(Great article): Robert Nisbet’s Quest

Front Porch Republic ^ | 22 June 2009 | Patrick Deneen

[Publius804]

Robert Nisbet’s Quest

Seattle, WA Robert Nisbet’s 1953 book The Quest for Community has rightfully achieved that rare and estimable status of “classic.” What Nisbet saw more clearly than most of his contemporaries - or ours - is that one of the deepest flaws of the modern era was its hostility to the reality of groups. Modern liberalism (developed, among others by Thomas Hobbes, and later John Locke - and, at its root, Nisbet argued, in developments of Protestant theology) was broadly conceived in the backdrop of a hostility to organizations, institutions, communities and groups by which people defined their fundamental identities. In the opening section of his book he describes the result of developments in the history of political thought to explain the condition in which we now reside: shaped now by a worldview that regards all “intermediary” or “mediating” associations and communities as mere artifice and even as impositions upon our natural individual freedom (such as that condition described by Hobbes and Locke), modern humanity is nevertheless left with a deep longing and even void.

As naturally “political” or “social” creatures, we long for thick and rich set of constitutive bonds that necessarily shape a fully-formed human being. Shorn of the deepest ties to (extended) family, place, community, region, religion, and culture - and deeply shaped to believe that these forms of association are limits upon our autonomy - we seek membership and belonging, and a form of extended self-definition, through the only legitimate form of organization available to liberal man - the State.

[parsifal]

I think Nisbet was wrong. It is college football which unites us as a community and keeps us from going collectivist.

parsy, who says Woooooo Pig Sooooie!

[stripes1776]

The book sounds very interesting. But I don't quite agree with the main idea. Liberals are not averse to groups. In fact they identify with all sorts of groups as long as those groups remain abstractions. What liberals detest is the people who make up those groups. Liberals love mankind in the abstract, and at the same time liberals detest the concrete individual man who may be a member of a group.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"However, thinkers like Rousseau and Marx recognized that humans are not so apt to have such equal regard for all humans, but in fact prefer some humans over all humans. Thus, Marx argued, the elimination of family, church, and even nation was a prerequisite for the achievement of this “cosmic consciousness.” Before our automatic and instinctual love of all humans could be realized, the power of a centralized authority was needed to eliminate all partial loyalties that otherwise stood in the way of the achievement of such universal identification...It’s fairly easy to see the radical difference between ancient Aristotelian understandings of common good from the abstract and incorporeal expressions of modern liberalism."

That's why the study of Aristotle, Aquinas, Dead Western Males, and much philosophy is virtually banned or limited to liberal and left-wing figures. They don't want people to figure this out.

[To Hell With Poverty]

Very interesting website, lots to ponder...will bookmark!