 | The four chapters of Part One are about individuals' efforts to "ground" themselves through family, work, therapy, and in what the authors term lifestyle enclaves. What do they mean by this? How are lifestyle enclaves different from the lifestyle communities of The Lost City? Why do Bellah et al. charge that "lifestyle is fundamentally segmental and celebrates the narcissism of similarity" (p. 72)?
Several references are made to "life course." The post popular book on the subject was probably Gail Sheehy's Passages, although she drew heavily upon the work of Robert Lifton (see Shared References). Our lives are, on average, longer than our parents', but we still seem to traverse the same stages. The timing may be different. A sample of people polled in the Spring of 2003 came up with the average age of 26, as the time adulthood "really" begins. (Bonus points to the student[s] who can find this source.) Why has adolecence been extended? Or, do you think that it has? Is this a net good, or not? What about the changing meaning of "middle age" and "old/elderly/senior citizen"? Where do we get our understandings of what it "means" to be, say, 50 or 75? Let us know what you think about some of these questions.
What do the authors mean by "therapy as a model relationship"? Do you agree with their argument?
In Chapter 6, the authors remind us of their four traditions of individualism. You might wish to go to the Glossary again, as well as reading what they say in Chapter Six. Their key issue in the chapter seems to be "whether an individualism in which the self has become the main form of reality can really be sustained" (p. 143). What do they mean by this? By "communities of memory"? Post some of your understandings of what they are getting at, here, and explain briefly why you agree or disagree. |
