Awards

• Winner of Christianity Today Book Award (Top 25) 1998

Overview

Too few Americans seek a common good and this causes damage to national life, this book argues. There are many diversifications contributing to this state - religious, racial, ethnic, ideological and economic, and the author suggests an association of associations as a solution.

Full Product Details

9780674638273

Table of Contents

Reviews

Here, addressing the thorny issue of cultural diversity in American public life, Marty displays the clear thinking, elegant prose, and facility to cut to the heart of tough issues that are the hallmarks of his reputation. For anyone interested in public philosophy, multiculturalism, communitarianism, minority rights (all terms that Marty uses sparingly), this is a must-read...[Marty's] purpose here is to show the pitfalls of the easy answers of both totalists and tribalists, and to demonstrate the necessity of the hard work of self-reflection and engagement to find the correct distance. This inspiring work deserves the respect of both camps and may even win over converts from both. -- Joanne R. Bauer Ethics and International Affairs

"""The One and the Many""examines the tensions in public discourse in the States, growing more deadlocked as different ethnic, religious and political groups assert their own individual importance. While differences are to be relished, there must also be a way in which a mutual conversation between these different groups can blossom. [Marty's] thesis will interest people in Britain who are also questioning the idea of a 'common good' in a pluralist society. [Marty] guides the general reader through the interplay of unity and pluralism--the striving for 'community' amidst centripetal forces--to a broader understanding of 'association' as motif and force in American culture. He shows how a cohesion of mind and affection emerges from shared experience, restoring the soul of the body politic...A valuable study. A fine Niebuhrian sermon, evoking the 'gossamer fabric' that has sustained Americans not as multiculturalists or superpatriots, or as Keynesians or Friedmanites, but as people who are free. -- Jim Sleeper ""New York Times Book Review"" Here, addressing the thorny issue of cultural diversity in American public life, Marty displays the clear thinking, elegant prose, and facility to cut to the heart of tough issues that are the hallmarks of his reputation. For anyone interested in public philosophy, multiculturalism, communitarianism, minority rights (all terms that Marty uses sparingly), this is a must-read...[Marty's] purpose here is to show the pitfalls of the easy answers of both totalists and tribalists, and to demonstrate the necessity of the hard work of self-reflection and engagement to find the correct distance. This inspiring work deserves the respect of both camps and may even win over converts from both. -- Joanne R. Bauer ""Ethics and International Affairs"" associating, telling, hearing, and keep talking.' culture. He shows how a cohesion of mind and affection emerges from shared experience, restoring the soul of the body politic...A valuable study. shouting. The implications for social policy--not to mention general comity--are enormous, so when someone of Martin E. Marty's intellectual breadth and stature turns his attention to the topic, it is welcome news indeed. ÝMarty¨ guides the general reader through the interplay of unity and pluralism--the striving for 'community' amidst centripetal forces--to a broader understanding of 'association' as motif and force in American culture. He shows how a cohesion of mind and affection emerges from shared experience, restoring the soul of the body politic...A valuable study. It is always dicey to predict how the history of the current era will be written a century hence, but anyone attempting a history of the United States in the twentieth century will doubtless have to account for the paroxysms of our adjustments to pluralism. The story thus far has not been particularly edifying. The public square has degenerated into a melange of identity politics and a cacophony of voices, all of them raised to the level of shouting. The implications for social policy--not to mention general comity--are enormous, so when someone of Martin E. Marty's intellectual breadth and stature turns his attention to the topic, it is welcome news indeed. -- Randall Balmer ""Journal of American History"" The book's last sentence is like the spoonful of medicine distilled from Mr. Marty's persuasive argument: 'The advice for every citizen who wishes to participate in American life and its necessary arguments: start associating, telling, hearing, and keep talking.' -- Larry Witham ""Washington Times"""

Marty (Religion/Univ. of Chicago; The Glory and the Power, 1992, etc.) struggles to define a moderate position within an emotionally charged debate. In contemporary American society few tasks seem more obviously sensible yet doomed to fail than seeking the common good. Marty blames totalists and tribalists for this situation and wishes a pox on both their houses. The former want the values of a single group to be promoted by the government and thereby established as the dominant identity of the country; this is represented most prominently in arguments for an explicitly Christian democracy. The latter want to be recognized as an independent group denied their separate identity and thereby victimized by a dominant group; this is exemplified by identity politics that divide society along gender, racial, and religious lines. Although in constant conflict, totalists and tribalists share a crucial characteristic: By insisting on the unique (and usually superior) status of their own group, they promote an exclusivism that undermines any potential for seeking the common good. The current dispute over abortion provides a perfect example. Pro-life and pro-choice advocates point to moral imperatives that are incommensurate and absolute. Marty looks to the past for ways Americans have conceptualized the relationship of the individual or group and the larger community, focusing on the Constitution as a legal and mythical document to illustrate how seeking the common good can be facilitated by limiting its imposition through law. He favors a social association that, in his recurring image, would be like porcupines huddling together during a cold winter, maintaining the proper distance so that each is warmed by the presence of the others without being pricked by their quills. Unfortunately, recent experience suggests that humans may be more prickly than porcupines. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Countries Available