Would you like to tell us about a lower price? If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support? Nisbet criticizes Americans for isolationism at home, discusses the gutting of educational standards, the decay of education, the presence of government in all facets of life, the diminished connection to community, and the prominence of economic arrangements driving everyday life in America.
This work is deeply indebted to the analyses of Tocqueville and Bryce regarding the threats that bureaucracy, centralization, and creeping conformity pose to liberty and individual independence in the western world. Read more Read less. Add all three to Cart Add all three to List.
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Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. Essential Texts for the Conservative Mind. Rationalism in Politics and other essays. The Tyranny of Liberalism: Here's how restrictions apply. Review "Historian Nisbet analyzes events and trends in the United States in the period after March 1, Language: Start reading The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America on your Kindle in under a minute.
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One of the more difficult books for me to rate. I did not love it but did think it was more than okay; hence the four-star "I like it". While I can understand why Nisbet is considered "conservative", his willingness to tackle idols on both the right and left strikes me as more libertarian, which is not a bad thing.
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I suppose it may be more accurate to say that the "myths" he challenges--the Great American Myth and its derivatives: Nisbet laments perpetual war, statism, and social atomism. Unfortunately for Nisbet, I simply happen to read those before I read this.
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Nisbet can come across as a bit of a snob on occasion. For example, he almost mocks the Great Books approach to liberal education. He fails to realize that studying Great Books is a great approach provided you apply the proper methodology. Nisbet is too dismissive of the influence of Christianity and is a little too quick to disparage the Christian Right. Yes, there have been abuses of the former and plenty of mock-worthy elements in the latter.
However, sound doctrine leads us to recognize God-given rights--life, liberty, property--and to limit the role of the state to the securing of those rights. The rule of law, unity with diversity, representation, jurisdictionalism, and constitutional limits are just a few concepts that can be found in scripture and in our constitutional federal republic.
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Indeed, these ideas predate Greece and Rome. Please note that the three points above constitute nitpicking. Nisbet makes some brilliant observations and has even proven to be prophetic. However, they are sufficient to warrant a one-star reduction. One person found this helpful. It seems to be a fairly well-kept secret, especially from the self-insulated intelligentsia, but some of the most cogent 20th century critics of political chicanery, martial foolishness and cultural excess have been traditional as opposed to "neo" conservatives like T.
The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America | Mises Institute
The late and widely esteemed social theorist Robert Nisbet was a member of a small but august group, writing many well-received books: Nisbet's analysis begins with that period of America's history that amounted to a sea change in governmental policy: As Nisbet writes in the first chapter: War is a tried and true specific when a people's moral values become stale and flat. It can be a productive crucible for the remaking of key moral meanings and the strengthening of the sinews of society All wars of any appreciable length have a secularizing effect upon engaged societies, a diminution of the authority of old religious and moral values and a parallel elevation of new utilitarian, hedonistic, or pragmatic values.
Wars, to be successfully fought, demand a reduction in the taboos regarding life, dignity, property, family, and religion Ideas of chastity, modesty, decorum, respectability change quickly in wartime The single most powerful cause of the present size and the worldwide deployment of the military establishment is the moralization of foreign policy and military ventures that has been deeply ingrained, especially in the minds of presidents, for a long time American the Redeemer Nation was very much a presence in the minds of a great many Americans.
From Wilson's day to ours the embedded purpose- sometimes articulated in words, more often not- of American foreign policy, under Democrats and Republicans alike oftentimes, has boiled down to America-on-a-permanent-Mission: No, we are certainly not free from the "present age" Nisbet has so cogently if lamentably analyzed. Commemorating, so to speak, the th anniversary of the ratification of the U. Constitution, Robert Nisbet asked what would strike the founders as the major surprises from the time of the founding to today. According to Nisbet, these are: Nibset analyzes these changes from , providing a rapid historical and sociological overview of that time period.
In discussing the growth of government, Nisbet shows that Burnham was correct that the U. America has adopted a Wilsonian foreign policy that has far outlasted any usefulness it may have had in the cold war. Nisbet is quite prescient in his prediction that this foreign policy would outlast the fall of Communism. Nisbet then explains how this directly is related to what he calls the "New Absolutism" which he explains in the second section. This absolutism is the mentality that all matters 'go through' the state and that the national state is also the 'community'.
This all leads to the final section which focuses on "The Loose Individual". Here is says, "Repeatedly The book is divided into three sections. Here is says, "Repeatedly in history the combination of war and political centralization leads to a fraying effect upon the social fabric. Threads are loosened by the tightening of power at the center. This is a must read, mostly due to the observances of this chapter.
Jan 20, Zachary Yost rated it really liked it Shelves: In this short, but punchy work, American sociologist Robert Nisbet begins by asking what the American founders would find to be different if they were to examine American society today. According to Nisbet there are three areas in which the country has changed dramatically; the prevalence of war, the increase in political centralization, and the rise of the "loose individual" who is not anchored to traditional institutions such as family and community the subject of his much larger work "The Qu In this short, but punchy work, American sociologist Robert Nisbet begins by asking what the American founders would find to be different if they were to examine American society today.
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According to Nisbet there are three areas in which the country has changed dramatically; the prevalence of war, the increase in political centralization, and the rise of the "loose individual" who is not anchored to traditional institutions such as family and community the subject of his much larger work "The Quest for Community".
In three sections Nisbet examines why the change came about and what effects it has had on American life. Although the book is short, Nisbet is able to use his framework to analyze many areas of American history and culture, ranging from politics, business, higher education, football, and literature, to film. While one will inevitably find things to disagree and quibble about, I suspect that the average reader who was tempted to pick up this book in the first place would find it to be stimulating and thought-provoking. May 20, Kenneth rated it it was amazing Shelves: Excellent presentation of the old-line American political philosophy resistant to the encroachments of all State bureaucracy, including the total military apparatus.
Very readable and highly thought-provoking. The first chapter explains the role of World War I in the destruction of American traditions. He was "right" according to Nisbet. Centralized Statehood in the 20th century is presented by Nisbet with the candor of consistent political realism.
The Present Age can help the reader "see through" the political propaganda often regurgitated by filtering 20th century social events through the historical perspective of an American sociologist with a "long" memory so to speak. Rousseau is the major culprit for enticing sophisticated intellectuals in political power to sanctify the will of the social body absolutely.
The principle of democracy is then endowed by the government with an almost mystical agenda which grants the right to govern to those who act in the name of majority rule barring moral constraint or limit to power. The same time that the American government assumes power beyond constitutional limits to dominate or control the populace in ever more invasive ways, Intermediary Institutions disintegrate in direct correlation. Anonymous communities care little for historical ties via voluntary associations, or punishment by taboo, or pious respect for traditions knit-together by family or heritage.
Rather, the free-standing individual is left to define existence in whatever way suits him or her, with no restriction in substantial moral laws of any kind. A natural right of private property is then logically accosted with greater desires for empowering impersonal State managers to counter the rise of impersonal corporate managers. The old America of "human-scale" property owned or controlled by individual families or partnerships is then typically dominated by corporate money supported by banking programs sponsored by the State.
Modern States end in paying off the trampled as well as those doing the trampling to maintain peace. Corporate property inevitably expands when personal responsibility for investment interests is divested of individual ownership for the sake of buying and selling on inflationary exchanges fueled by State currencies. Corporate bodies compete with the government, but in essence either private or public corporate bodies depersonalized or allowed free-reign to dominate end in reaping the same destruction on the vision of America that Nisbet and others once knew.