Abstract
At the moment of its foundation, the American republic was viewed as a land of experiment with a bedrock of shared Calvinistic heritage that advocated vocational calling, love of God, universalism, integrity, and self-restraint. In his posthumously published The End of the Experiment: The Rise of Cultural Elites and the Decline of America’s Civic Culture, Stanley Rothman examines the dissolution of this fundamental ideology in post-industrial America, contending that the unprecedented alienation of cultural elites, who created a narcissistic culture represented by collectivist liberalism and expressive individualism, is detrimental to America’s founding virtues and generates increasing societal division.
Influenced by Weber, Rothman and Althea Nagai, drawing from historical analysis and survey data, illustrate the transformation of American society, the ideological contributions, and the psychological makeup of intellectual elites. The eleven chapters are categorized by editors Althea Nagai, Robert Maranto, Matthew Woessner, and David Rothman into three sections.
Part One reviews the changes since theUnited States stepped into the post-industrial era, both societal and ideological. In Chapter Three, the book revisits the rise of the intellectual class and its influence, while Chapter Four specifically demonstrates how advances in communications technology assist modern cultural elites in redefining the nation’s civic culture.
Part Two focuses on the new strategic elites’ impact on cultural transformation and the political environment. In Chapter Five, Rothman reviews classic elite theories and proposes an ideological perspective for studying American elite structure. Chapter Six examines political ideology in different elite groups, reflecting division and conflicts.
Rothman pushes the investigation further to personality and its link to occupational and structural change from a Weberian perspective. Nagai later updates his theory and findings in an Afterword (Chapter 8). In Part Three, three of Rothman’s contemporaries remark on his work, his influence on academia, and how the masses interpret America’s cultural evolution.
The book is ideal reading for scholars and students in social science and people who are interested in gaining some insights about the ongoing cultural transformation in American society. This volume provides an innovative approach investigating the decline of America’s core civic values and its increasingly divided political landscape.