Is America Breaking Apart Book Review Essays - American Culture

Is America Breaking Apart? Book Review A Book Analysis: Is America Breaking apart? John A. Hall and Charles Lindholm 1999 Princeton University Press In Is America Breaking apart? written in 1999, John Hall and Charles Lindholm state that, Americans are exceptional in their concern with their own exceptionalism. (p.3) However, they fear that their society is breaking apart. In July 2013 Daniel Gross from The Daily Beast wrote an article titled America is Not Doomed in which he wrote, although there is a great deal of dyspepsia about the state of America, much of it is inspired by the political dysfunction in Washington and the rising inequality and challenge to social mobility throughout the economyand yet, as the rest of the world goes to hell, politically and economically, the U. S. is standing tall. Then and now, Americans continue to worry about the preservation of the Union. As an answer to this perennial worry, Hall and Lindholms Is America Breaking apart? presents us with a unique book- a primer of sorts- which combines history, sociology, anthropology, McCarthyism, politics, immigration, American values, racism, religion, tolerance, slavery and individualism. John Hall and Charles Lindholm scrutinize our culture, which continues to be heavily influenced by our early Protestant heritage. American faith in the power of individuals to change themselves is quite understandable as a product of the immigrant experience in combination with the Protestant ethos. Protestant sects believe that individuals can be spiritually transformed through disciplined, virtuous action in this world. For most of the original settlers immigration to America was just such a transformative action, a voluntary pilgrimage in search of the City on a Hill and this model continues to hold. With a balanced viewpoint, John Hall and Charles Lindholm examine the institutional structures of American society and how Americans continue to fear its destruction and downfall. They argue that our self-doubt is based on our shared cultural belief in our distinctiveness, which encourages Americans to worry about disunity in the ranks. Although pessimistic with a favorable assessment and outlook for America, while recognizing the strength of our culture and institutions, fortified by Americas diversity, Hall and Lindholm do not sidestep Americas moral apprehensiveness and internal inconsistencies. To validate their book and its claims, they call upon a variety of scholars. In Emile Durkheims The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim, a renowned sociologist, states that our notion of time, space and causation are given to us by our society and he outlines three American ways of grasping the world. The first is abstraction and vagueness in relation to political theory, the second is a pragmatic modular approach to reality, and the third is a faith that the self can be transformed. And, as Tocqueville, a French aristocrat added, each is conducive to social homogeneity and antithetical to animosity and fragmentation. In essence, Americans know that citizens have rights but are very unclear about what those rights are; they know we are supposed to be free, but not necessarily what those freedoms are; Americans know we have political parties but are vague in their understanding and this ambiguity and confusion is homologous. Speaking further to American homogenizing capabilities, Hall and Lindholm believe that although we believe in a strong sense of individualism, Americas homogenizing capacities have ensured that its internal conflicts have not led either to world war or to tyranny. They refer to the 17th century invention of toleration in Europe that was followed by the French Revolution, fascism and communism, the two great totalitarian movements of the 20th century. (p.147). Hall and Lindholm draw upon Max Weber, Churches and Sects in North America, Sociological Theory (1985), who links Americas sect spirit that is the legacy of its Protestant origins. This ethic links radical individualism with principled and self-aware voluntary participation in the larger moral community. Individualism and communal action are thereby united. Weber goes on to argue that American individuals are motivated by an internal ethic of individual responsibility, personal honor, and principled resistance to immoral authority; they seek membership and participation in the community as a central measure of their own unique worth. This Protestant legacy means that instead of requiring groups to give them any sense of power or moral shape, American individuals already have a strong personal