In Conflict No Longer: Self and Society in Contemporary AmericaRowman & Littlefield, 2000 - 161 pages Drawing on social-criticism, self-help manuals, and the social scientific analysis of American character, In Conflict No Longer examines American thinking about individualism, conformity, and community from 1920 through 1995. Taviss-Thomson's analysis reveals a basic shift in American culture: from a belief that the individual is necessarily in conflict with society and that the self chafes against the constraints imposed by society, to a belief that the self is expressed in the groups, relationships, and subcultures that help shape it. Taviss-Thomson contends that this new model of a relational or 'embedded' self arose due to a weakening of traditional identities based on occupation, social class, gender and age which left individuals freer to construct their own identities. In an age where Americans increasingly abandon the traditional mythology of an individual struggling against social constraints, In Conflict No Longer forecasts a picture of American culture for the next millennium. |
Contents
A Changing American Self? | 1 |
The Changing Meanings of Individualism Conformity and Community | 9 |
The IndividualSociety Relationship 19201995 | 29 |
The Emerging Self Flexible Constructed Multiple and Relational | 89 |
The Relational Self and Contemporary Social Science | 107 |
The Causes and Implications of the Demise of the Conflict Paradigm | 121 |
| 137 | |
| 155 | |
About the Author | |
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alienation Ameri American American character American culture American society appear argues Atlantic Monthly autonomy become behavior Bellah best-selling bureaucratic Buscaglia 1982 Charles Horton Cooley child concern conflict model conflict paradigm conformist conformity contemporary counterculture decade defined dominant Dyer embedded emerging Emile Coué emotional expression feel freedom George Herbert Mead Gergen goals groups happiness Harper's idea ideals identity images impulsive individual and society individual-society relationships individualistic inner institutions interpersonal interpersonal relationships intimacy John-Roger Kitayama larger society Lasch Leinberger and Tucker less lives longer marriage means moral munity narcissism narcissist Norman Vincent Peale norms one's organization other-directed person Overstreet 1950 parents Peale perceive popular portrayed problem psychological relational Riesman roles Schuller seek seen self-absorption self-conscious self-expression self-help books self-help literature self-help writers Sennett sense Slater social critics sociology subcultures suburban suggests superego tion traditional twentieth century values vidual Whyte Wuthnow York