Individualism and Public Life
A Modern Dilemma
1st Edition
Published on 29. January 1988
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-0-631-15773-1 (ISBN)
Description
In the spirit of recent works such as Habits of the Heart and The Closing of the American Mind, Ralph Ketcham's Individualism and Public Life asks whether the individualism which has made possible so many of the material advances we enjoy may also be the cause of the shortcomings troubling our society today. By tracing the development of individualism from its origins in classical and Judeo-Christian traditions, and enlisting the insights of East Asian cultures, Ketcham re-evaluates the individualism which characterizes contemporary American society. He then poses a new politics of the public interest, including revised ideas of citizenship, leadership, and decision-making in a grand attempt to reconcile the individualism of American liberalism with a healthy conception of public life.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Hoboken
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
510 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-631-15773-1 (9780631157731)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ralph Ketcham is Maxwell Professor Emeritus of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
Content
Paradoxes, 1945-85 Of Allied victory and the American century
Of suburbia and the American way of life
Of education
Of affluence
Of pluralistic politics
Of world power
Of therapy and humanistic psychology
Of America as a civilization
Individualism in Western culture
Greek social individualism
Judeo-Christian autonomous individualism
A tension in citizenship
The Renaissance, the Reformation, and puritanism
The commercial spirit
Science and empiricism
Romanticism and Darwin
John Stuart Mill and nineteenth-century liberalism
Ambiguous legacy for twentieth-century America
East Asian counterpoint: the shadow of Confucius
The divergence of West and East
A morality of relationship
Eastern and Western ideas of self
Eastern and Western ideas of the state
The Japanese encounter with the West
Society and psyche in modern Japan
The public, the private, and democracy in East and West
Public responsibility, order, and law in East Asia
A different democracy in Japan
Individualism and the public interest in the 1980s
Individualism re-reconsidered
Education for citizenship?
Public-spirited and laissez-faire utopianism
A jeffersonian model of citizenship
Individualism, pluralism, and the leader as broker
Leadership and ideal right
Conflict of interest politics
Decision-making and human nature
The whole: more than the sum of the parts?
Deciding on a law of the sea
A politics of the public interest
Of suburbia and the American way of life
Of education
Of affluence
Of pluralistic politics
Of world power
Of therapy and humanistic psychology
Of America as a civilization
Individualism in Western culture
Greek social individualism
Judeo-Christian autonomous individualism
A tension in citizenship
The Renaissance, the Reformation, and puritanism
The commercial spirit
Science and empiricism
Romanticism and Darwin
John Stuart Mill and nineteenth-century liberalism
Ambiguous legacy for twentieth-century America
East Asian counterpoint: the shadow of Confucius
The divergence of West and East
A morality of relationship
Eastern and Western ideas of self
Eastern and Western ideas of the state
The Japanese encounter with the West
Society and psyche in modern Japan
The public, the private, and democracy in East and West
Public responsibility, order, and law in East Asia
A different democracy in Japan
Individualism and the public interest in the 1980s
Individualism re-reconsidered
Education for citizenship?
Public-spirited and laissez-faire utopianism
A jeffersonian model of citizenship
Individualism, pluralism, and the leader as broker
Leadership and ideal right
Conflict of interest politics
Decision-making and human nature
The whole: more than the sum of the parts?
Deciding on a law of the sea
A politics of the public interest