In recent years, membership has dropped in traditional voluntary
associations such as Rotary Clubs, Jaycees, and bowling leagues. At
the same time, concern is rising about the growth of paramilitary
and hate groups. Scholars have warned that these trends are
undermining civic society by creating a dangerous number of
isolated, mistrustful individuals and organized, antisocial
renegades. In this provocative book, however, Nancy Rosenblum takes
a new, less narrowly political approach to the study of groups. And
she reaches more optimistic conclusions about the state of civil
society.
Rosenblum argues that we should judge associations not only by
what they do for civic virtue, but also by what they do for
individual members. She shows that groups of all kinds--among them
religious groups, corporations, homeowner associations, secret
societies, racial and cultural identity groups, prayer groups, and
even paramilitary groups--fill deep psychological and moral needs.
And she contends that the failure to recognize this has contributed
to an alarmist view of their social impact. For example, she argues
that, although extremist groups have obvious antisocial aims, they
constrain individuals who would be even more dangerous as
maladjusted loners. And she examines the rapid growth of small
"support groups"--which are usually dismissed as politically
irrelevant--and shows that the moral support people find in such
places as prayer groups and self-help groups helps to cultivate the
social trust some scholars say is disappearing. Rosenblum concludes
that, for practical and principled reasons, American democracy
should permit expansive freedom of association, illustrating her
case with discussion of specific cases in law.
Rosenblum recognizes, however, that freedom has a price. She
reminds us that some groups have oppressive and even criminal
tendencies, and she explores what liberal democracy should do to
ensure that individuals also have freedom within associations and
freedom to exit. Throughout, Rosenblum writes eloquently and with a
powerful moral voice, drawing on law, practical politics, and
psychology to produce an original political theory of the moral
uses of pluralism. The book adds remarkable depth and subtlety to
one of the leading subjects in contemporary social and political
debate.
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