Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Paperback)

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."

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.