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Title: Serviceable Disposability and the Blandness of the Good
Author(s): DESMOND, William
Journal: Ethical Perspectives
Volume: 5    Issue: 2   Date: June 1998   
Pages: 136-143
DOI: 10.2143/EP.5.2.563094

Abstract :
The new introduction to the second edition of Habits of the Heart is a very helpful reminder of the main points of the first edition. Moreover, it is very useful in situating, indeed resituating the book’s concerns, given the lapse of time since the book’s first appearance. It provides new insights made possible by second thoughts, as well as by the questions and criticisms of others. The problem of individualism and the slackening, not to say refusal, of traditional communal ties, has accelerated in American society since the first writing. We find phenomena such as middle class ‘cocooning,’ as well as an often low grade civil war, let us say the culture wars. There is a widespread disquiet — to the left, to the right, in the anxious middle — about the future direction of society. One thing is noted from the beginning as common across the divisions, namely, a certain view of the economy. Correspondingly, the authors themselves seem more insistent on issues of class than they were previously: 'the festering secret that Americans would rather not face.'

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