GETTING TO THE ABSTRACT

 

To this point, this blog, through a series of postings,[1] has developed an argument that promotes a basic change to social studies, particularly civics.  That is, that that portion of a school curriculum should focus its efforts on the social realities of students’ local communities.  This would counter the ever-increasing levels of individualism and self-centeredness that have affected the nation and led to a good deal of dysfunctional elements within the American society such as polarized politics.

          The last posting, “Localize It,”[2] indicated that this posting would, as an example, describe a construct, nativist theories, offered by Jerome Bruner.  Those theories state that the mind “is inherently or innately shaped by a set of underlying categories, hypotheses, forms of organizing experiences.”[3]

          In other words, instruction should not be so concerned, as pedagogues have encouraged classroom teachers to be, with teaching inductive skills, such as with inquiry models of instruction based on the scientific method.  One should recognize that the mind already operates in such a fashion as to approximate that process.  What is needed are experiences that further the student to feel and appreciate the function of disciplinary knowledge.  This idea is original with John Dewey in his promotion of “occupations” for elementary students.[4]

          More specifically, community-based activities and skills at the secondary level can act as a continuance of Dewey’s aim and as a bridge from the elementary school efforts to the goals of higher education and adult communal life.  The ultimate aim is for students to more centrally view their local environs as the natural setting where political realities come to bear on their welfare and that of their neighbors.

          Cognitive processes used for pedagogical purposes should not be limited by scientific logic and concern.  To advance the social action skills (introduced in the last posting) and the communal agenda described above, relevant cognitive skills should be based on a continuum because different students act on different levels of abstraction when it comes to schoolwork or life in general.

          It is believed by this blogger, based on his years of teaching and as a parent, that children operate at all levels of abstraction even at the earliest grades.[5]  The problem lies in applying abstract thinking to sophisticated and to some degree foreign cognitive substance or content.  A continuum is needed by teachers to devise activities that are both suitable for their students and functional for handling the issues, problems, or other situations a teacher chooses to study.

          One such continuum is suggested by an argumentation model, offered by Stephen Toulmin.[6]  To see a summary account of Toulmin’s model, see this blogger book, Toward a Federated Nation, in its subsection, “Toulmin’s Elements of a Logical Argument.”[7]  But for those not so disposed, here is a thumbnail summary.  A logical argument contains:

 

•   a datum statement (e.g., since Daniel is a union laborer),
•   a claim (e.g., therefore, Daniel is a registered Democratic voter),
•   a warrant statement (e.g., because organized labor has a strong partisan allegiance for the Democratic Party),
•   a backing or data statement (e.g., union workers vote Democratic at a 51% rate as voter choices are documented by studies such as that offered by research outfits such as PRO Morning Consult),
•  a qualifier (e.g., unless Daniel is among 23% who vote Republican or otherwise), and
•  a rebuttal, (e.g., Daniel is not a union laborer or even human – perhaps a dog)

 

The distinction here, simplistic but illustrative, between these elements and the inductive, scientific processes that were prominent among progressive educators, is that generalization formation – such as a scientific finding – is not the end or goal.  The end is to have students generate knowledge useful in solving issues or problems and dealing with community sources.

          If devised and used correctly, such a continuum or taxonomy can assist students in overcoming their apparent inability or reluctance to think abstractly.  The purpose is to have students deal with it at an appropriate level.  Then the lesson allows the students to work toward resolution in their natural fashion of problem-solving.  The next posting will review a taxonomy this blogger has devised using Toulmin’s model to further illustrate what this blog is promoting.

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[1] This series of postings begins with the posting, “Early On.”  See Robert Gutierrez, “Early On,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, February 13, 2024, accessed March 10, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_02_11_archive.html.

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “Localize It,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, March 8, 2024, accessed March 10, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_03_03_archive.html.

[3] Jerome Bruner, “Models of the Learner,” Educational Researcher, June/July 1985, 5-8, 6.

[4] Herbert M. Kliebard, The Struggle for the American Curriculum:  1893-1958 (New York, NY:  Routledge, 1986).

[5] For example, a form or type of abstract thinking is hypothesizing.  See “Hypothesizing:  How Toddlers Use Scientific Thinking to Learn,” Baby Sparks/Cognitive, June 9, 2020, accessed March 9, 2024, URL:  https://babysparks.com/2020/06/09/hypothesizing-how-toddlers-use-scientific-thinking-to-learn/.

[6] Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (New York, NY:  Cambridge University Press, 1958.  For a summary review of the Toulmin’s model, see this blogger’s book,

[7] Robert Gutierrez, Toward a Federated Nation:  Implementing National Civics Standards (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas/Civics Books, 2020).  Available through Amazon and other booksellers.  The referred to subsection begins on page 86.

LOCALIZE IT

 

After a series of postings, this blog has attempted to report a discouraging picture of the current US political landscape.  Those postings reviewed the historical effects of several movements, particularly transcendentalism, pragmatism, and perceptual psychology, that have led to the current situation.  Their sum effect was to help normalize and legitimize high levels of individualism and self-centeredness. 

In the process, communal qualities have suffered, and a basic constitutional underlying element has all but been discarded.  “We the People” has, at best, become we, a collective of individuals.  That is, the nation’s assumed sense of a grand partnership – a federated people – has suffered greatly and the consequences of that development are being experienced today. 

What should the role of social studies be in this current state of affairs?  The belief here is that there is a role but not one that can singularly save the day.  Social studies curriculums can help alleviate the condition by making their study a great deal more communal.  For only through a communal structure and processes can students begin to define a sense of citizenship other than what prevails today.

One simple change would be to focus a social studies courses’ content, especially in civics courses, on local, communal issues that students should address.  By placing these issues in a more central position – in terms of positioning within the timeframe of a course of study and in the number of references a course utilizes – students are more apt to become aware of the human challenges – economic, social, political – that manifest in their communities.  But more important, the curriculum can emphasize communal action skills. 

That is, the curriculum can have students work with members of their community.  They can also analyze how relevant societal forces operate in contemporary life.  Care should be exercised to make sure such contact does not pose any dangers to students or other negative effects on their welfare.

For example, one can arrange interactions beyond person-to-person sessions.  Even if such efforts are limited to reading about local conditions, this would be more revealing of those conditions than what usually happens today.  A review of a typical civics textbook reveals a heavy emphasis on national governmental arrangements and national issues with little concern for the local political landscape.

          Neil Postman[1] (1931-2003) sees, for example, the only way to neutralize the effects of television – effects an earlier posting described[2] – is to have students analyze them.  Extending this idea, social action skills can be intentionally utilized in the classroom to analyze all aspects of a studied problem or situation.  This blogger proposes a list of such skills:

 

1.     Devising a social plan

2.     Negotiating

3.     Advocating / counter advocating

4.     Being a change agent or status quo defender

5.     Being a concerned citizen

6.     Being a constructive follower

7.     Being an effective leader

 

The first three skills are seen as fundamental social action skills and the last four are operational social action skills.

            This blogger would like to note that these skills are not seen as linked to a particular ideology or educational philosophic construct, such as reconstructionism,[3] because every effort should be extended to have students decide which way these skills will be utilized.  More specifically, schools should not impose a particular form of communalism. 

What schools should do is have students begin participating in defining communalism as they deem appropriate.  A qualifier to this claim is that whatever form students adopt needs to be conducive with federalist principles – principles that undergird the US Constitution and promote a sense of partnership among the nation’s citizens.

Therefore, the skills are seen as getting students involved with community institutions and with other citizens.  The communal aspect does not have to be explicitly central to the issue addressed but will be implicitly a concern as students engage in the appropriate activities they are to perform, i.e., all social/political issues have their communal aspect to them.

A problem with other reform efforts of social studies is the application of social science disciplinary processes to define or strongly suggest classroom activities.  The assumption was that students would be equally intrigued with the mysteries that the social sciences address if they were creatively presented to students. 

This blogger feels that the interests of scientists are often too abstract and foreign to secondary students.  Even early advocates of these methods, such as Jerome Bruner (1915-2016),[4] eventually admitted that other methods can be utilized to engage student interests.  Bruner identified several learning paradigms that are successful in the appropriate context.  Among them, appropriate for what is being advocated here, is the nativist school of thought.

          By way of illustrating the array of ideas one can employ in pursuing this communal option, the next posting will describe this nativist school of thought and other approaches educators have introduced.  This blogger has often refuted the notion of an ideal teaching style or methodological approach can be applied to the teaching strategies of all teachers. 

That is, he has argued that teaching is too much a form of personal expression and needs to respect what sort of person that teacher is.  But that does not preclude describing and reviewing the positive elements of various approaches.  In that vein, this series of postings proceeds and hopefully shares with readers forms of instruction with which they are not as familiar and might prove to be effective in promoting communal requisites.

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[1] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (New York, NY:  Penguin Books, 1986).

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “The TV Effect,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, February 20, 2024, accessed March 6, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_02_18_archive.html.

[3] “The philosophy of Social Reconstructionism is a student-centered philosophy. This philosophy is rooted in the belief that education should be focused on reconstructing society. This emphasis is a result of the perceived lack of leadership on the part of schools to create an equitable society.”  ‘Chapter 9:  Social Reconstructionism,” Center for the Advancement of Digital Scholarship (n.d.), accessed March 8, 2024, URL:  https://kstatelibraries.pressbooks.pub/dellaperezproject/chapter/chapter-8-social-reconstructionism/#:~:text=The%20philosophy%20of%20Social%20Reconstructionism%20is%20a%20student%2Dcentered%20philosophy,to%20create%20an%20equitable%20society.

[4] Jerome Bruner, “Models of the Learner,” Educational Researcher, June/July 1985, 5-8.

THEN THERE’S ANOMIE

 

Two honored sociologists who have contributed to the general understanding of deviant behavior have been Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) and Robert Merton (1910-2003).  The last posting of this blog, which has been presenting a series of postings regarding the development of deviant proclivities in American culture, introduced the work of Durkheim and Merton.  That posting indicated this one would share a model these writers, from different time periods, collectively present regarding deviance.

          To begin, Durkheim noted that suicide rose in times of prosperity.  Baffled, he began to theorize that in modern times people are subject to egoistic suicides, that is, suicides that are motivated by the inability to deal with fast paced societies and their unrealistic goals.  In general, modern society promotes lofty goals while designating norms regarding acceptable behavior as it addresses those goals. 

Further, people are socialized to accept these goals.

 

American culture is characterized by great emphasis on the accumulation of wealth as a success symbol without a corresponding emphasis on using legitimate means to march toward this goal … [D]eviant behavior among certain classes in American society cannot be explained by a lack of opportunity alone or by an exaggerated emphasis on a pecuniary value nexus … It is the set of equalitarian beliefs in American society, stressing the opportunity for economic affluence and social ascent for all of its members, which makes for the difference.[1]

 

If true, certain recent developments can’t help adding to deviant levels.  That is, one can add to this mix of sentiments that a certain condition promotes.  That is, a significant portion of the population has had its economic foundations pulled out from under it, such as the exportation of a significant number of manufacturing jobs during the recent past. 

This results in the chasm between aspirations and reality and consequently, one can expect levels of deviance to increase.  They can even be justified by disrupters as means to attain the goals Durkheim identifies.  It is the opinion of this blogger that much of the polarized state of American politics one observes today can be attributed to this development.

          And Merton outlines forms of behavior patterns that such disruptive conditions encourage, but common to these deviant adaptive patterns is the feeling of anomie.  Anomie can be defined as a pervading sense:  a fatalistic lack of cohesion with society.  This sense can permeate among certain groups within the nation.  Merton believed that lower income groups were naturally more predisposed to anomie.[2]

          Given the historical progression this series has outlined in earlier postings – the progression from transcendentalism, pragmatism, and perceptual psychology – the progression has glorified individualism and self-centeredness.  Plus, sociological/economic developments – increasing divorce rates, globalization of the economy, exportation of manufacturing jobs – anomie has become prevalent among larger segments of the population.[3]

          This state of conditions naturally affects schools.  The teacher corps and other school professionals around the country should be concerned with augmenting social norms which encourage non deviant behavior, and at the same time try to impart the necessary skills that empower individuals in attaining their social and economic goals.  But beyond that, those very goals need to be questioned.  While this blogger denotes a tinge of elitism in the Merton model, the reality is that pecuniary rewards are inordinately emphasized in this nation’s society.

          As pointed out earlier in this series, American society lacks a substantive cultural philosophy.  What philosophy it has is made up of vague notions of the “American dream” and individual rights.  Institutions such as American education have promoted individualism.  One finds oneself hearing only a limited social message in this vacuum, from Madison Avenue or disinformation being constantly emitted through social media.[4] 

As for advertising, the message is simple and direct:  buy things and services.  As for social media:  “you are getting screwed and you need to support X.”  Either way, social worth is most exclusively tied to the ability to attain the things advertised or be associated with those who are sharing a delegitimate status while joining together to save the day.

With more and more misalignment – i.e., social ties lacking meaningful commitments – or the availability of meaningful employment especially among low educated people, the social conditions leading to anomie are readily observable.  Add to this the communication facility that social media affords, and the mix is quite disruptive and deviant.

With that staging, social studies curriculum development has a “full plate” of challenges to address.  That will be the topic of the next posting as this blog continues this series of postings addressing deviance in the American culture.  And just to give this notion of a curricular response legitimacy, one should keep the meanings of anomie – lacking social and ethical standards – and nihilism – rejecting moral principles due to seeing life as meaningless – in mind.

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[1] Marshall B. Clinard, “The Theoretical Implications of Anomie and Deviant Behavior,” in Anomie and Deviant Behavior, edited by Marshall B. Clinard (New York, NY:  The Free Press, 1964), 1-56, 14-15.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Given inherit challenges with measuring anomie among a population, the literature is not “one-sided” as to the levels and consequences of anomie to American society.  See for example, Jean Paul Azzopardi, “America’s Overdose of Anomie,” Medium, January 10, 2017, accessed March 4, 2024, URL:  https://medium.com/@jp_azzopardi/americas-overdose-of-anomie-1c0049844774#:~:text=They%20believe%20that%20American%20society,actively%20resist%20any%20institutional%20controls.

[4] In terms of the latter, see Barbara McQuade, Attack from Within:  How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America (New York, NY:  Seven Stories Press, 2024).

AVOID THE EITHER/OR

 

On February 13^th, with the posting, “Early On,”[1] this blog began a series of offerings that argue American society has higher levels of deviant behavior than one finds in many other societies – particularly advanced countries.  This claim is hard to define and measure.  Here is what Statista reports:

 

In the United States, violent crimes are defined as incidents involving force or the threat of force. … Comparing the number of committed crimes in U.S. by category, property crime far outnumbers violent crime, while aggravated assault accounts for some two-thirds of all violent crime. Over the last two decades, the number of violent crimes in the United States has fallen dramatically; there were 1.93 million violent crimes in 1992 in comparison to 1.2 million violent crimes in 2022. A similar story is told by looking at the violent crime rate per 100,000 residents, which factors in the role population growth plays in increasing the overall number of crimes.[2]

 

Or as Data Pandas reports:

 

Despite being one of the world's most developed countries, the United States ranks 52^nd, with a Crime Index of 47.81. The relatively high index in an advanced nation like the U.S. underscores the fact that crime is not merely a problem of underdeveloped or developing countries but a universal challenge.[3]

 

While there are other nations with higher rates of crime and other forms of deviance, the above amply reports levels that should capture the nation’s attention. 

Of course, there are many factors involved in this state of dysfunction.  Using a historical approach, recent postings described the effects of various constructs, e.g., transcendentalism and perceptual psychology, in the development of this deviance.  The postings have attempted to explain how the claims of these constructs dispose their advocates to champion meaningful degrees of individualism and self-centeredness, mental dispositions one can see as disposing people to engage in deviant behavior.

          Consequently, such socialization has even led to problematic levels of other anti-social mindsets, even nihilism.  Of course, all of this can’t help affecting how civics education will be conducted in American schools.  A good deal of those effects are underlying factors and not conscious to the educators who man those classrooms.  But before describing what these forces mean to curriculum, it is important to keep in mind that this is a societal problem.  In no way can schools be given the task, single-handedly, of definitively solving the problem.

          While this disclaimer might seem obvious, it has been the practice of societal decision makers to dump many components of the above situation in the “laps” of educators.  Of course, this is counterproductive and only serves to stretch the limited resources schools have at their disposal to try to meet the educational responsibilities cited in these earlier postings.

          What this blog will describe is limited to how the curriculum can, from its perspective, consider the forces causing the dysfunctional elements of this state of being, i.e., a society full of deviant related strife.  This blogger hopes that interested parties understand the central source of these problems has had a long history and goes to the core of American attitudes. 

Again, it’s a cultural problem.  Only societal wide changes can shift these attitudes.  That aim is surely beyond the ability of schools to accomplish.  So, given all of this, what are the implications for social studies – that portion of curriculum most relevant to societal concerns emanating from its culture.

And here, a bit of context is in order:  The general custom among people, this blogger notes, is to think dichotomously.  In this case, either a person is authoritarian or democratic; either loves children or is indifferent to their needs.  These are lazy reactions.  The problems these postings address and the problems they have caused, place educators on guard against the easy, sentimentalist answers to those problems. 

In that vein, this blogger is not against many of the sentiments expressed by those expounding the virtues of individualism – often mistakenly treated as being synonymous with liberty.  The concern here lies in the fact that reality does not exist only in the domain of one’s own house and family, but also in the communal parameters individuals and families find themselves.

          The overall described conditions this blog has reviewed have implications for the social studies curriculum but also curriculum in general.  With a more contained ambition than is usually expressed by curriculum writers, what follows are adjustments that can allow a more useful posture given the challenges.  That is, a functional curriculum should adjust in certain dimensions:

 

1.     There should be a heavy emphasis on the concerns of communities – that in which a school’s students live and, in the nation, generally.

2.     Knowledge, as an element of a curriculum, should be treated beyond sets of facts to memorize, but as functional, useful elements in solving societal problems or addressing societal concerns.

3.     Curriculum proposals should be in the form of options that a teacher can manipulate, tweak, or otherwise accommodate the students and/or social conditions teachers face.  And …

4.     Discipline, beyond the prescriptions from perceptual psychology or any other strategy, should be treated by teachers in a realistic manner – avoiding simplistic generalized approaches (either too lenient, ala perceptual psychology, or too demanding, ala “I take no guff” approach).

 

These dimensions are suggested by the pioneer work on deviance by Emile Durkheim and Robert Merton.[4]

          While a formal development of an argument suggested by Durkheim and Merton is beyond the purposes of this presentation, these sociologists’ collective work presents a social model for explaining deviance.  And this marks a good place to end this posting and invite readers to click onto this blog’s next posting for a description of these giants’ contribution to addressing deviance. 

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[1] See Robert Gutierrez, “Early On,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, February 13, 2024, “Representations of Reality,” February 16, 2024, “The TV Effect,” February 20, 2024, “The Perceptual Angle,” February 23, and The Ongoing Factors Affecting Nihilism, February 27, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/.  Use archives feature to access individual postings,

[2] “Violent Crime in the U.S. – Statistics & Facts,” Statista, December 18, 2023, accessed February 28, 2024, URL:  https://www.statista.com/topics/1750/violent-crime-in-the-us/#topicOverview.

[3] “Crime Rate by Country,” Data Pandas (n.d.), accessed February 29, 2024, URL:  https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/crime-rate-by-country.  Out of 136 countries, the US is ranked the 56^th most crime ridden.

[4] Marshall B. Clinard, “The Theoretical Implications of Anomie and Deviant Behavior,” in Anomie and Deviant Behavior, edited by Marshall B. Clinard (New York, NY:  The Free Press, 1964), 1-56.

THE ONGOING FACTORS AFFECTING NIHILISM

To date, this blog has been presenting the argument, through a historical lens, that American culture has evolved to promote a highly individualistic view with little concern for communal interests and demands.  This has led, as compared to other societies, for Americans to engage in deviant behaviors.  That is, they are more likely to behave in ways that go contrary to more communal norms and laws.

Upon reviewing that history, one can detect adherence to a set of constructs which encouraged this progression toward deviance.  The constructs are transcendentalism, pragmatism, and perceptual psychology, with an assistance from the effects of TV.  The reader is encouraged to review the last four postings of this blog which describe this development.[1]

The claim here is that what has resulted from this development among many is a general sense of illegitimacy, mostly revolving around political issues, and even encouraging a strong dose of nihilism.  Individualism has gone a long way to render asunder meaningful community living from contemporary American life.  Instead, a growing sense of societal conflict seems to have perforated the nation’s social landscape.[2]

The concept of individualism, used freely in this series of postings, needs more substance than what has been given it up to this point.  Individualism does not make itself known similarly in all situations.  Robert Bellah, et al., looked at individualism in the American social make-up.  They wrote, in Habits of the Heart, “[i]ndividualism is more moderate and orderly than egoism”[3] and go on to quote Alexi Tocqueville:

 

Individualism is a calm and considered feeling which disposes each citizen to isolate himself from the mass of his fellows and withdraw into the circle of family and friends; with the little society formed to his taste, he gladly leaves the greater society to look after itself.[4]

 

They describe individualism as a habit of thought well ingrained in America’s historical psyche.

          While the mass phenomena to find true self, ala perceptual psychology, and the extravagance attached to that quest is recent, Americans are basically a people who look to themselves as individuals, as opposed to members of society or community, and they rely on their personal resources for social and personal goals and the source of meaning for those goals.  These resources include those derived from personal characteristics as well as material assets.

          Those writers, Bellah, et al., cite Ralph Waldo Emerson (who wrote an essay entitled “Self-Reliance”), the Puritans, John Winthrop, and Thomas Jefferson as repeating the same theme.  Among the middle class, individualism is highly tied to work ethic, something still strongly felt in America.

“The problem is not so much the presence or absence of a ‘work ethic’ as the meaning of work and ways it links, or fails to link, individuals to one another.”[5]  And this invites one to question how work affects Americans.  Work, which forces the individual to have a public life, has become, due to a large-scale industrial/service society, segmental and a self-interested activity.[6]  With that, individualism can express itself in two modes:  utilitarian individualism and expressive individualism.

Utilitarian individualism tends to be single-minded, and goal driven toward advancing careers.  Expressive individualism values relationships, forms of art, and even social improvement goals.  In either form, Bellah, et al. are concerned that goodness is defined by one feeling good.  “Acts, then, are not right or wrong in themselves, but only because of the results they produce, the good feelings they engender or express.”[7]

They continue that this forms a basis of morality and ethics which is highly subjective; therefore, the distinguishing character of individualism remains ineffable.

 

The touchstone of individualistic self-knowledge turns out to be shaky in the end, and its guide to action proves elusive … [T]o what or whom do our ethical and moral standards commit us if they are “quite independent of other people’s standards and agenda”?[8]

 

From the American experience, one can surmise that without external standards of morality, either of a secular or religious nature, a sense of nihilism pervades among many.  Is there proof of this nihilism?

          When this blogger first worked on these ideas, by doing research for a paper, the Waco tragedy unfolded.  Since then, other tragedies have hit the American society to varying degrees of human suffering – school shootings, shootings in theaters, town centers, places of worship, etc.  Why were these people in the Waco case so willing to be led to their deaths by a religious fanatic?  Why are others willing to engage in disastrous events that often end in violent death often to themselves?

          Is meaning for life so hard to find in this nation’s common lot?  Or perhaps the report by various writers on the detrimental and accumulative effects of trends, e.g., the divorce rate, on the children of this country can provide further insight.[9]  A bit of literature among the press and published articles and books have documented how popular it has become to encourage adults to take on more self-centered goals which then manifests in irresponsible behaviors on the part of adults who are often parents.

          American society, over the last number of decades, has experienced several disruptive events and trends.  Along with the divorce rate, there have been riots, increasing crime rates (currently going down), suicide rates, drug use, etc.  And with that disruptive setting, this posting will end and promise that the next one in this series will address the implications of the above challenges to those charged with developing curriculum for American schools.  Surely, these societal challenges should influence what schools plan for their students.

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[1] The series of postings begins with “Early On,” and can be accessed on the URL, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/.  Readers can use the archive feature to see this posting and the three that follow.

[2] Aidan Connaughton, “Americans See Stronger Societal Conflicts Than People in Other Advanced Economies,” Pew Research Center, October 13, 2021, accessed February 23, 2024, URL:  https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/10/13/americans-see-stronger-societal-conflicts-than-people-in-other-advanced-economies/.

[3] Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, A. Swindler, and Steven M. Tipton, Habits of the Heart:  Individualism in American Life (New York, NY:  Harper and Row, Publishers, 1985).

[4] Ibid., 37.

[5] Ibid., 55-56.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid., 78.

[8] Ibid., 78-79.

[9] For example, see Daniel Siegel, “Generation Doomer:  How Nihilism on Social Media Is Creating a New Generation of Extremists,” Global Network on Extremism and Technology, December 16, 2022, accessed February 24, 2024, URL:  https://gnet-research.org/2022/12/16/generation-doomer-how-nihilism-on-social-media-is-creating-a-new-generation-of-extremists/#:~:text=Because%20of%20digital%20echo%20chambers,and%20humanity%20is%20inevitably%20doomed.  To illustrate how long this concern has been addressed, see Barbara Dafoe, “Dan Quayle Was Right,” The Atlantic Monthly, 274, 4 (1993), 47-84.