The Rise of the Imperial Self: America's Culture Wars in Augustinian PerspectiveRowman & Littlefield, 1996 - 249 pages The Rise of the Imperial Self establishes a geneaology of aristocracy and places America firmly within an aristocratic tradition originally articulated by St. Augustine, but adapted to American society by Alexis de Tocqueville. Ronald W. Dworkin then traces the evolution of American culture from Tocqueville's America, when American aristocracy was defined by a love of something beyond the self to today's preoccupation with individuality, self-expression, autonomy, and self-esteem-the "imperial self." |
Contents
Expressive Individualism Manicheism and the Higher Self | 3 |
The Expressive Individualist the Donatists and the Honor of Work | 21 |
Christianity Public Opinion and Republican Principle in the Imagination of Tocquevilles American | 29 |
Pelagianism in the Society of Expressive Individualism | 39 |
Donatism in the Society of Expressive Individualism | 59 |
Platonism in the Society of Expressive Individualism | 75 |
The Expressive Individualist and SelfEsteem | 87 |
The Expressive Individualist and the Spirit of Ressentiment | 91 |
Tocquevilles American as an Aristocrat in the City of God | 121 |
The Fall of the Aristocrat in the City of God and the Rise of the Organization Man | 139 |
The Rise of the Imperial Self | 171 |
Conclusion | 207 |
Notes | 219 |
| 241 | |
| 247 | |
About the Author | |
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Common terms and phrases
adults afterworld American Commonwealth American individualist aristocratic community aristocratic society Augustine of Hippo Augustine's Augustinian behavior belief Bellah Bryce capacity for love century Christian expressive individualism Christian expressive individualist church Cicero City of God contemporary America contemporary expressive individualist culture Democracy in America democratic divine Donatist earthly city equality eternity evil existence experience faith fear feelings force freedom higher honor human idea identity late antiquity lifestyle enclave living Lonely Crowd Manichean Manicheism Max Scheler mind of Tocqueville's modern imperial nature Nietzsche nineteenth-century America noble observed Old World aristocrat one's organization peace peasant peer group Pelagian person physical world Platonic Platonists political psychological public opinion religion religious republican principle ressentiment Riesman Saint Augustine Scheler self-interest Sennett sense separate social society of expressive soul spirit of fellow-feeling spirit of perseverance status Tocqueville Tocqueville's American tradition tremendous Trollope University Press Walter Kaufmann Whyte writes York