Individualism Vs. Collectivism: Habits of Term Paper

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Bellah sees this as dangerous and particularly dangerous is the faith of 'Shelia-ism,' the idea that a society can survive so long as everyone has his or her own personal moral code. Social commitment is portrayed as the lifeblood of society, yet all too often the pressures to 'make it' in America mean that people must take time away from volunteerism and spend more time at work. Despite high levels of church attendance, individual responsibilities and intimate relationships define American's sense of identity (Bellah et al. 250). The self is orchestrated as a personal, rather than a social matter.

However, while it is difficult to argue that America, as a young nation, has had to work harder to construct binding ties of communal self-interest, the authors do not really provide a clear definition as to what that commonality should be. In the new, diverse America, religion as a social 'glue' seems unlikely. Social forces like the Internet, gated communities, economic polarization, and other aspects of modern life pull Americans apart.

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'Good government' and civic obligations, such as volunteerism, are offered to counteract these trends, but it is hard to see this as providing unity given the ideological polarization that the authors admit is rife within modern society. The sense of ethical obligations demanded by the authors is based upon a tradition that fewer and fewer Americans share. The crisis of meaning many Americans experience cannot be answered by a return to or even a reconfiguration of America's past, because that America no longer exists -- if it ever did. The author's anecdotal evidence makes for compelling reading, but the lack of hard data suggests that there is a certain selectivity in the way that they present their idealized conception of a new America: today's America is less white, less ideologically homogeneous than ever before and a return to older Judeo-Christian civic and religious communitarian beliefs is unlikely to resonate with young, multicultural America.

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