Transcript Bellah Slide Show

Bellah Slide Show
HMXP 102
adapted from Dr. Fike’s slideshow
Background on Robert N. Bellah
• http://www.robertbellah.com/: brief bio
• http://www.robertbellah.com/biography.htm
l: more extensive bio
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_N._Bell
ah
Bellah’s Biography
• “Robert Neelly Bellah is an American sociologist and educator, who
for 30 years served as professor of sociology at the University of
California at Berkeley. His books on the sociology of religion,
including Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditional
World (1970), The Broken Covenant (1975), Habits of the Heart
(1985), and The Good Society (1991), have shaped the
discipline. In 1985, Habits of the Heart won The Los Angeles Times
Book Prize for "Current Interest" and, in 1986, was a Jury Nominee
for the Pulitzer Prize in General Non-fiction. In 2000, he was
awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Clinton.”
• Source: http://www.robertbellah.com/
Questions about Freedom
• Is freedom all about doing anything you want to do?
• Is “true freedom” “the freedom only to do that which is
good, just and honest”?
• Would most of us consider these two approaches to
freedom to be a false dichotomy?
• Is a continuum a better model?
• How do you respond to the implication that following
your desires is not freedom but a type of bondage?
• Since we are communal beings, can we ever be truly
free? What is the essence of freedom in your
opinion? What is your definition of it?
Various Other Questions
• What are the fundamental issues that we face today?
• How are morality and class structure related?
• How do the parts of this text relate? Bellah talks about
freedom; then he discusses the elite vs. the “global
underclass.” What’s the connection?
• Do we have what some politicians calls “two Americas”?
• Do you hear echoes of Marx’s ideas in Bellah’s text?
• What IS “The Moral Crisis in American Public Life”?
• What is the “Public Affairs Mission” that he
prescribes?
END