Community and Alienation - by Douglas Sturm (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Douglas Sturm, a major ethical thinker, here presents ten intriguing essays that lay the groundwork for a communitarian political theory. Drawing on the work of Alfred North Whitehead and Bernard E. Meland, Sturm brings the implications of process thought, especially its principle of internal relations, to bear on the interpretation and evaluation of our social and political life. He argues that American individualism, including its curious transmutations into the forms of corporativism, racism, and nationalism is a constraint that deprives us of a deeper, more complex understanding of ourselves and a richer sense of the goodness of our lives.

The essays contrast a communitarian political theory with alternative traditions of social thought, particularly those forms of individualism generated by Hobbes, Locke, and Bentham. Political realities of power, rights, and interests are not to be dismissed, according to Sturm, but they need to be cast within a concept of politics that sustains a community as a whole; thus public good and justice are defined as the central principles of public life. He isolates alternative theoretical perspectives and demonstrates how they deal with several current social and political dilemmas.

Sturm applies the principles of the communitarian political theory to a broad range of contemporary concerns: the character and legitimacy of the modern business corporation; the idea of democratic capitalism; legal realism as the prevailing jurisprudence of the practicing lawyer; the scope and focus of bioethics as a discipline. In doing so, he affirms both the inescapability of public life in our existence and the radical character of the evil that it often creates.

Review Quotes

"Community and Alienation: Essays on Process Thought and Public life, by Douglas Sturm..., is the finest and most elaborate attempt at a political theory from a process perspective to date." --Process Studies

"From the outset Sturm establishes that process theology is much more congenial to the Aristotelian notion of the polis than it is to the social contract theory of Hobbes and Locke. The latter reduces the responsibilies of government to the protection of private interests and to the defences of this society of interests from external challenge. Consequently, this priority of individual, private happiness over communal public happiness prevents us as citizens from engaging in "a deeper, more complex understanding of oursevles and a richer, more thickly textured sense of the goodness of our lives." --Review of Politics

"Ten essays, originally prepared for different occasions, ply from various angles the common thesis that the politics of process thought is "communitarianism" rather than "individualistic liberalism." --American Political Science Review

"The publication of this volume is a major landmark for those interested in bringing process thought effectively and realistically to bear on public affairs." --Journal of Church and State

"The volume is coherent, constructive and engaging. The editor provides lucid accurate sketches of the contributions and defines well the purpose and scope of the whole endeavour. A fitting tribute to Dallmayr and should prove of vital interest to all concerned with modernity and postmodernity and the possibility and promise of reconstructive thinking and practices." --Canadian Journal of Political Science

In the second half of the volume, "Applications," Sturm takes up specific aspects of constitutional formation, of corporate structure, of political participation, and of ecological awareness in essays that draw on his capacities as a master teacher to synthesize, typologize, and present very wide-ranging bodies of material." --Journal of Religion

About the Author

Douglas Sturm (d.2014) was Professor of Religion and Political Science at Bucknell University.