History as the Decline of Community: Nisbet on Modernity
History as the Decline of Community: Nisbet on Modernity

Summary/Abstract: Robert Nisbet argues that the rise of the bureaucratized modern state has drastically eroded the foundations of communities - family, church, neighborhood, various civil associations. His analysis of the modern political predicament is based on the assumption that individualism and collectivism rose concurrently: the connection between the two lies in the fact that the emancipated individual required the powerful state. This process led to the destruction of communities in the Western world. Consequently, the central argument of Nisbet is that the individual and the state both need a flourishing civil society mediating between them.

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