In Conflict No Longer

Drawing on social-criticism, self-help manuals, and the social scientific analysis of American character, In Conflict No Longer examines American thinking about individualism, conformity, and community from 1920 through 1995. Taviss-Thomson's analysis reveals a basic shift in American culture: from a belief that the individual is necessarily in conflict with society and that the self chafes against the constraints imposed by society, to a belief that the self is expressed in the groups, relationships, and subcultures that help shape it. Taviss Thomson contends that this new model of a relational or "embedded" self arose because a weakening of traditional identities based on occupation, social class, gender and age permitted individuals more freedom to construct their own identities. As Americans increasingly abandon the traditional mythology of an individual struggling against social constraints, In Conflict No Longer forecasts a picture of American culture for the new millennium.