Mini-Lecture Part 1

DOCUMENT by: Bob Hassenger
Subject: Mini-Lecture Part 1

Part One of Habits of the Heart ended with a chapter on individualism, and the authors' views on how its centrality in contemporary American life has contributed to what they see as selves ungrounded in communities, and thus, incomplete. Not surprisingly, Part Two is less about private life than public life. What do they mean by public life? Not, obviously, running for political office or looking to go on "American Idol." Or, not only such. Chapter 7 is about getting involved in the same kinds of groups that Tocqueville found in young America. There are still any of these: almost every week, one reads of a new organization, such as "Mothers Agsinst Drunk Driving" and its imitators, being formed. The week this was written (mid-May, 2003), the course developer read of such a group in Newsweek, for sufferers from a rare, but painful (and, until recently, undiagnosable) disorder, fibromyalgia. Not all groups are formed by victims, or the families of victims. Think not only of those formed because a child was abducted and killed; but of the events, such as distance runs, organized in memory of a teacher or civic leader; or the charitable events or benefits for schools, the NAACP, or the National Museum of Racing. Not to mention the burgeoning self-help or support groups, for behavior modification, self-esteem, and the like.

The authors' problem with political involvement (Chapter 8) is that such activity often occurs to enhance indivualism, at the expense of the common good. We support causes or join groups because of our individual (and, in their view, selfish) interests. "Americans...feel most comfortable in thinking about politics in terms of a consensual community of autonomous, but essentially similar, individuals..." (p. 206). We do not see the whole society, say they. We are unable to, because of the way we have been socialized. We have "no way to discuss or evalute the relative merits of values and lifestyes in the culture of individualism..." (p. 203). Well, they may have a point. Many of us have come to be insufficiently fervent about our own values that we can say with the certainty of True Believers (see Hoffer, in Shared References) that "alternative lifestyles" are wrong or inferior. This is the flip side of tolerance. Some of the things we may have learned at an earlier time now seem wrong, silly, or at least unsupported by evidence. Think of divorce, abortion, homosexuality, inter-racial love, public (at least, via the media) nudity, language. In such areas of life, there have been vast changes in the half-century since the Chicago of The Lost City. And most of us cannot imagine going back to that simpler time--even if we might have been, as you considered in the first assignment, more "free." Most of us do think the values of tolerance outweigh the dangers. What do you think? Are Bellah et al. on to something, here?

The difficulty with their position, for me, is that they are begging the question. (Bonus: find out how a phrase with a specific meaning, viz., that the premises of an argument assume the answer, has come to be widely and inaccurately, used, even on network news, to mean "invites the inquiry.") Once they postulate "individualism in the extreme" as the cause of a decline in associational membership, they have pretty much foreclosed any discussion. Like the zealots of religion or psychotherapy, that "know" the answer, and any effort to engage in discussion or argument only "proves" the correctness of their position. Think of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" or the Hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, of the (Joe) McCarthy years. They authors have some good points, and should cause you to ask the hard question, "what would it take to refute this position?" It is through such mental exercise that critical thinking is sharpened. Any contributions you care to share with the "class" will be welcome.

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