Social Fragmentation and the Decline of American Democracy: The End of the Social Contract

by Robert E. Denton, Jr., Benjamin Voth

Overview

This book explores the social and political implications of what the authors identify as the decline of the social contract in America and the rise of a citizenry that has become self-centered, entitled, and independent. For nearly two decades, America has been in a “cultural war” over moral values and social issues, becoming a divided nation geographically, politically, socially, and morally. We are witnessing the decline of American Democracy, the authors argue, resulting from the erosion of the idea of the social contract. Especially since the “baby boomers,” each successive generation has emphasized personal license to the exclusion of service, social integration, and the common good. With the social contact, the larger general will becomes the means of establishing reciprocal rights and duties, privileges, and responsibilities as a basis of the state. The balkanization of America has changed the role of government from one of oversight to one of dependency, where individual freedom and responsibility are sacrificed for group equality. This book examines the conditions of this social fragmentation, and offers ideas of an American Renaissance predicated on communicative idealism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783319439228
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	12/08/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	195
File size:	826 KB

About the Author

Robert E. Denton, Jr., holds the W. Thomas Rice Chair in the Pamplin College of Business and is Professor and Head of the Department of Communication at Virginia Tech, USA. Denton is the author, co-author or editor of 25 books on the presidency and political campaigns. His most recent volume is entitled Political Campaign Communication: Principles and Practices, 8th Edition (with Judith Trent and Robert Friendenberg).
Ben Voth is Associate Professor and Director of Debate and Speech programs in the Communication Studies Division of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University, USA. He is a leading national scholar on debate and the power of the human voice. He is the author of The Rhetoric of Genocide: Death as a Text (2014). He is currently an Advisor to the Bush Institute, USA, and the Debate fellow for the Calvin Coolidge Foundation in Vermont, USA. He is an officer in the American Forensics Association and served on the editorial board of Argumentation and Advocacy.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: A Divided and Selfish Nation:  A United States of America No MoreChapter 2: Democracy and the “Social Contract:” Prescription for Freedom and EqualityChapter 3: Generational Change and Social ValuesChapter 4: The Postmodern Culture and Political ImplicationsChapter 5: The Epistemological Poisoning of AmericaChapter 6: De-mock-racy: Comic Framing as Political Wrecking BallChapter 7: Making Black Lives Matter TodayChapter 8: What Can We Do? An American Renaissance Predicated on Communicative IdealismChapter 9: The Practice of Politics Today and the Greater Tomorrow