REPUBLICAN TRADITIONS

 In particular, the distinction between politics and religion was absent in the United States, which explains the peculiarity of American civil religion and the common characteristic in other Western countries of a "liberation" of politics from religious authority. On the contrary, despite the religious pluralism of denominations, religion remains the general backdrop to the very constitution of the political community. Religion, in this sense, would be a kind of ultimate instance of the meaning of human existence, and the model of social action prevalent in this sphere, marked by freedom and religious pluralism, would be transposed to other social spheres, whose imperfections should be repaired according to the model of active intervention in the world, in keeping with the Protestant conception of intra-worldly asceticism. Munch's argument (for example) is that this is still the situation in American society today. Instead of the rationalization of all spheres of life according to the structural laws of their own specific positivity, that is, instead of the subsumption of these spheres to the rational-strategic context, we would have had the historical continuity of the unitary normative culture that gave birth to the West. Munch disagrees with the thesis of the transformation of Puritanism into utilitarianism and strategic rationalism in the United States, as Weber argues in his ethnography of early 19th-century American community life. The thesis of the enthronement of instrumental reason implies a normatively free context, stimulating individual behavior with empirical stimuli external to individual consciousness and functioning with the golden rule of success and failure as defined by each specific value sphere. Especially when applied to the specific North American case, this Weberian reasoning encounters significant critical resistance. For his critics, the North American singularity resides in this particular point, precisely in the persistence of the evaluative and normative component "parallel" to the effectiveness of the social reproduction of each sphere according to its specific logic. This is certainly also the position of Robert Bellah. Although much of his critical argumentation is directed precisely at the observation of the "forgetting" of the normative tradition that historically gave vitality to the American experience, he has no doubt about the permanence and strength of this normative culture in his country. For Munch, in turn, it is precisely this singular normative interpenetration of North American society between its various social spheres that, compared to European societies, distinguishes the North American experience. The beginnings of this specificity lie in the basic theme of North American culture: "domination" and the "cultivation of the wilderness." The close connection between this theme and Weber's discussion of the specificity of Western rationalism as marked by the motif of "WORLD DOMINATION" certainly does not go unnoticed by the attentive reader. This implies understanding Western uniqueness as something achieved, without obstacles or compromises with other traditions, solely in the United States. Almost as if the concrete North American reality reflected the abstract ideal type of ascetic Protestant rationalism. And indeed, the theme of WORLD DOMINATION, or the "domination of the wilderness," was the watchword for the successful colonization of both the East and West Coasts centuries later. It is important to note that world domination does not refer only to the objective reality around us. It also includes the dimensions of social life and inner subjective life. Thus, "jungle" must be understood in a broad sense, encompassing all dimensions of rationality and human action. Jungle refers both to the domination of hostile nature and to the control of internal emotions and antisocial instincts. It is precisely this totalizing aspect that leads Weber to define it as a peculiar "rationalism." Here, there is a framework for individual action that encompasses all dimensions of life according to a single principle. This characteristic also accounts for the singular degree of reflexivity in North American institutional life. Social institutions are not seen as the result of custom and tradition, but as the conscious and rational creation of humankind according to rational principles. It is precisely this unique degree of consciousness and reflexivity that is already reflected in John Winthrop's sermon and that would henceforth underpin the universal validity of the North American experience. The high degree of institutional reflexivity, from its inception, enables a dynamic of critique and renewal of practical and concrete institutional life precisely because of the possibility of critiquing a current practice deemed deviant based on an original idea that constitutes it. For Munch, the existence of a critical and reflective tradition resulting from the unique historical and normative experience of America would, in this sense, be what has allowed the universalist version to prevail over the particularist interpretation of this normative culture to this day. Even when temporarily reduced to a minority position, as in the examples of McCarthyism or the Moral Majority under Ronald Reagan, the universalist interpretation can always appeal to a tradition recognized by all as legitimate. This fact testifies that the basic value consensus that characterizes the universalist interpretation of American normative culture has managed to penetrate all classes and social groups. Robert Bellah, despite sharing with Munch the same assumption of the uniqueness of American normative culture, develops a more skeptical and nuanced analysis of American exceptionalism. For Bellah, the interpretation of the non-normative reification of non-American society is not simply a "mistake," as it seems to be for Munch. On the contrary, this tradition has had solid roots in American reality since at least the 18th century. This last tradition is called by him in his The Broken Covenant the HOBBESIAN TRADITION. The Hobbesian tradition is defined by a complex relationship of attraction and repulsion in relation to the original biblical and communitarian tradition. In it, individualism is uprooted from the notion of good and God, and therefore from the notion of collective responsibility as a guiding principle of individual action, radicalizing itself into self-interest alone. Benjamin Franklin would be, as Weber had also perceived, the emblematic figure of this tradition. These two traditions—that of civic virtue and self-interest—reach a decisive clash in the generation of the founders of the new Republic of 1776. At the time, the majority chose civic virtue as the foundation of the American Republic. But the conflict between these two traditions is seen by Bellah as permeating all of American history to the present day. In the collective project entitled Habits of the Heart, an interesting example of a well-tempered blend of empirical work and reflection, this conflict plays a central role. In the context of a post-industrial society like the United States in the second half of the 20th century, the Hobbesian tradition of utilitarian individualism managed to gain prominence over the early communitarian civic tradition. In this sense, utilitarian and expressive individualism would be the "first American language". By "first language" we should understand Americans' self-perception expressed in utilitarian or expressive individualistic terms. This predominance is clear in the ideal types of typical Americans constructed from empirical interviews. They reveal a strange union between autonomy and conformity, which seems to result from the absence of substantial parameters other than material consumption as the ultimate definition of a successful life. On the other hand, the perception of the relationship of reciprocal dependence between communities of memory (past) and hope (future) and individual life, which every American also knows, would be, today, the "second American language." This second language, although present, has the characteristic of being inarticulate for most individuals. It is this "forgetfulness" of the classical republican virtue of American society that motivates Bellah and his team's communitarian critique of contemporary American society. This second language, although present, presents the characteristic of being inarticulate for most individuals. It is this "forgetfulness" of the classical republican virtue of North American society that motivates Bellah and his team's communitarian critique of contemporary American society. The central idea guiding this type of critical exercise is the notion that only through relationships with others and adherence to social or community goals broader than immediate individual needs can one give meaning to individual life. Following Alasdayr MacIntyre's philosophy in this regard, Bellah realizes that, left to themselves, the individual is guided only by their momentary desires and feelings, lacking principles that could provide the foundation for a life in which the principles of action are conscious and reflected. The result, if this first language is not revitalized by dialogue with the second, would be the confirmation of Tocqueville's prediction: "conformism in public life and the preponderance of economic interests in private life." But Bellah is also perfectly aware that this state of affairs does not reflect all of modern American life. There is still enough critical energy and nonconformity in American life, after eight years of Obama, to allow for a dialectical continuity between these two traditions.