community makes of your individual desires.
Finally, there is a curious note about the anxiety of influence: while Bellah returns obsessively to Tocqueville as the touchstone for the communitarianism he calls for, the book barely acknowledges (except via brief, largely dismissive footnotes) other sociological investigators who have plowed the same terrain with striking different results, notably the Lynds, David Riesman, and Christopher Lasch.
June 18, 2008
The gist: Individualism (whether economic or spiritual) cannot provide meaning, however worthy the freedom it offers may be. Nor can the weak forms of association found in "lifestyle enclaves," inhabited as they are only by similar people who join seeking personal fulfillment. A meaningful life can only be lived in a community, sustained by tradition and by service to others.
May 29, 2025
Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton, 1985, Updated edition 1996 (current conditions, and sources cited, are 1983 and before), 355 pages, ISBN 0520205685, Dewey 973.9
It's a work of sociology, drawing on psychology and a smidgen of religion, to try to update Alexis de Tocqueville's 1835-1840 /Democracy in America/ for the U.S. of 1983. p. 306.
Asks big questions: Where are we going, and is there any alternative to this handbasket.
The takeaway insight is that we the people must be moral and all work together for our common good, for our republic to stand.
Only if our political system serves the common good can we avoid despotism, into which many republics have fallen before us. pp. 271, 294.
The authors critique other people's values and life choices, judging them inarticulate, inconsistent, and arbitrary. (Chapter 1 and pp. 79-80.)
Then we retreat to the observation of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) that democracy is possible only among roughly-equal self-sufficient citizens, as distinct from atomized servants of a handful of dominators. And we're reminded that the coming of large corporations to dominance has created the latter condition. This happened in the late 1800s: our society has suffered under this dominance ever since, losing much of the moral and democratic effect of religious and civic participation, paving the way for despotism. (Chapter 2 and pp. 247, 281, 285.) [See /Origins of the Federal Reserve System: Money, Class, and Corporate Capitalism, 1890-1913/, James Charles Livingston, for a shockingly readable account of how and for whom the modern world was created: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . Bellah and his coauthors don't hit the politics too hard, but here's John Dewey:
FINDING ONESELF
A therapist's efforts to help others change their lives for the better may be hopeless, especially if the person is not young, anxious, verbal, intelligent, and sensitive. p. 70. People want and need health, clothing, housing, food, sex, love and intimacy, work and mastery, playfulness, spiritual meaning, and security. pp. 80-81. It is a powerful cultural fiction that we not only can, but must, make up our deepest beliefs in the isolation of our private selves. p. 65. In large-scale industrial society, it's no longer obvious that work is a moral relationship between people, not just a source of material or psychic rewards. p. 66. The ties one forms in the search for meaning through expressive individualism are not those of the moral community of the calling. p. 71. However much Americans extol the autonomy and self-reliance of the individual, they agree that connectedness to others in work, love, and community is essential to happiness, self-esteem, and moral worth. p. 84. We even talked to some for whom the word /soul/ has not been entirely displaced by the word /self/. p. 83. The small town and the doctrinaire church, which did offer more coherent narratives, were often narrow and oppressive. p. 83. (Chapter 3.)
The language of individualism, the primary American language of self-understanding, limits the ways in which people think. p. 290.
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
The extraordinary prosperity and growing power of America is chiefly due to the superiority of their women. p. 86. --Alexis de Tocqueville, /Democracy in America/, 1835, 1840. Tocqueville marveled that the independent, self-reliant American girl, so much more able to hold her own in public than her European counterpart, should choose to enter the lifetime commitment of marriage, which would confine her. p. 88.
Needing others to feel "O.K." about oneself is a malady that therapy seeks to cure. p. 99. In the therapeutic view, a kind of selfishness is essential to love. p. 100. The present ideology of American individualism has difficulty justifying why men and women should be giving to one another at all. p. 111.
The family is the core of the private sphere, whose aim is to avoid the public world. Americans are seldom as selfish as the therapeutic culture urges them to be. But often the limit of their altruism is the family circle. The tendency of our individualism to dispose "each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends," that worried Tocqueville, seems to be coming true. Suspicion of, and withdrawal from, the public world is a condition of the despotism Tocqueville feared. pp. 112, 291. (Chapter 4.)
INDIVIDUALISM
Americans have a deep desire for autonomy and a conviction that life has no meaning unless shared; we are committed to equality and try to justify inequality. p. 150.
Public order and trust require active civic life. p. 162. (Chapter 6; p. 302)
GETTING INVOLVED
Laws are too easily manipulated by the selfish rich and too frequently broken by the immoral poor. p. 183. (Chapter 7.)
CITIZENSHIP
Americans seem to lack the resources to think about the relationship between groups that are culturally, socially, or economically quite different. An egalitarian society comprises only autonomous middle-class individuals. Others are alien: their existence is illegitimate. They must be defective or disadvantaged. pp. 206-207.
Wants are satisfied not in terms of their justice but in terms of the power of the wanters. p. 207.
Obedience to illegitimate, oppressive power depraves men. Tocqueville. pp. 211, 323.
The City of Philadelphia in 1980 planned public-private ventures for economic development of poor neighborhoods. Institute for the Study of Civic Values leader Edward Schwartz objected that the focus on creating jobs ignored the questions of the kinds of work to be done, how it was to be organized, and by whom. The city was promoting the hegemony of the corporations that had ignored peoples' needs. Schwartz contended that people's political development--their capacity to organize their common life--is both an end and a means. Local co-ops, not corporations, should create jobs. The city/corporation official countered that corporations might yield a higher return on venture capital than worker co-ops would. pp. 214-218. (Chapter 8.)
RELIGION
As of 1983, 40% of Americans still attended church weekly: same as in 1950. pp. 219, 334. [As of 2025, 33% of Americans say they attend religious services at least monthly; 44% say they pray at least daily. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/...
But, 12% of Americans aged 18 through 29 also said that they were licensed to operate a nuclear submarine, so you can't rely on what they say: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-rea... ] (Chapter 9.)
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY
Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, no form of government can render us secure. --James Madison, Federalist 10, pp. 253, 326. Personal welfare depends on the general welfare. p. 254.
Competing visions of the public good:
The Establishment v. Populism. 1880-1920. Magnate control v. use of governmental power for the common good. pp. 258-262.
Neocapitalism v. Welfare Liberalism. 1933-present. Greed is good v. government intervention. Slowing economic growth in the 1970s ended Americans' consensus on welfare liberalism, ushering in the greed-is-good consensus. [This plot shows how slight a decrease in the rate of increase of GDP was needed to change our attitudes: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=... .] Neocapitalism opposes only the welfare liberalism that benefits ordinary people: Neocapitalism demands massive government largesse in maintaining the military-industrial complex, agribusiness subsidies, corporate bailouts, high spending and low taxes. 262-266, 285.
The Administered Society v. Economic Democracy. 1980s-present. Creditors redo all the laws to benefit themselves v. citizen empowerment, citizen control of investment, economic democracy, public funds for citizen initiatives. pp. 267-270. (Chapter 10.)
TRANSFORMING AMERICAN CULTURE
Progress may be into the abyss. p. 277.
Television portrays a world dominated by material ambition. pp. 279-281.
Social ecology is damaged not only by war, genocide, and political [and economic] repression. It is also damaged by the destruction of the subtle ties that bind human beings to one another, leaving them frightened and alone. p. 284.
We have committed what to the republican founders of our nation was the cardinal sin: we have put our own good, as individuals, as groups, as a nation, ahead of the common good. The American Dream is often of being /uniquely/ successful. That dream contradicts the dream of living in a society worth living in. Yet it's hard to give up: we've worked toward it so long. Poverty will be alleviated by crumbs falling from the rich man's table, says neocapitalist ideology. p. 285.
The Old and New Testaments make it clear that societies sharply divided between rich and poor are not in accord with the will of God. [See /And Forgive Them Their Debts/, Michael Hudson, 2018, for the thousands-of-years practice of debt forgiveness in the ancient Near East. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... ] p. 285.
Governments must reduce the punishments of failure and the rewards of success. p. 287. (Chapter 11.)
We must reassert the idea that incorporation is a concession of public authority to a private group /in return for/ service to the public good, with effective public accountability. p. 290.
Today's specialized academics, with notable exceptions, write with a set of intellectual assumptions and a vocabulary shared only by their colleagues. p. 299.
[ Notable exceptions:
David Attenborough https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Mehrsa Baradaran https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Noam Chomsky https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Linda Greenhouse https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Michael Hudson https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... ,
Thomas Piketty https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... , and
Heather Cox Richardson https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
come to mind, as should
Philip Dray https://www.goodreads.com/author/list... ,
David Graeber https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
David Harvey https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Chris Hedges https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
James Livingston https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Nathan J. Robinson https://www.goodreads.com/author/list... and https://www.currentaffairs.org/ , and
Christopher W. Shaw https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
and in the biological sciences,
Richard K. Bernstein https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Jason Fung https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... , and
Nick Lane https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ]
It's a work of sociology, drawing on psychology and a smidgen of religion, to try to update Alexis de Tocqueville's 1835-1840 /Democracy in America/ for the U.S. of 1983. p. 306.
Asks big questions: Where are we going, and is there any alternative to this handbasket.
The takeaway insight is that we the people must be moral and all work together for our common good, for our republic to stand.
Only if our political system serves the common good can we avoid despotism, into which many republics have fallen before us. pp. 271, 294.
The authors critique other people's values and life choices, judging them inarticulate, inconsistent, and arbitrary. (Chapter 1 and pp. 79-80.)
Then we retreat to the observation of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) and Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) that democracy is possible only among roughly-equal self-sufficient citizens, as distinct from atomized servants of a handful of dominators. And we're reminded that the coming of large corporations to dominance has created the latter condition. This happened in the late 1800s: our society has suffered under this dominance ever since, losing much of the moral and democratic effect of religious and civic participation, paving the way for despotism. (Chapter 2 and pp. 247, 281, 285.) [See /Origins of the Federal Reserve System: Money, Class, and Corporate Capitalism, 1890-1913/, James Charles Livingston, for a shockingly readable account of how and for whom the modern world was created: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... . Bellah and his coauthors don't hit the politics too hard, but here's John Dewey:
Until industrial feudalism--our current system--is replaced by industrial democracy, politics will be but the shadow cast by business over society. The institutions of private power undermine democracy and freedom. Power resides in control of the means of production, exchange, publicity, transportation, and communication. Whoever owns them rules the life of the country. --John Dewey.Management's boot on our necks, 2025: https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/t... ]
FINDING ONESELF
A therapist's efforts to help others change their lives for the better may be hopeless, especially if the person is not young, anxious, verbal, intelligent, and sensitive. p. 70. People want and need health, clothing, housing, food, sex, love and intimacy, work and mastery, playfulness, spiritual meaning, and security. pp. 80-81. It is a powerful cultural fiction that we not only can, but must, make up our deepest beliefs in the isolation of our private selves. p. 65. In large-scale industrial society, it's no longer obvious that work is a moral relationship between people, not just a source of material or psychic rewards. p. 66. The ties one forms in the search for meaning through expressive individualism are not those of the moral community of the calling. p. 71. However much Americans extol the autonomy and self-reliance of the individual, they agree that connectedness to others in work, love, and community is essential to happiness, self-esteem, and moral worth. p. 84. We even talked to some for whom the word /soul/ has not been entirely displaced by the word /self/. p. 83. The small town and the doctrinaire church, which did offer more coherent narratives, were often narrow and oppressive. p. 83. (Chapter 3.)
The language of individualism, the primary American language of self-understanding, limits the ways in which people think. p. 290.
LOVE AND MARRIAGE
The extraordinary prosperity and growing power of America is chiefly due to the superiority of their women. p. 86. --Alexis de Tocqueville, /Democracy in America/, 1835, 1840. Tocqueville marveled that the independent, self-reliant American girl, so much more able to hold her own in public than her European counterpart, should choose to enter the lifetime commitment of marriage, which would confine her. p. 88.
Needing others to feel "O.K." about oneself is a malady that therapy seeks to cure. p. 99. In the therapeutic view, a kind of selfishness is essential to love. p. 100. The present ideology of American individualism has difficulty justifying why men and women should be giving to one another at all. p. 111.
The family is the core of the private sphere, whose aim is to avoid the public world. Americans are seldom as selfish as the therapeutic culture urges them to be. But often the limit of their altruism is the family circle. The tendency of our individualism to dispose "each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends," that worried Tocqueville, seems to be coming true. Suspicion of, and withdrawal from, the public world is a condition of the despotism Tocqueville feared. pp. 112, 291. (Chapter 4.)
INDIVIDUALISM
Americans have a deep desire for autonomy and a conviction that life has no meaning unless shared; we are committed to equality and try to justify inequality. p. 150.
Public order and trust require active civic life. p. 162. (Chapter 6; p. 302)
GETTING INVOLVED
Laws are too easily manipulated by the selfish rich and too frequently broken by the immoral poor. p. 183. (Chapter 7.)
CITIZENSHIP
Americans seem to lack the resources to think about the relationship between groups that are culturally, socially, or economically quite different. An egalitarian society comprises only autonomous middle-class individuals. Others are alien: their existence is illegitimate. They must be defective or disadvantaged. pp. 206-207.
Wants are satisfied not in terms of their justice but in terms of the power of the wanters. p. 207.
Obedience to illegitimate, oppressive power depraves men. Tocqueville. pp. 211, 323.
The City of Philadelphia in 1980 planned public-private ventures for economic development of poor neighborhoods. Institute for the Study of Civic Values leader Edward Schwartz objected that the focus on creating jobs ignored the questions of the kinds of work to be done, how it was to be organized, and by whom. The city was promoting the hegemony of the corporations that had ignored peoples' needs. Schwartz contended that people's political development--their capacity to organize their common life--is both an end and a means. Local co-ops, not corporations, should create jobs. The city/corporation official countered that corporations might yield a higher return on venture capital than worker co-ops would. pp. 214-218. (Chapter 8.)
RELIGION
As of 1983, 40% of Americans still attended church weekly: same as in 1950. pp. 219, 334. [As of 2025, 33% of Americans say they attend religious services at least monthly; 44% say they pray at least daily. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/...
But, 12% of Americans aged 18 through 29 also said that they were licensed to operate a nuclear submarine, so you can't rely on what they say: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-rea... ] (Chapter 9.)
THE NATIONAL SOCIETY
Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, no form of government can render us secure. --James Madison, Federalist 10, pp. 253, 326. Personal welfare depends on the general welfare. p. 254.
Competing visions of the public good:
The Establishment v. Populism. 1880-1920. Magnate control v. use of governmental power for the common good. pp. 258-262.
Neocapitalism v. Welfare Liberalism. 1933-present. Greed is good v. government intervention. Slowing economic growth in the 1970s ended Americans' consensus on welfare liberalism, ushering in the greed-is-good consensus. [This plot shows how slight a decrease in the rate of increase of GDP was needed to change our attitudes: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=... .] Neocapitalism opposes only the welfare liberalism that benefits ordinary people: Neocapitalism demands massive government largesse in maintaining the military-industrial complex, agribusiness subsidies, corporate bailouts, high spending and low taxes. 262-266, 285.
The Administered Society v. Economic Democracy. 1980s-present. Creditors redo all the laws to benefit themselves v. citizen empowerment, citizen control of investment, economic democracy, public funds for citizen initiatives. pp. 267-270. (Chapter 10.)
TRANSFORMING AMERICAN CULTURE
Progress may be into the abyss. p. 277.
Television portrays a world dominated by material ambition. pp. 279-281.
Social ecology is damaged not only by war, genocide, and political [and economic] repression. It is also damaged by the destruction of the subtle ties that bind human beings to one another, leaving them frightened and alone. p. 284.
We have committed what to the republican founders of our nation was the cardinal sin: we have put our own good, as individuals, as groups, as a nation, ahead of the common good. The American Dream is often of being /uniquely/ successful. That dream contradicts the dream of living in a society worth living in. Yet it's hard to give up: we've worked toward it so long. Poverty will be alleviated by crumbs falling from the rich man's table, says neocapitalist ideology. p. 285.
The Old and New Testaments make it clear that societies sharply divided between rich and poor are not in accord with the will of God. [See /And Forgive Them Their Debts/, Michael Hudson, 2018, for the thousands-of-years practice of debt forgiveness in the ancient Near East. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4... ] p. 285.
Governments must reduce the punishments of failure and the rewards of success. p. 287. (Chapter 11.)
We must reassert the idea that incorporation is a concession of public authority to a private group /in return for/ service to the public good, with effective public accountability. p. 290.
Today's specialized academics, with notable exceptions, write with a set of intellectual assumptions and a vocabulary shared only by their colleagues. p. 299.
[ Notable exceptions:
David Attenborough https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Mehrsa Baradaran https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Noam Chomsky https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Linda Greenhouse https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Michael Hudson https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... ,
Thomas Piketty https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... , and
Heather Cox Richardson https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
come to mind, as should
Philip Dray https://www.goodreads.com/author/list... ,
David Graeber https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
David Harvey https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Chris Hedges https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
James Livingston https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Nathan J. Robinson https://www.goodreads.com/author/list... and https://www.currentaffairs.org/ , and
Christopher W. Shaw https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
and in the biological sciences,
Richard K. Bernstein https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ,
Jason Fung https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... , and
Nick Lane https://www.goodreads.com/review/list... ]
September 17, 2010
As a former student of sociology with intense curiosity about modern social/political/economic phenomena, I really enjoyed this book and would probably give a copy as a gift to student friends. What I especially liked was the ending where the six (3 pairs) American visions of the public good are outlined, ending with the Administered Society vs. Economic Democracy, neither of which sound pleasant.
I especially like how this analysis unfolds from a "classical republican" perspective and maintains a distance from current partisan stances. The authors' critique of what's being peddled as "therapeutic" was refreshing, challenging the increasingly popular mindset that we need so-called "experts" to teach us how to live and cope.
This is a worthwhile read for those interested in a sociological perspective on shifting American values alongside systemic changes occurring in our society. As a non-religious individual interested in ethics and morality, this book proved a valuable addition to my collection.
I especially like how this analysis unfolds from a "classical republican" perspective and maintains a distance from current partisan stances. The authors' critique of what's being peddled as "therapeutic" was refreshing, challenging the increasingly popular mindset that we need so-called "experts" to teach us how to live and cope.
This is a worthwhile read for those interested in a sociological perspective on shifting American values alongside systemic changes occurring in our society. As a non-religious individual interested in ethics and morality, this book proved a valuable addition to my collection.
October 9, 2014
One of those rare examples of academic writing that escaped to the hoi polloi. The title comes from a phrase used by Tocqueville in his observations of American culture. Bellah, et al., examine modern therapeutic culture and how it contrasts with the deepest, in some ways subconscious desires of society and ideas of the "good life."
In 1985 I'm certain this was paradigm-shifting stuff and I'm also certain it inspired much of the reappraisals of modernity as well as those committed,long-standing proponents of tradition.
If you can persevere through the ground-laying first chapter, it's a good read and well worth the time.
In 1985 I'm certain this was paradigm-shifting stuff and I'm also certain it inspired much of the reappraisals of modernity as well as those committed,long-standing proponents of tradition.
If you can persevere through the ground-laying first chapter, it's a good read and well worth the time.
February 12, 2015
¿Cómo es vivir en Estados Unidos? Esta parece ser la pregunta fundamental que los autores de este gigantesco estudio trataron de responder. A través de una gran cantidad de entrevistas y testimonios, pero especialmente, de un fino sentido crítico, los autores nos plantean un detallado retrato de la vida norteamericana, del ciudadano común, el que vive en una ciudad cualquiera de una región cualquiera de los Estados Unidos, pero sin la pretensión de querer describir una especie de "individuo promedio". Por el contrario, con ejemplos vívidos de experiencias particularísimas, nos enseñan lo vivido por la gente, en sus distintos ámbitos de lo cotidiano, de lo más estadunidensemente cotidiano: crecer, salir de casa, escoger una carrera, casarse (y quizás separarse), practicar una religión, ejercer la ciudadanía. Una gran tarea, el lograr dar una imagen de todo esto, imagen que, hasta donde los investigadores encontraron, no resulta tan coherente como los participantes creen, y de cuya fundamental incoherencia los propios ciudadanos no logran dar cuenta con suficiente articulación.
Su enorme esfuerzo se refleja en esta obra, que muestra y cuenta sobre la vida cotidiana de los norteamericanos, y que me parece, nos habla cada vez más a los habitantes de algunas regiones mexicanas.
Su enorme esfuerzo se refleja en esta obra, que muestra y cuenta sobre la vida cotidiana de los norteamericanos, y que me parece, nos habla cada vez más a los habitantes de algunas regiones mexicanas.
January 15, 2014
Bellah (et al) are primarily concerned with discussing the inevitable overlap of private and public life in American society. Based on 200+ interviews with a representative population of white middle-class America, Bellah draws the conclusion that, as much as Americans are focused on attaining self-reliance and individualism, individualism (i.e. private life) is most meaningful when it is complemented by engagement with society (i.e. public life). He asserts, “individuality and society are not opposites but require each other” (p. 246-7). This interlinking reciprocal relationship, he suggests, is demonstrated through an individual’s involvement in a [conservative Christian] church community.
Bellah uses case studies to demonstrate his point, but his conclusions are not justified by his method. As mentioned, Bellah limits his sample population to white middle-class Americans ..but then goes on to speak of an allegedly singular American identity...
Though impeccably dense, this (at times) reads like a self help book. I would not have finished the book had it not been a required reading for one of my graduate seminars. I am surprised it has such a high rating.
Bellah uses case studies to demonstrate his point, but his conclusions are not justified by his method. As mentioned, Bellah limits his sample population to white middle-class Americans ..but then goes on to speak of an allegedly singular American identity...
Though impeccably dense, this (at times) reads like a self help book. I would not have finished the book had it not been a required reading for one of my graduate seminars. I am surprised it has such a high rating.
April 15, 2019
I had to read this book for one of my classes, so I had to slog my way through it. The premise of the study, an attempt to reconcile American individualism with a need to connect to a community was interesting. I actually learned a lot about the human experience in America and the roles that religion, therapy, and politics play in creating a cohesive community. I found the ideas that were presented to be interesting, but the writing was why I gave this book two stars. The writing was dry, and the book was overly repetitive. The authors were constantly referring to earlier chapters in the book and restating their argument again and again but adding very little new information. I often found myself nodding off because I was not mentally engaged in the topic. You have to sift through all the repetition to get to their meaning, so if you like a tedious game of find the point of this section then I would recommend this book to you. Otherwise, I would say skip it, and if you have to read it for a class good luck and perhaps try reading it while you are standing!
February 29, 2012
I could not get through this book. The whining, self-centeredness, and limited scope of types of people included made the generalizations impossible to stomach. It is probably best loved by children of the 60s, or people who spend their time trying to "find themselves."
November 19, 2015
To become a missional community in our culture, we need this instruction from a cultural anthropologist's view. This book outlines how Americans are living as products of their surrounding culture. It helps us see the forest through the trees.
May 17, 2010
Though written in the 1980s, the racist and sexist tones in this book would make you think it was written in the 1880s. Horrible.
June 17, 2018
Thought-provoking read! Robert Bellah and his coauthors argue that individualism, both in capitalistic/utilitarian and personal-expression ways, has run amok. Our participation in civic life is declining across the board, income inequality's soaring, and free-market solutions aren't cutting it. What we need, according to the authors, is a revival of solidarity and communal spirit. This doesn't negate individualism; rather, citizens should recognize something greater. The authors cite "Biblical religion" derived from the Puritans and "civic republicanism" derived from Jefferson as good starting points, for religion and republicanism offer a moral foundational, connecting the individual to other people and recognizing their shared dignity. Yes, Bellah et. al. play up the Puritan roots of America, when there were a lot of other Christianities at work, and they have a fanboy attitude toward Jefferson (albeit a very restrained, Ivory Tower kind of fanboying). Yet I respect the fact that Bellah et. al. think your foundational belief could be religious OR secular.
The authors' central claim, that a society needs a shared foundation, is persuasive. The authors' discussion of an ascendant individualism, which is then used to justify everything from foolhardy tax cuts to welfare reductions to class divisions, is disturbing. Many of the interviews whiz by with the pithy quotes and aw-shucks moralizing of vintage Newsweek articles. This book is kind of a work of academic journalism — not the strongest on historicizing problems, but observant and making some fair criticisms of American society. The book's interview sample has serious structural problems, notably its complete omission of the Midwest, South, and the parts of the West that aren't California, and its focus on white Americans to the exclusion of people of color. Like David Riesman's "The Lonely Crowd," Elaine Tyler May's "Homeward Bound," and similar books reliant on sociological data, the findings in "Habits of the Heart" apply to segments of America, not the whole. Bellah and his collaborators acknowledge there are social groups they didn't study, but they don't give a persuasive rationale for omitting people of color. The fact is, there is no rationale for omitting minorities from a study of American civic life. At least the authors believe that white flight and residential segregation are some of the worst embodiments of individualism.
So: Read with several grains of salt, and keep searching for a strong historical explanation of the transition from a proto-industrial 19th-century culture to a consumer-oriented 20th-century culture. Bellah and his team still point out the dangers of individualism in public life. This book is best read in tandem with Alan Trachtenberg's "The Incorporation of America," Riesman's "The Lonely Crowd," and maybe Roland Marchand's "Advertising the American Dream." I'm still learning the literature about capitalism and its effects on public life, but that's a start.
The authors' central claim, that a society needs a shared foundation, is persuasive. The authors' discussion of an ascendant individualism, which is then used to justify everything from foolhardy tax cuts to welfare reductions to class divisions, is disturbing. Many of the interviews whiz by with the pithy quotes and aw-shucks moralizing of vintage Newsweek articles. This book is kind of a work of academic journalism — not the strongest on historicizing problems, but observant and making some fair criticisms of American society. The book's interview sample has serious structural problems, notably its complete omission of the Midwest, South, and the parts of the West that aren't California, and its focus on white Americans to the exclusion of people of color. Like David Riesman's "The Lonely Crowd," Elaine Tyler May's "Homeward Bound," and similar books reliant on sociological data, the findings in "Habits of the Heart" apply to segments of America, not the whole. Bellah and his collaborators acknowledge there are social groups they didn't study, but they don't give a persuasive rationale for omitting people of color. The fact is, there is no rationale for omitting minorities from a study of American civic life. At least the authors believe that white flight and residential segregation are some of the worst embodiments of individualism.
So: Read with several grains of salt, and keep searching for a strong historical explanation of the transition from a proto-industrial 19th-century culture to a consumer-oriented 20th-century culture. Bellah and his team still point out the dangers of individualism in public life. This book is best read in tandem with Alan Trachtenberg's "The Incorporation of America," Riesman's "The Lonely Crowd," and maybe Roland Marchand's "Advertising the American Dream." I'm still learning the literature about capitalism and its effects on public life, but that's a start.
November 12, 2019
Was introduced to the work by way of a Tim Keller video on individualism in the modern culture. This is a well done treatment of current issues in the US, although 'current' in this case goes back to 1985 which made me call into question some of its conclusions. For example, the chapter on religion had one figure that indicated about 40% attendance in weekly worship and that number has not been reached for in the last couple decades, and the current number is usually report in the 18% range. That said there are excellent reasons to take in this book for any student of the current woes of the American psyche.
It took over an hour to get to the meat of the work, but that was an hour well spent in understanding where the authors wanted to take you. And there was a lengthy concluding chapter that recapitulated where you had been. The multiple authors we are told were each to do their own monographs of the data sets that had been compiled - might be worth investigating.
It took over an hour to get to the meat of the work, but that was an hour well spent in understanding where the authors wanted to take you. And there was a lengthy concluding chapter that recapitulated where you had been. The multiple authors we are told were each to do their own monographs of the data sets that had been compiled - might be worth investigating.
Currently reading
April 27, 2009I am intrigued. More and more lately, I find myself questioning my lifelong premise that there is a particular purpose for my life, and that it is my duty to discover and fulfill that purpose. One may even be hard pressed to prove conclusively that there is any particular purpose, at all, to our individual lives. It may be that my life has whatever purpose and meaning I choose to assign to it. I'm not particularly comforted by that, but now that I have made it through the Preface to the 2008 Edition, and the Preface to the 2006 Edition, and the Preface to the First Edition, and 8 little pages into the first chapter, I read "American cultural traditions define....the purp0se of human life in ways that leave the individual suspended in glorious, but terrifying, isolation." I think that I may be reading this book at just the right time.
December 18, 2019
I read it as a source for my PhD because it introduces a typology of professional orientations common in psychology, namely the distinction between job, career and calling. However, the book cannot even be interpreted as a qualitative investigation. It is quite simply an endless, boring and repetitive series of commonplaces and platitudes, and at most of cultural anthropological value as the navel-gazing of White America in the 1980s.
As Champlin put it: «maddeningly vague and unspecific» (Book Review in the LA Times, http://articles.latimes.com/1985-05-1...).
As Champlin put it: «maddeningly vague and unspecific» (Book Review in the LA Times, http://articles.latimes.com/1985-05-1...).
October 26, 2012
This is an exceptional sociological examination of American society. The authors use Democracy in America as an interpretive horizon for the evolution of American Society in the late 20th century. Where de- Tocqueville's America was politically and socially engaged, the socio-economic factors that have emerged in the last 40 years have worked to undermine communal opportunity. The authors provide a nice balance between case studies and social science. An exceptional read.
March 30, 2012
Sociological study...with a focus upon Christianity and American individualism...not my style. This was a class assignment, and the sociology in the book is quite the turn-off. It is dryly written and unengaging, for the layman. It provides the reader with analysis of all of America's problems in regards to individualism, but offers no solutions - highly frustrating.
April 25, 2016
Next to De Tocqueville, an excellent work on American culture.
The Appendix contains an extremely helpful explanation of the difference between research universities and traditional colleges. Research universities have increased the material prosperity of America, but have impoverished America culturally.
The Appendix contains an extremely helpful explanation of the difference between research universities and traditional colleges. Research universities have increased the material prosperity of America, but have impoverished America culturally.
October 5, 2017
Enlightening and shocking and overwhelming. One gets every indication this is a sociological masterpiece. The opposite of a 'light summer read', yet spending the summer underlining, circling, and contemplating the sentences in this book was as demanding as it was satisfying. There is too much to summarize here, but one day, maybe.
October 6, 2008
This book gives you some vocabulary to think and talk about the state of the American society. I found it very thoughtful and stimulating.
April 21, 2013
Could have been a lot shorter.
June 29, 2014
Every American should read this book. It perfectly explains why our society has reached the current fractious, even destructive point it has.
November 1, 2022
Remains one of my favorites; really sharp analysis of American life and individualism.
January 6, 2023
I put this book aside after 84 pages, as one of the most tediously dry books i have ever attempted to read. I can suffer a boring book if it compensates me with, say, a new idea, but after the introductory pages (which had a nice discussion of how American mores shifted with industrialization and the growth of large corporations) i found no ideas that hadnt been thoroughly discussed for years.
In addition, it is primarily concerned with men and their lives, without understanding that the inclusion of a single professional woman did not remove that bias, and a bit of a preoccupation with Californians.
In addition, it is primarily concerned with men and their lives, without understanding that the inclusion of a single professional woman did not remove that bias, and a bit of a preoccupation with Californians.
January 1, 2020
Interesting at certain points, but overall it was rather boring. Not the best book I've read in 2019. It reminded me of a sociology textbook but written like it was a car manual.
February 10, 2020
300 pages. As intellectually stimulating as this book is there still lingers a want for resolution. The middle section was particularly difficult to move through because the writing circled around paradoxes, ironies and inconsistencies in how people think and express themselves. The writing is almost too polished at times, too abstract, too concise in argument. I understood the overall argument to be that individualism is at odds with societal progress. And the people interviewed did illustrate an America divided on what to do about themselves and their contributions, their meanings and their values. The reading experience was up and down. I appreciated the concrete examples of the lives of certain peoples, e.g. the business managerial type, or the car salesman, or the therapist. But I got lost a few times in trying to maneuver through the jargon of utilitarian individualism, expressive individualism, therapeutic attitudes, and the other technical, categorizing terms. It truly is a social science book! Some sentences are so general in observance and correct in application that it felt like reading a Zen koan. Postulates everywhere. And it felt a bit maddening because much of what was explained in these 300 pages is pretty common knowledge: political processes aren't to be trusted, corporations are greedy, most people care only for themselves and their immediate family, like-minded people flock toward like-minded people, there are so many churches, and those churches have hypocrites, middle-class people want to move up, they want success, etc. The book puts American people under the microscope. Much of what is seen is already known. And yet, I couldn't really take away a solution to the whole problem, even though there are articulated certain means to a solution.
I liked the parts on career, occupation, calling (vocation) and job. The book waxed too abstract for me. I would've liked to hear from non-middle class white people. I think I can recall two or three people coming from one same small place, Suffolk, Massachusetts, but no one from the south, or Texas, or any inner cities. It was just affluent or doing-just-fine types that were the subjects for this book, and though this in itself is worthy of study and attention (yea I would like to know what it's like for those high-income earners in their gated communities), the completeness of the project of this book felt compromised or attenuated. Maybe "Habits of the Heart of Caucasian Americans" is more apt a title?
But the book does well to penetrate the minds of well-meaning people in this nation. I found it enlightening the myriad degrees of commitment toward personal goals. The authors critiqued the concept of success and exposed over and again the paradoxes of taking care of oneself and taking responsibility for equity. Well-meaning, small-town folk were shown their inconsistencies, or rather, their limits on caring for their neighbors. There were two key examples, one dealing with whether or not to approve a plan for low-income housing (i.e. ethnic minorities, i.e. black and brown people) in a middle-class suburb, another dealing with a big automobile corporation exercising dominance. There are real issues discussed in this book. And the quotations from those interviewed are really telling. Some people express quite plainly a conservative response to issues while others are at a loss for words to encompass what they are seeking. Marriage, religion, citizenship, therapy, activism...these themes constitute chapters, composed by four main authors, there is much reiteration of certain points, such as the phenomena of psychological therapy, or the tendency for individuals to think in the framework of cost and benefits, a tendency that they term utilitarian individualism.
The book covers the habits of thought. But these thoughts are studied by intellectuals (the authors). There are many kernel-like statements throughout the book. Statements that are lucidly crafted, sentences that are composed of if/thens, and one is taken through a mental exercise in deciphering a paragraph for a meaning which is, well, pretty damn common knowledge. Sometimes a simple truth is put through their social-science, technical, cumbersome jargon machine and rendered incomprehensible! The guys in the gated community—of course they think that everyone should look out for themselves, and of course they think that they made it all on their own, and of course they’re blind to the plight of many others, and of course they fit Christian practices into their lives insomuch as they accord to their preferences. The middle part of the book dwelt heavily on iterating such observations about human nature. I agree with some reviews: it got boring.
Tocqueville receives considerable attention. There are though many sources to follow up on, and there’s a glossary, and an appendix, as well as a preface basically saying that they acknowledge the narrow slice of American society from which they culled their data. I can understand a bit why the book received such praise because it feels like an experience of watching fish in an aquarium or wild animals out on the Savannah, only the subjects are the emblems of middle-class, Caucasian Protestant America. See how they act tribal, defend the ones who resemble them, look out for their own, hoard their food, guard their offspring, thwart competition, manipulate their interactions, and see how they shout, roar, and listen to their cries of distress, hear their shriek of alarm when they feel threatened by the other, and see how they roam about in the fields of passion and desire, and look there! the grave of self in which they are entombed, unable to truly be alive, to participate fully in the American project as a giving and caring and concerned citizen.
I liked the parts on career, occupation, calling (vocation) and job. The book waxed too abstract for me. I would've liked to hear from non-middle class white people. I think I can recall two or three people coming from one same small place, Suffolk, Massachusetts, but no one from the south, or Texas, or any inner cities. It was just affluent or doing-just-fine types that were the subjects for this book, and though this in itself is worthy of study and attention (yea I would like to know what it's like for those high-income earners in their gated communities), the completeness of the project of this book felt compromised or attenuated. Maybe "Habits of the Heart of Caucasian Americans" is more apt a title?
But the book does well to penetrate the minds of well-meaning people in this nation. I found it enlightening the myriad degrees of commitment toward personal goals. The authors critiqued the concept of success and exposed over and again the paradoxes of taking care of oneself and taking responsibility for equity. Well-meaning, small-town folk were shown their inconsistencies, or rather, their limits on caring for their neighbors. There were two key examples, one dealing with whether or not to approve a plan for low-income housing (i.e. ethnic minorities, i.e. black and brown people) in a middle-class suburb, another dealing with a big automobile corporation exercising dominance. There are real issues discussed in this book. And the quotations from those interviewed are really telling. Some people express quite plainly a conservative response to issues while others are at a loss for words to encompass what they are seeking. Marriage, religion, citizenship, therapy, activism...these themes constitute chapters, composed by four main authors, there is much reiteration of certain points, such as the phenomena of psychological therapy, or the tendency for individuals to think in the framework of cost and benefits, a tendency that they term utilitarian individualism.
The book covers the habits of thought. But these thoughts are studied by intellectuals (the authors). There are many kernel-like statements throughout the book. Statements that are lucidly crafted, sentences that are composed of if/thens, and one is taken through a mental exercise in deciphering a paragraph for a meaning which is, well, pretty damn common knowledge. Sometimes a simple truth is put through their social-science, technical, cumbersome jargon machine and rendered incomprehensible! The guys in the gated community—of course they think that everyone should look out for themselves, and of course they think that they made it all on their own, and of course they’re blind to the plight of many others, and of course they fit Christian practices into their lives insomuch as they accord to their preferences. The middle part of the book dwelt heavily on iterating such observations about human nature. I agree with some reviews: it got boring.
Tocqueville receives considerable attention. There are though many sources to follow up on, and there’s a glossary, and an appendix, as well as a preface basically saying that they acknowledge the narrow slice of American society from which they culled their data. I can understand a bit why the book received such praise because it feels like an experience of watching fish in an aquarium or wild animals out on the Savannah, only the subjects are the emblems of middle-class, Caucasian Protestant America. See how they act tribal, defend the ones who resemble them, look out for their own, hoard their food, guard their offspring, thwart competition, manipulate their interactions, and see how they shout, roar, and listen to their cries of distress, hear their shriek of alarm when they feel threatened by the other, and see how they roam about in the fields of passion and desire, and look there! the grave of self in which they are entombed, unable to truly be alive, to participate fully in the American project as a giving and caring and concerned citizen.
April 25, 2025
This book was remarkably relevant to the current cultural mood in America 4/25/25. I found the updated preface particularly insightful to the post 24 election. The writers were well ahead of their time and had such a grasp on culture that they feel prophetic. Much of the substance of the book I've read elsewhere, though, with different terminology, specifically Charles Taylor. The problems with individualism are manifold, yet healthy communities seem more distant than ever. As a Christian, I find optimism in the soul searching that evangelicalism is currently undergoing with its increasing marginalization in power and culture. I hope that it will lead to spiritual Renewal and a return to a living, humble, compassionate, and honest faith.
August 15, 2016
Relevant for Our Times
Using interviews of a wide cross section of people, Bellah dissects the problems we face in the post-modern world, relates them to the findings of Tocqueville ~150 years earlier, provides historical continuity and context with the development of the US and finally offers an approach for change that would need to be of the magnitude of the civil rights movement. It really blew my mind, in a good way.
Using interviews of a wide cross section of people, Bellah dissects the problems we face in the post-modern world, relates them to the findings of Tocqueville ~150 years earlier, provides historical continuity and context with the development of the US and finally offers an approach for change that would need to be of the magnitude of the civil rights movement. It really blew my mind, in a good way.
April 24, 2008
This book was part of a Sociology of Culture graduate class. I am an atheist and generally tend to loathe how religion separates us from one another, and the message that I got from this book was that religion is a wonderful thing that is necessary to hold society together. I found that very depressing.
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