Individualism and Commitment in American Life

Bibliographic Data

ID20054375
AuthorsRobert N Bellah, Robert Ν Bellah (corresponding author)
Year2019
Pages283-293
Publication date2019-03-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueAmerican Social Character (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.4324/9780429034879-15
OpenAlexW2956770174
ISBN9780429034879
LanguageEN
Citations received19

American cultural traditions define personality, achievement, and the purpose of human life in ways that leave the individual suspended in glorious, but terrifying, isolation. The two earliest traditions—puritan “biblical” and early “republican”—valued society as much as the individual. These two traditions survived but two other traditions had become far more dominant—“utilitarian individualism” and “expressive individualism”. Brian Palmer’s shift from workaholic to family man, from ‘success’ to ‘relationships,’ enacts in one life what theorists of American character have often seen as a historical trend: the decline of the ‘Protestant ethic’ and the rise of various kinds of self-fulfillment. The very tension between individualism and community in American culture makes many Americans more conscious of community and readier to talk about it. In the twentieth century, utilitarian individualism often meant climbing a bureaucratic ladder, competing to get promoted yet yielding power to an engulfing organization

Environmental ethics · Individualism · Political science · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Sociology and Cultural Identity Studies · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory

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