Customer Reviews

Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life

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This book is about the inevitable conflict between American Individualism and the fact that humans are by nature social. We hunger for relationship yet we want it only on our terms. Bellah and his team of reseachers take on the enormous task of interviewing people from all over the country and the results of these interviews are presented factually and then analyzed. Whether one agrees with the book's conclusions or not, the interviewees speak for themselves, and they speak for a majority of Americans today who are often torn by conflicting authoritative messages and motives from without and within. This book is a marvelous and sometimes unsettling mirror into contemporary American society.

HABITS OF THE HEART is a tour de force whose insights into America are as relevant today as they were nearly twenty years ago when the book was published. It was hailed at that time as an instant classic of sociology, and compared to such influential works as MIDDLETOWN and THE LONELY CROWD. If anything, its insights are even more pertinent now.

The subtitle "Individualism and Commitment in American Life" is the main trope guiding the book, a bipolar perspective that neatly describes the American inability to reconcile the "utilitarian individualism" of Hobbes' "war of all against all" as exemplified in the liberal economic philosophy that grew up with America, with the "expressive individualism" of Whitman and Emerson which developed as a reaction to (in Henry James'' words), the "grope of wealth." The final chapter which elucidates "Six American Visions of the Public Good" describing them as three pairs of conflicting visions: "The Establishment versus Populism," "Neocapitalism versus Welfare Liberalism" and "The Administered Society versus Economic Democracy" is the best example of this dualist view of America, but as Bellah and his fellow authors describe it, these competing visions often hold as many similarities as differences.

Specifically, from the latter 19th century until the depression both The Establishment and Populists recognized there was and needed to be a moral component in American public life. The Establishment side was represented Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth," while on the Populist side were economic socialists such as Eugene Debs. The mores of the that time, de Toqueville's "habits of the heart," were still moralistic, still partaking of the ideal of the legacy of Jefferson's freeholding citizen even capitalism shook America off its foundations.

Of the next pair, Neocapitalism (which rose to its greatest heights in the form of Ronald Reagan) and Welfare Liberalism (exemplified by FDR), while they have different means look to the same ends according the authors. The first seeks to empower citizens through the "war of all against all" and keep the country competitive by unraveling the safety net. Slackers and failures must not be encouraged to take advantage of the winners because it is morally debilitating for society as a whole. Welfare Liberalism on the other hand believes that the net should be stronger because it has less confidence in the Market God believes in better chances and social justice, but still views Americans as individuals who must be encouraged in the Hobbesian war.

Of the last two visions, Felix Rohatyn, is the poster boy for the Administered Society -- a continuation of the Progressive ideal of scientific "mastery" a la Lippman, while Michael Harrington represents Economic Democracy. As compared to Rohaytn, who endorses a "partnership" of elites who work to adjust and balance the multiplicitous machine of political, economic and social interests, Harrington would spread out the decision making to at least nominally include the people. Harrington admits this would require a massive reorientation of consciousness -- an unlikely event in the view of the authors. But ultimately the authors say both sides endorse a similar kind of governance by expert, without moral content. The authors saw this last pair dimly stirring when they wrote this book in the mid-80s. Their prediction is perhaps half true as we have also witnessed the covert reassertion of NeoCapitalism in the last three administrations, if especially the current administration.

This dualistic strategy is supplemented by the touchstone use of Alexis de Toqueville's political and sociological insights to show how the seeds of much of American life today were sown early on. A fairly effective narrative trope, it serves their often stated goal of showing that it is through our shared history, our communities of memory, that we may see how others confronted the shifting landscapes of political economy, that we may today find a way to stop or at least hold at bay, in the words of Habermas, the "invasion of the lifeworld by systems logic." They maintain that such a course cannot be found through nostalgia for older institutions that once stood athwart the Mega-State. Many of those institutions, such as traditional churches, were paternalistic and discriminatory. Still social movements such as abolitionism grew out of them and were sustained by them. To recognize how the message of freedom forged by the founding generation has been reforged into a double-edged sword to enforce radical individualism, and destroy religious and republican morality and virtue. Government by a managerial elite, a kind of "democratic despotism" which de Toqueville saw as a potential of individualistic American mores has arrived.

As an example of the earlier language of America, they cite as an example Martin Luther King deployment of the language of the Bible and republican virtue in his "I Have A Dream" speech. His ringing biblical cadences, his use of "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and the words of the old Negro spiritual: "free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I'm free at last," evoked our foundational civic and religious language. Bellah, like King, helps us remember and recapture the earlier language of America.

Along the way they also trace the politically neutralizing penetration of the individualistic "therapeutic mode" into religious life, the loss of "communities of memory" based on shared values, along with the "second language" of religious and republican virtue. All have which have acted to depoliticize American culture. Where once there was a language of sin and redemption, there is now only the therapeutic language of the self, a radical self which is encouraged by the therapeutic mode to consider one's self and one's happiness as paramount and thus mirrors and supports the ideology of the free market. We richly deserve the oxymoronic label of "private citizen."

Habits of the Heart describes and analyzes the current American Character both in great breadth and with great depth. It gave me a lot to think about. And it gave me a framework to use for my thinking. Bits and pieces of information, some of which I'd noticed before but discounted, are fit into both a historical and a current context.

The book is not a call to arms, nor does it present a list of suggestions for how to behave. The authors' direct opinions are circumscribed to the few pages of the Conclusion and the Appendix. And many of those comments have to do with either how academic sociology should do research or how the book was written. How five authors jointly wrote a single book sounds like an interesting story, but isn't commented on any further than to say it happened and it was a good thing.

As analysis it really does rank right up there with Alexis de Toqueville's Democracy in America and David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd. As political tract it isn't in the race.

HABITS OF THE HEART is a tour de force whose insights into America are as relevant today as they were nearly twenty years ago when the book was published. It was hailed at that time as an instant classic of sociology, and compared to such influential works as MIDDLETOWN and THE LONELY CROWD. If anything, its insights are even more pertinent now. It endures because it wrestles with America's eternal contradictions. Given the persistence of these contradictions and their cynical exploitation by those in power over the past two decades, it remains as fresh and compelling as the day it was published.

The subtitle "Individualism and Commitment in American Life" is the main trope guiding the book, a bipolar perspective that neatly describes the American inability to reconcile the "utilitarian individualism" of Hobbes' "war of all against all" as exemplified in the liberal economic philosophy that grew up with America, with the "expressive individualism" of Whitman and Emerson which developed as a reaction to (in Henry James'' words), the "grope of wealth." The final chapter which elucidates "Six American Visions of the Public Good" describing them as three pairs of conflicting visions: "The Establishment versus Populism," "Neocapitalism versus Welfare Liberalism" and "The Administered Society versus Economic Democracy." But because they are dualistic does not mean they are exclusive categories. As Bellah and his fellow authors describe it, these competing visions often hold as many similarities as differences.

Specifically, from the latter 19th century until the depression both The Establishment and Populists recognized there was and needed to be a moral component in American public life. The Establishment side was represented Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth," while on the Populist side were economic socialists such as Eugene Debs. The mores of the that time, de Toqueville's "habits of the heart," were still moralistic, still partaking of the ideal of the legacy of Jefferson's freeholding citizen even capitalism shook America off its foundations.

Of the next pair, Neocapitalism (which rose to its greatest heights in the form of Ronald Reagan) and Welfare Liberalism (exemplified by FDR), while they have different means look to the same ends according the authors. The first seeks to empower citizens through the "war of all against all" and keep the country competitive by unraveling the safety net. Slackers and failures must not be encouraged to take advantage of the winners because it is morally debilitating for society as a whole. Welfare Liberalism on the other hand believes that the net should be stronger because it has less confidence in the Market God believes in better chances and social justice, but still views Americans as individuals who must be encouraged in the Hobbesian war.

Of the last two visions, Felix Rohatyn, is the poster boy for the Administered Society -- a continuation of the Progressive ideal of scientific "mastery" a la Lippman, while Michael Harrington represents Economic Democracy. As compared to Rohaytn, who endorses a "partnership" of elites who work to adjust and balance the multiplicitous machine of political, economic and social interests, Harrington would spread out the decision making to at least nominally include the people. Harrington admits this would require a massive reorientation of consciousness -- an unlikely event in the view of the authors. But ultimately the authors say both sides endorse a similar kind of governance by expert, without moral content. The authors saw this last pair dimly stirring when they wrote this book in the mid-80s. Their prediction is perhaps half true as we have also witnessed the covert reassertion of NeoCapitalism in the last three administrations, if especially the current administration.

Along the way they also trace the politically neutralizing penetration of the individualistic "therapeutic mode" into religious life, the loss of "communities of memory" based on shared values, along with the "second language" of religious and republican virtue. All have which have acted to depoliticize American culture. Where once there was a language of sin and redemption, there is now only the therapeutic language of the self, a radical self which is encouraged by the therapeutic mode to consider one's self and one's happiness as paramount and thus mirrors and supports the ideology of the free market. We richly deserve the oxymoronic label of "private citizen."

This dualistic strategy is supplemented by the touchstone use of Alexis de Toqueville's political and sociological insights to show how the seeds of much of American life today were sown early on. A fairly effective narrative trope, it serves their often stated goal of showing that it is through our shared history, our communities of memory, that we may see how others confronted the shifting landscapes of political economy, that we may today find a way to stop or at least hold at bay, in the words of Habermas, the "invasion of the lifeworld by systems logic." They maintain that such a course cannot be found through nostalgia for older institutions that once stood athwart the Mega-State. Many of those institutions, such as traditional churches, were paternalistic and discriminatory. Still social movements such as abolitionism grew out of them and were sustained by them. To recognize how the message of freedom forged by the founding generation has been reforged into a double-edged sword to enforce radical individualism, and destroy religious and republican morality and virtue. Government by a managerial elite, a kind of "democratic despotism" which de Toqueville saw as a potential of individualistic American mores has arrived.

As an example of the earlier language of America, they cite as an example Martin Luther King deployment of the language of the Bible and republican virtue in his "I Have A Dream" speech. His ringing biblical cadences, his use of "My Country 'Tis of Thee," and the words of the old Negro spiritual: "free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I'm free at last," evoked our foundational civic and religious language. Bellah, like King, helps us remember and recapture the earlier language of America.

"Habits of the Heart" is not an easy read. There are five authors, none of whom seem to identify themselves. For example, in the edition I've read, there are three Prefaces, none of which ends with the name of an author.
Because of this, there may be less coherence in the flow of the book than there could be. But there is so much "meat" in the book that it is still a good read. But because there are so many quotable areas, and so many opinions expressed, I'm sure a variety of reviews could flow from the book. Here's mine:

The thesis of the book appears to be the argument that in a simpler America, we were tied by obvious economic and social interactions. We could be fiercely individualistic, e.g., as the Blacksmith of a small community, but we were linked because our livelihood was probably dependent on neighbors, and our social base, probably our church, was common to the community.
But, today, with our "utilitarian individualism" remaining, we have spread out and now are confused by our links to our neighbors and communities. We move more often. We are not as likely to be economically dependent on our immediate neighbors. We can easily be convinced that the "success" we have achieved has been via our own hard work and ambition and that we may not have much responsibility to contribute back to our immediate neighbors or communities.
The book mentions, but does not dwell on, the Biblical tradition/obligation to respect and acknowledge the dignity of all. It also talks about the "underclass," saying at one point that solving its plight is one of the greatest challenges of all and that this will take an enormous amount of money. But it also points out that in today's world, it is also easy for successful individuals to convince themselves that those in the underclass have only themselves to blame and/or to think that welfare reform efforts do more harm than good.
The authors seem to come from a personal therapy background and viewpoint that may have been gathered first-hand: "Many people feel empty and don't know \why they feel that way. They have been sold a bill of goods by our system: cash, convenience and consumerism....The reason you don't feel part of it is because nobody is a part of it."
But, at the same time, they appear to be more than willing to look at various sides of an issue, and not take a "hard," simplistic stand:
Values: There are skeptical references about how people form "values" and if they can be trusted to be anything more than based on self-interest.
Marriage and family: There is support for marriage and family responsibilities, but it is pointed out that "to imagine that society's problems can be traced to individuals with inadequate family values seems to us sadly mistaken." Next to religious commitment, kinship and family provides another basis of "social solidarity."
Being single: It is no longer disgraceful to remain unmarried. Further, no one HAS to have children. And one can leave a marriage one doesn't like even when young children are involved.
Government programs: "Neocapitalist ideology aims to convince us that all government social programs have been disastrous failures."
Religion: "Major religious can move people away from the preoccupation with self toward some larger identity." Religion is one of he most important ways that American's "get involved."
Television: "...it would be difficult to argue that there is any coherent ideology or overall message that it communicates."
Business Leadership: "Leaders are frequently power-hungry bullies without any moral restraints."
Childrearing: Children are trained to be independent self-sufficient individuals. Leaving home involves separation and renewed identity. "Leaving home" may include also leaving the parents' church.
Trend to liberalization: "Younger folks tend to be more liberal, less accepting of hypocrisy, e.g., rejecting the belief that only Christians get to heaven."
Public Service: "Most people involve themselves in social institutions to achieve self-interests or because they feel an affinity with certain others."
Today's metropolitan world: "...a wold of diverse, often hostile groups, interdependent in ways too complex for an individual to comprehend." "...we spend most of our time navigating through immense bureaucratic structures - multiversities, corporations, government agencies." And, don't forget those megachurches!

Get the drift? A ton of subject areas are covered and tons of ideas and opinions expressed.
Plus, throughout the book there are references to Tocqueville's studies of America. He found Americans to be "restless in the midst of prosperity." He also found the "new individualism" strangely compatible with conformism. Reference to Tocqueville weaves in and out in the book.
There is also a sense of limits to what can be done: "The individual's need to be successful in work becomes the enemy of the need to find meaning of one's work in service to others." And "Americans know that society is rigged, as is the marketplace."
And an occasional dose of reality: "Midlife, especially for middle-class American men often marks the end of the dream of being able to move forward without compromise, to achieve `perfection.' Unemployment can be particularly painful." (Or, how about a kid or two with "problems?")

But let's end by getting back to what appears to be the book's thesis, by stringing some quotes from the book together:
"What has failed at every level...is integration...we have failed to remember our community as members of the same body."
In an ideal world "it would become part of the ethos of work to be aware of our intricate connectness and interdependence."
"...traditions help us to know that it does make a difference who we are and how we treat one another."
And, "...in our desperate effort to free ourselves from the constrictions of the past, we have jettisoned too much, forgetting a history that we cannot abandon."
"In a healthy society, the private and public life are not mutually exclusive...they are two halves of a whole, two poles of a paradox." "Taking cared of one's own is an admirable motive. But when it combines with suspicion of and withdrawal from the public world, it is one of the conditions of despotism Tocqueville feared."

Another suggestion is that "only effective institutions - economic, political and social - make complex, modern societies livable." Another: "We are facing trends that threaten our basic sense of solidarity with others." And: "The erosion of meaning and coherence in our lives is not something Americans desire."
But a coherent, confident plan to get us "back" to some state of integration is not really convincing in the book. Instead, we get: "it is not clear that many Americans are prepared to consider a significant change in the way we have been living. The allure of the packaged good life is still strong"...even though..."our material belongs have not brought us happiness." And, there is "no question that many Americans find their contribution of work and private lifestyle satisfying."

Today's politicians of all stripes can score points by saying that "America is not headed in the right direction." The statement is broad and open to interpretation. The statement assumes that government leaders are not to be trusted to make the "right" decisions. But the statement is also shallow and meaningless without specific suggestions/recommendations.
For the most part, this is the problem with "Habits of the Heart." I don't think it is ever very convincing in telling us how to turn the ship of state back in the "right direction." Or even if it truly IS in the wrong direction.
But, as I said earlier, there is so much information and so many interesting ideas included, it is a good read. And, maybe, it becomes the basis for individuals to begin to make decisions within their own lives as to where they fit in their "commitments in American life" and the world.

End of Book Review by George Fulmore.

This book has five different authors. One of the them was brilliant, the others far from that.

p26: "Our available moral traditions do not give us nearly as many resources for thinking about distributive justice as about procedural justice, and even fewer for thinking about substantive justice."

The first section of the book, entitled 'Private Life' is not useful. It attempts to classify American life into categories using (in vogue when this book was written) psychological jargon. On page 107, this is best said as "The only real social bonds are based on the free choices of our authentic selves." I'd recommend skipping chapters 3-5 and only reading 6, entitled 'Individualism' for context. Author(s) in charge of the private life section weave a narrative that is not likely to intersect much with the private life of the reader, and they are judgmental, hurting the objectivity of this work. Their pop psych equates humans to social herd animals. I found these chapters stupid.

The second section of the book, 'Public Life', largely redeems the book. Chapter 9, 'Religion' is the best analysis of modern American social life I've read, up there with De Tocqueville himself. Eloquent and amazing, whichever author wrote Chapter Nine is an insightful genius. Chapter 8 on citizenship is relevant yet distant, with the best part being p200-1 which examines the three conceptions of politics and how they relate to citizenship. Citizenship chapter was written by a member of the ruling class who has closely studied populism.

Then comes disappointment again, with Chapter 10 on 'The National Society'. It attempts to equate Reagan's neoclassical liberalism (which wasn't really his, but thought up his campaign donors) with FDR's welfare liberalism. These schools of thought do not share fundamental premises, with Reagan's being a 'make the rich richer and give the poor crumbs' and FDR's being 'put the poor to work and you'll make more rich men'. The author here falls into their own jargon and essentially thinks that both these 'liberalisms' are equally beneficial to the American people. This is not true, and I found the author understood politics well, but not the how the economic derivative of politics drives populism and prosperity. He states both views share how they look at public and private life; Reagan was for crushing unions and denying free speech and wrecking the environment; FDR was all about stewardship and the voice of the American people. This chapter failed.

Page 264, chapter 10, hero-worships this quote from Reagan (footnoted as Feb 6, 1982 Los Angeles Times interview): "I have never looked for a business that is going to render a service to mankind. I figure if it employs a lot of people and makes a lot of money, it is rendering a service to mankind. Greed is involved in everything we do. I find no fault in that."

Overall I recommend the buy if you are trying to integrate how religion relates to citizenship in America in a modern (late 1990's) context for your thesis. This is excellently done. Though I thought most of the book not useful, it has an extremely well-written explanation of why America on the community level is not working in chapters 8-9. Three stars just for that.

I've published a number of modest empirical pieces purporting to explain differences among school districts with regard to things like dropping out, teen pregnancy, early teen pregnancy, crime on school property, and reckless behavior among adolescents. Without exception, a composite variable constructed to measure modernity, meaning departures from traditional ways of living, learning, and working, has been the most powerful predictor of these unwanted outcomes.

Given that much of this research was done using data from West Virginia, these findings seem paradoxical indeed. Within its borders and without, West Virginia has a reputation for being a hopelessly retrograde state. How could departures from conventions which are widely held to be outmoded and limiting have the pernicious effects I tentatively identified.

The answer is presented in compelling fashion in Habits of the Heart. Modernity, at least as I measured it, meant exaggerated individuation and increased diversity of experience from one person to another. It included factors such as population density, percent minority, percent working in service sector occupations, percent college graduates, and percent of high school students planning to matriculate out of state. High values on any or all of these variables indicated departures from traditional West Virginia patterns and practices, with increased experiential diversity diminishing the content and efficacy of cultural commonality, and diminishing a shared sense of belonging.

Ideas such as this are not new, going back at least as far as Durkheim's Division of Labor in Society. Habits of the Heart, however, brings them to life in a wide variety of ways, making a concrete and compelling argument that individualism, commonly fostered by developments we regard as modern, is far from being an unmixed blessing.

This is the finger finger.

As a rule, it is common for people in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to know how to make a filthy bird sign with their hand. Some comic explained the purpose of fingers with special emphasis on:

This is the finger finger.

The filthy bird is frequently used by the inner artificer as an indication that some common order has been disgraced by the person who is targeted with the filthy bird. To fully understand the workings of the filthy bird in American culture is like a parody of what Habits of the Heart, Middle America Observed (1985) observed in chapter 9, Religion.

Private matters can become "a primary vehicle for the expression of national and even global concerns."

Privatization of religious matters led to a loss of respect for leaders as "both the keeper and purveyor of the public culture, the body of fundamental precepts and values that defined the social community, and an enforcer of the personal values and decorum that sustained it."

Actually allowing religion to exist was offensive when fanaticism did not converge with a broad consensus. Morality and common duties did not survive the break up of "the older communal and hierarchical society . . . in the face of increasing economic and political competition, and religious change accompanied social change."

As "protected and withdrawn islands of piety," churches "became less doctrinal and more emotional and sentimental." Still trying to "place limits on utilitarian individualism, hedging in self-interest with a proper concern for others," people were still free to laugh about:

This is the finger finger.

Privatization placed religion in a segmented world in which families were striving to make sense as "a haven in a heartless world."

Abraham Lincoln gets credit for finding "in biblical language a way to express the most profound moral vision in nineteenth-century America. He articulated both the moral justification for emancipation and the grounds for reconciliation with unrivaled profundity in prose that drew not only from biblical symbols but from the rhythms of the Authorized Version. In his writings, we can see that biblical language is both insistently public and politically demanding in its implications."

Social differentiation with much fluidity can be found in many communities, "often with implications about social class." As institutions attempting to control a particular space and time, trying to appeal "to the poorest and most marginal townspeople, and the Catholic church had the most diverse membership in terms of class background" and familiarity with:

This is the finger finger.

Churches have a common doctrine:

Worship calls to mind the story of the relationship of the community with God: how God brought his chosen people out of Egypt or gave his only begotten son for the salvation of mankind.

After hundreds of years of a cosmic pogo stick hopping back and forth between religion and philosophy, attempts to apply such insights to American situations, in which an individual can pick and choose which community to belong to whenever the space and time coincide with "The very freedom, openness, and pluralism of American religious life" and most traditions flirting with meaninglessness in ways that refuse to sit down when current events are rocking the boat, there is no givenness about the community and the tradition.

Habits of the Heart sees Americans adopting "a mystical cast. She sees the Christian tradition as only one, and perhaps not even the best, expression of our relationship to what is sacred in the universe. It is this mysticism and her sense of empathy for others, rather than any particularly Christian vision," that makes Americans unlikely to convert the world to their own sense of being a universal panacea.

It is truly frightening to be able to feel when a society is inching toward the kind of civil war which will determine which psychopathic killers will not have a home to return to.

This is a brilliant, deeply thoughtful, open-hearted book, one of the ten or twelve most important studies we have so far of the culture of the United States. Those who take the time and make the effort to read it carefully will learn a lot not only about American history and society, but also about their own private thoughts and fantasies and the background assumptions of their everyday lives. The dismal state of American education is the main thing you can learn about in most of these reviews. This book has limitations. The most obvious: it's about white/Anglo middleclass Americans. But the only sensible response to the book is still gratitude. If you haven't read it, read it.

This book may not be very rigorous as a piece of social science--other Amazon reviewers have complained about this lack--but the material, interviews with Americans in different groups provides much insight into what Americans think about and how their lives are intertwined with institutions of politics, education, religion, and community. As such the book is highly readable and accessible to the average, college-educated reader and thought provoking as well.