REVIEW ESSAYS
Sociology as Public P h i l o s o p h y A Critique of Habits o f the !-Ieart Pierre Hegy Adelphi University Habits of the Heart by Robert Bellah, Richard Madson, Ann Swidler, William Sullivan and Samual Tipton (Berkeley University of California Press, 1985) makes a claim which few sociologists would make today, namely that sociology is a form of public philosophy. Such a claim is very traditional, however, since it was made by men as different as Comte, Marx, and Durkheim. Hence few critics would probably argue with the authors' claim because the real question is how such a program can be carried out. In this paper I will first review how the authors fulfilled their plan. I will next suggest two alternatives.
Sociology As Social Self Understanding: The Problem of Generalizations In line with Durkeim's tradition, the authors define sociology as a %orm of self-understanding or self-interpretation" (301). Sociology is like '% mirror which it holds u p . . . to society" (301). This "mirror like" or %peculative" conception of sociology is interpreted thus: "By probing the past as well as the present, by looking at 'values' as much as at Yacts,' such a social science is a b l e . . , to ask difficult questions. In this book for e x a m p l e , . . , we have asked whether individualism, as the dominant ideology of American life, is not undermining the conditions of its existence. That question is simultaneously philosophical and sociological." (301-02). According to this view, sociologists are to raise "big issues" through their study of ~Yacts" and ~alues." It should be obvious, however, that it is not just the raising of philosophical questions but the empirical data leading to such issues which will make any sociological research worthwhile. Anyone can wonder, abstractly, whether individualism is not undermining our collective existence. For a sociological research to be a form of public philosophy, it must present enough empirical evidence to compel the reader to ask the above question. Hence Habits of the Heart offers a convincing program only if it offers enough Qualitative Sociology, 10(4), Winter 1987
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empirical evidence to raid a philosophical debate. Unfortunately most of the data presented in the book are given in the form of illustrations. The book is divided into two parts. P a r t one (chapters 1-6), entitled "Private Life," presents data from about 200 interviewees. P a r t two (chapters 7-10), entitled "Public Life," makes only scant references to the interview data, presenting instead general views gleaned from other books. In part one most of the data are presented in the form of generalizations. Here is a s u m m a r y of the major ideas. About '~nding oneself': "The ideal of a self-reliant individual leaving home is nurtured within our families, passed from parent to child though ties that bind us together in solitude as well as love. The self-reliant American is required not only to leave home but to ~leave church' as welt" (62). About work: "The demand to 'make something of yourself through work is one t h a t Americans coming of age hear as often from themselves as from others" (65). On "love and marriage" (at the beginning of the chapter): "In the twentieth century, marriage has to some extent become separated from the encompassing context of family . . . . Thus marriage becomes a context for expressive individualism, or a 'lifestyle enclave'" (89). The same idea becomes the conclusion of the chapter: "The family is no longer an integral part of a larger moral ecology tying the individual to community, church, and nation" (112). Since the self-reliant individual "leaves home and church," then creates an individualistic family of his own, work itself (chapter five) can only be a form of expressive individualism or therapy. "Not only is therapy work, much of our work is a form of therapy" (123). We can now conclude, in chapter six on individualism, what was already implied or even stated at the very beginning, that this excessive individualism is threatening our collective existence. The chapters presented above are replete with quotations from interviews, but the latter are merely used as illustrations for a thesis. Part one begins with an analysis of individualism in "Finding Oneself' (chapter three) and ends with individualism, title of chapter six. Since empirical data are not really necessary to state a philosophical thesis, they are dispensed with in part two, on Public Life. After a presentation of small town politics in chapter seven, we are progressively engaged in a philosophical debate about citizenship and political life. What characterizes the ideal citizen is that "the achievement of happiness or j o y . . . comes not from calculating competition b u t from giving oneself to the service of others without counting the c o s t . . . " (196). Finally, the authors raise the question of the nature of the public order, civic virtue, and justice. Under the heading "Six American Visions of the Public Good," we have a review of the major social and ideological developments since the beginning of this century. We are then ready for the conclusion, a
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philosophical discussion on the general theme of "Transforming American Culture" (chapter 11). From the above, it seems that it is not the data themselves b u t the authors' opinions that lead us to raise philosophical questions. Such a tendency reduces sociology to an abstract social philosophy, without any "logic of proof." There is, however, another definition of sociology in Habits of the Heart which m a y legitimize its claim to be a social philosophy, namely sociology as public debate.
Sociology As Public Debate: A n Ambiguous Thesis ~'Social science as public philosophy is public not just in the sense that its findings are publicly available . . . . It is public in that it seeks to engage the public in dialogue. It also seeks to engage the ~community of the competent,' the specialists and the experts, in dialogue" (303). Any researcher would like to see the public engage in a debate about his work. Actually it seldom happens. Hence we m a y restrict the label of public philosophy to those works that actually stir up public discussion. Such works are not necessarily based on empirical data (e.g.Marx's and Engel's Communist Manifesto). Neither are they necessarily Marxist or leftist, since they include The Lonely Crowd (Riesman, 1950) as well as the Power Elite (Mills, 1956), Who Governs? (Dahl, 1961) as well as Community Power Structure (Hunter, 1953). What these controversial books have in common, it seems, is a clearly defined thesis. This is not the case of Habits of the Heart. The thesis that individualism is threatening our collective existence does not come through very forcefully, because the term individualism itself is shrouded in ambiguities. "There is a biblical individualism and a civic individualism as well as a utilitarian and an expressive individualism" (142). The latter two are lumped together as "modern individualism" (143). The thesis of the book thus becomes a denunciation of the ~growing strength of modern individualism at the expense of the civic and biblical traditions" (143). Elsewhere the authors oppose ~radical individualism" (161) to ~%ocially responsible individualism" (55), ~ontological individualism" to '%ocial realism" (334). At times the book becomes a eulogy of individualism, for instance, of the '~enlightened self-interest" found in the small town of the past, which resembles Tocqueville's conception of"self-interest" properly understood" (167-176). Elsewhere we find a eulogy of religious individualism: "Religious individualism is, in many ways, appropriate in our kind of society . . . . Ours is a society that requires people to be strong and independent. As believers we must often operate alone in uncongenial circumstances, and we must have the
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inner spiritual strength and discipline to do so" (247). So what is the authors' main thesis about individualism? Rather t h a n presenting a clear thesis, the authors give us a series of strong statements t h a t are contradicted, maybe dialectically, elsewhere in the book. Thus in chapter three ("Finding oneself"), the thesis is developed t h a t the "the self-reliant American is required not only to leave home but to ~leave church' as well" (62). This statement is somewhat contradicted in chapter eight (on "Citizenship"):..... leaving home' for the professional middle class is not something one does once and for a l l it is an ever-present possibility" (197). While selfish individualism is presented in chapter three as the driving force impelling one to "leave home," not so in chapter eight: "The pressure to keep moving upward in a career often forces the middle class individual, however reluctantly, to break the bonds of commitment forged with a community" (197; emphasis added). What is, then, the m a i n thesis of the book? It seems to be something as mild and as ambiguous as the following statement: "In our interviews, though we saw tendencies toward bureaucratic individualism, we cannot say t h a t it has yet become dominant. Rather,we found all the classic polarities of American individualism still operating" (150). Such a statement is not likely to raise an animated debate.
Sociology as Social Intervention From its very first page, this book has a flavor of value-commitment t h a t makes it related to social interventionism. "How ought we to live? How do we t h i n k about how to live? Who are we, as Americans? . . ° These are questions we have asked our fellow citizens in m a n y arts of the country" (vi-vii). From this opening statement of the Preface, it can be seen t h a t the authors tried to engage the interviewees in a common discussion. This goal is even explicitly stated in the book: "We conceived of our research from the beginning as a dialogue or conversation with fellow citizens about matters of common interest" (304). But how can empirical research based on interviews be a "dialogue?" This question is left unanswered. Actually it is doubtful t h a t there was any true dialogue in the interviews, as presented in the book. Yet "dialogue" is the main tool of a new form of sociology: "Social interventionism." Value-commitment and social interventionism have a long history in sociology, since they go back to Marx and LePlay. In short, for Marxists it is not enough to "sociologize" abstractly about the world; the point is "to change it!" Any sociological praxis can be seen as a form of social "intervention." Hence, it becomes a tool for social change.
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If we recognize that sociology is not a value-free discipline, then we may also come to realize that any sociological research is a form of social intervention, a form of interference. Sociological research can become the study of its own effort on participants. This idea has been applied over the last few decades, in social psychology (e.g. Kurt Lewin's [1948] "action research," Moreno's [1972] psycho-drama), in education (Freire and his followers), in ~institutional analysis" (as outlined by E. Jacques, and Lourau), in ~'clinical sociology" (Alinsky, 1971, in ~humanist sociology" (Lee, 1973). It is probably Touraine (1978, 1980) who has most contributed to popularize this new trend (see Hess, 1981). Sociological research becomes an experiment in social intervention when either the sponsors of the research (e.g. an "institution" in a state of crisis) or the researchers themselves initiate a public debate. It is understood that the '~dialogue" will take place between the researcher and the interviewees, not between the authors and their colleagues after the publication of their findings. In Habits of the Heart there was clearly an intent of dialogue, not only with the public but also with the respondents, as explicitly stated at the beginning and at the end of the book (vii; 303). Yet the '~dialogue" seems not to have gone beyond than the traditional format of questions and answer. For research to be a dialogue from the beginning, it is necessary to allow the respondents to criticize the authors' initial proposal about the nature of their research. Thus, for a general discussion on '~Individualism and Commitment in American Life," it would have been most helpful if the authors had handed out a brief outline of their purpose, their assumptions and hypotheses, more or less as forum based in chapter two on ~'Culture and Character." Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that this chapter had been handed out to all participants in the research. What might have been their reactions? A. One might object to the very subjective definition of what is given as the four cultural traditions of America: utilitarian and expressive individualism, Judeo-Christianity and republicanism. Utilitarian individualism is ill defined. In the glossary, the term is explained in reference to Hobbes and Locke, and the utilitarian philosophy, all of which originated in England, not America. Expressive utilitarianism is even more vaguely defined. The glossary only states that it "is related to the phenomenon of romanticism in eighteenth and nineteenth century European and American culture" (334). Expressive utilitarianism is related to the philosophy of individual development and growth, from Emerson and Thoreau to Dewey and Maslow. The third '~cultural strand," the biblical tradition, tends to be restricted to the public
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theology of Puritans, more particulary of Winthrop. Finally, the authors identify republicanism with Washington, John Adams, and Jefferson, as if the ~'republican language" disappeared with the founders of the Republic. In sum, the four cultural traditions do not seem to characterize adequately the American culture as transmitted through our schools. The authors leave out what liberal arts education is about-humanism; on the other hand they over emphasize the importance of Winthrop and Washington as cultural models for Americans today. B. One may object to the conservative bias of the study which lumps together the utilitarian philosophies of Hobbes, Locke, and Mills on the one hand, and the philosophies of human development of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Dewey. The two forms of individualism are often implicitly or at times explicitly identified with selfishness (e.g.p.79: '~The two traditions of individualism offer us only the cost-benefit analysis of external success"). In opposition to this '~modern individualism" the authors extol biblical and republican individualism. It is this conservative bias that is likely to generate most of the debate. C. One may object to the ~political" bias according to which "commitment" is identified with '~political commitment"; public life is equated with political life, biblical tradition is reduce to political philosophy, and republicanism to political morality. But if"commitment in American life" were to mean dedication to others, then all forms of dedication to others should be considered: at work (e.g. labor unions), in the churches (unpaid involvement), in the schools (PTAs), in neighborhoods and families (mutual help), etc. D. Similarly one might object to the authors' individualistic bias which is manifest in their analysis of ~'private life." For the authors, private life begins with '~inding oneself' as if one's private life began only at adolescence, at the time of "leaving home," and ~'leaving church." After describing an individualistic adolescence, the authors give an individualistic presentation of marriage, centered on the first years of ¢~love."Marriage is not seen as an 'tinstitution" that is both private and public. There is no mention of children - precisely because with the arrival of children, the private life of the couple is progressively thrown into some form of public life: Registration in a public school, involvement in a PTA, involvement in local politics about schools, drugs, neighborhoods, housing development, etc. Individualism is also the authors' major bias in their analysis of work and politics: ~much of our work is a form of therapy" (123), and so is politics (130-33).
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To sum up, had the authors handed out a s u m m a r y of their positions and hypotheses in order to elicit reactions on the part of their interviewees, they could have had the opportunity to re-examine their own presuppositions before starting individual interviews. Similarly, at the end of the research, a final report m a y be submitted to the participant for their criticism.To a limited extent, the authors engaged in such a dialogue, although not with the public, among themselves.
Sociology and the Maieutic Method ~'We conceived of our research from the beginning as a dialogue with fellow citizens about matters of common interest . . . . The interview as we employed it was active, Socratic" (304). What follows is an example of Socratic interviewing. It asks probing questions in order to "uncover assumptions, to make explicit what the person we were talking to might rather have left implicit" (304). Thus, after one interviewee had stated that she does not feel responsible for others, the researcher probed further: "Are you your sister's keeper?"-(No). "Your brothers's keeper?" -(No). "Are you responsible for your husband?"-(I am not). "What about your children?" These are indeed probing questions, b u t it is not clear why such questioning should be called Socratic. It has none of the characteristics of the Socratic rnaieutike. There are at least two conditions for a Socratic dialogue, as illustrated by the Apology and Meno. On the one hand the interviewee must stop believing he/she knows everything (Socratic irony); on the other hand, the researcher must be convinced that anyone is capable of great insights, even the uneducated (like the slave in Meno). These two principles can easily be applied to interviews. The first step of the Socratic method consists of making the interviewee feel perplexed, caught in his own contradictions (see Apology 21-23; Meno 64). It is just the opposite which takes place in most interviews: we ask questions about topics people have little knowledge of, and we invite them to answer with great self-confidence. The Socratic method requires the opposite: That we investigate, not the level of rationalizations and socially accepted stereotypes b u t the level of the unconscious; or that we confront people with a position different from their own, as suggested above in the interventionist method. The second principle, requires that the research be convinced that even the u n e d u c a t e d - t h e slave in Meno-are capable of great insights, for ~'knowledge will not come from teaching but from questioning" (Meno 85d). One does not have to accept Plato's theory of knowledge as recollection; it suffices to recognize that knowledge is most likely
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to come from questioning, or rather, from self-questioning. It is this selfquestioning, based on the realization of one's ignorance, that is most absent in most of our interviews, since we foster self-confidence about stereotypical knowledge, not self-questioning. The interventionist method, on the contrary, invites self-questioning, since the interviewer himself makes his position known. Unfortunately, the interventionist method may at times be too antagonistic to lead to dialogue. Socrates never makes his position known in an antagonistic way; his only professed "knowledge" was t h a t of ignorance. Let us now apply the Socratic method to the above given example, in which Margaret Oldham explains that she feels responsible neither for her sister, nor for her husband, nor for her children. It is the apparent simplicity of this statement that should be perplexing. Is there a difference between ~being responsible": and "feeling so"? Between being legally and morally responsible: Between feeling responsible and acting responsible? It should be puzzling that we may be legally responsible (e.g. in case of "negligence"), while having no knowledge of our responsibility; we may act responsibly toward neighbors and colleagues, but we have no legal requirement to do so, while being irresponsible at times toward our children for whom we are legally responsible. It is this puzzle t h a t makes possible "self-questioning," with the help of the interviewer. The whole research of Habits of the Heart is based on a puzzle: Our everyday '~language" of self-interest stands in contradiction to our actual deeds; the biblical and the public "languages" seem obsolete to most Americans today, yet they are still "committed" socially, in their families, neighborhoods, and communities. A Socratice dialogue on "individualism and commitment in American life" could have started as in Plato: "What is individualism?" and "what is commitment?" even the uneducated can answer such questions, without reference to Hobbes or Locke. It is these true answers that would have made this study ~'sociological," since we would have investigated people's personal beliefs, not their commonly held stereotypes. Interviews are truly '~public" only to the extent that they follow the Socratic method, as the authors note. "Public opinion polling might better be called 'private opinion polling'" (305). By asking people to state in all confidence their commonly held stereotypes, we only interview individual role players. "Active interviews," on the other hand, when inspired by the Socratic wisdom of ignorance and self-questioning, "create the possibility of public conversation and argument," (305). The authors have correctly identified the role of ~active interviews" in sociology as a public philosophy, but they failed to notice the revolutionary requirement of the Socratic method. "There is not methodological innovation in the book" (305). Unfortunately there is none; the Socratic
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method has apparently never been used in sociology. Yet the authors correctly identified its great possibilities.
Conclusion: The Pre-Babel Utopia of Civil Religion There is no mention of civil religion in Habits of the Heart. On the other hand, there is a chapter on religion that is only loosely connected to the theme of individualism and commitment in American life. Moreover, the political meaning of Bellah's conception of civil religion had never been clarified: Is it part of a political program of Enlightenment as in Rousseau? Is it a conservative philosophy of social integration as in W.L. Warner or Will Herberg? Or is it a secularized form of political theology? The political meaning of Bellah's civil religion becomes clearer if seen in the context of Habits of the Heart. The opposition between "individualism" and '~commitment" is operationalized in the authors' empirical research as an opposition between the '~rst language of individualism" (utilitarian and expressive individualism) and "second languages" (those of the republican and biblical traditions; see p. 20, 154). In their research the author found the "many" (whatever that means) are limited to the sole language of utilitarian and expressive individualism (p. 81). Hence the authors conclude: "We thus face a profound impasse. Modern individualism seems to be producing a way of life that is neither individually nor socially viable" (144). In retrospect, such a conclusion seems quixotic. Who would expect to find the American masses speak the "second languages" of either biblical theology or eighteenth century republicanism? From the national statistics about the command of wisdom English or any foreign language after 12 years of compulsory education, one might easily guess what the knowledge of a biblical "language" might be, after sporadic attendance of Sunday schools over only a few years. Yet the project of an empirical study of "second languages" in America becomes less quixotic if one believes in pre-Babel utopia of"One Nation - One Universal Language Under God: Civil Religion." In the context of Habits of the Heart, Bellah's civil religion becomes the "one universal language under God" that can unite all Americans, because supposedly it has done so in the past. Civil religion represents the primal unity achieved through the synthesis of Rousseau and Locke's individualism with Washington and Jefferson's commitment. It represent the zero point of American history when religion and poli-
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tics were integrated in the political theology of Winthrop and Puritanism. It represent the pre-Babel stage of American history when Protestantism was the only religion, democratic republicanism the only political mode, and when the white anglo-saxon stock constituted the only ethnic background. This pristine period lasted only about one generation. With the Civil War, industrialization, the arrival of Catholic ethnics, the original covenant community of one language and one civil religion under God became broken. In the author's words: "Today the American civil religion is an empty and broken shell" (Bellah, 1974:142). The pre-Babel utopia of one universal language under God is pervasive in Habits of the Heart. First, there is the constant reference to the nostalgic "small town" of the past, when the unity between individualism and commitment still prevailed. More important, at the theoretical level, is the longing for a new "moral ecology" in which the polarities of the public and the private, the masculine and the feminine, can be integrated through a common language and shared codes of behavior (see 40). Such a moral ecology existed, we are told, in the "small town" of an undifferentiated past. It is such a moral or social ecology which the authors rediscovered in small political and religious communities. The chapter on religion in Habits must be read keeping in mind the implicit claim of civil religion to be the one universal language under God. In such a perspective, one will tend to reject a religious commitment that is too biblical and not enough republican (conservative Christianity [see 229-301]), or too secular and not religious enough (individual self-development, labeled therapeutic individualism). The only option left is some kind of mystical individualism for instance in the context of the Episcopal church. Saint Stephen's is the only religious community described in the book as "able to combine a sense of continuity with the past and an engagement with the public world of the present" (239). It is at Saint Stephen's that we find a "moral ecology," that is, a "web of moral understanding and commitments that tie people together in community" (335). One might wonder whether social scientists will ever find "moral ecologies" in modern industrialized macro-societies, except precisely in religious and utopian communities. It is in these communities that the utopias of the past are kept alive. Hence it is in reference to this pre-Babel utopia that Habits of the Heart must be read: It is only in these utopian communities that we find "first" and "second" languages. And this concern with "second languages" on the part of the authors is best understood in reference to their own belief in the second language of civil religion, a synthesis of biblical and republican traditions.
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References Alinsky, Saul. 1971 Rules for Radicals. New York: Random House. Alinsky, Saul. 1976 Manuel de l'animateur social. Paris: Le Seuil. Bellah, Robert. 1971 Beyond Belief. New York: Harper and Row. Bellah, Robert. 1975 Broken Covenant. New York: Seabury Press. Dahl, Robert. 1961 Who Governs? New Haven: Yale University Press. Freire, P. 1970 The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder. Hess, Remi. 1981 La sociologie d'intervention. Paris: PUF. Hunter, Floyd. 1953 Community Power Structure. Garden City: Doubleday. Jacques, Elliot. 1972 Intervention et changement dans l'entreprise. Paris: PUF. Lewin, Kurt. 1948 Resolving Social Conflicts. New York: Harper. Lourau, R. 1970 L'analyse institutionnelle. Paris. Lee, Alfred M. 1973 Toward Huminist Sociology. New York: Prentice Hall. Marx, K and Engels, F. 1976 The Communist Manifesto. Penguin. Mills, C. Wright. 1959 The Power Elite. New York: Oxford Press. Moreno, Jacob L. 1972 Psychodrama. New York: Beacon House. Plato. 1973 Collected Dialogues. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Riesman, David. 1950 The Lonely Crowd. New Haven: Yale University Press. Touraine, Alain, et al. 1978 La lutte etudiante. Paris: Le Seuil. Touraine, Alain. 1980 La prophetie anti-nucleaire. Paris: Le Seuil.
