Research Paper on:
The Good Society by Robert Bellah, et al

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
According to Robert Bellah and his fellow authors of The Good Society, this is precisely what has happened. This intriguing group of sociologists propose that America has exhausted  its social and political institutions in the same manner that the "farmers in the dust bowl exhausted the soil they farmed" (Ryan, 1991, p. 28). This throws Americans back on  their own individual resources, which are too scanty to alleviate large-scale societal problems. This leads to the basic premise of this excellent book, which is, basically, a reiteration of what  John Dewey observed in the early 1930s - "Individual lives lack meaning, he argued, if they are not sustained by social institutions that will provide them with meaning" (Ryan, 1991,  p. 28). This is a rather simple concept, but it has far-reaching repercussions, as evidenced in the observations of Bellah, et al.  Much of their book is directed towards recommendations for the reconstruction of social and political institutions. Therefore, one of the first points that the authors address is the distrust and  misconceptions that many Americans hold toward institutions. Bellah, et al (1991) define "institution" as "a pattern of expected action of individuals or groups enforced by social sanctions, both positive and  negative" (p. 10). They explain that an "institution" can be as simple as the social custom of shaking hands as a  symbol of social solidarity. Individualistic Americans fear that strong institutions will impinge on their personal freedom (p. 10), but the authors go on to explain how institutions are intrinsic to  civilized life, appearing as "normative patterns embedded in and enforced by laws and mores" (11). An institution is also a "particular historical pattern of rights and duties, of powers and