Table of Contents

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Question of Moral Restraint3Ch. 1Having It All - and Wanting More: The Social Symptoms of Cultural Distress17Ch. 2Making Choices: From Short-Term Adjustments to Principled Lives37Ch. 3Moral Tradition: The Lost Ambivalence in American Culture59Ch. 4Shifting Perspectives: The Decoupling of Work and Money85Ch. 5Accounts: The Changing Meanings of White-Collar Work105Ch. 6(Not) Talking about Money: The Social Sources and Personal Consequences of Subjectivization138Ch. 7Getting and Spending: The Maintenance and Violation of Symbolic Boundaries169Ch. 8The Working Class: Changing Conditions and Converging Perspectives206Ch. 9Family LIfe: The New Challenges of Balancing Multiple Commitments241Ch. 10Rediscovering Community: The Cultural Potential of Caring Behavior and Voluntary Service265Ch. 11The Quest for Spirituality: Ambiguous Voices from America's Religious Communities292Ch. 12Materialism and Moral Restraint: The Role of Ascetic and Expressive Values331Ch. 13The Possibilities of Moral Discourse: Limitations, Pathologies, and Challenges357Methodology375Notes377Index427

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Contributes significantly to our understanding of the major disjunctions of contemporary social life. -- Robert Jackall, Williams College

About the Author

Robert Wuthnow is the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of American Religion at Princeton University. He is the author of numerous articles and books on American religion and culture, including Acts of Compassion (Princeton) and Learning to Care: Elementary Kindness in an Age of Indifference.

Reviews

"Through dozens of citizens who talked with him, Wuthnow records the continuing stresses in modern economic life... [The] model of an ideal life, Wuthnow maintains, evolved before the Civil War into two schools of social thought, which he calls 'ascetic' and 'expressive' moralism... Wuthnow's impressive body of polls and interviews convinces us that both of these modern traditions remain powerful influences in American life today."--Richard Parker, The New York Times Book Review "In this sociological tract for our times, Wuthnow reconsiders the nature and meaning of the American dream in the late twentieth century. This book goes much further than merely recounting the manifold failings of American economics and culture in the pursuit of happiness... Wuthnow perceives a moral vacuum at the core of American society, and recommends that Americans systematically revisit the cultural imperatives of an earlier age to reinvent the paradigm of personal success in late capitalism. An important and timely work."--The Virginia Quarterly Review