The Therapeutic State: Justifying Government at Century's End - Softcover

Nolan Jr., James L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081475791X ISBN 13: 9780814757918

Publisher: NYU Press, 1998

Synopsis

The United States has always been profoundly conflicted about the role and utility of its government. Simmering just beneath the surface of heated public discussions over the appropriate scope and size of government are foundational questions about the very purpose of the state, and the basis of its authority. America's changing and diversifying cultural climate makes common agreement about the government's raison d'être all the more difficult.
In The Therapeutic State, James Nolan shows us how these unresolved dilemmas have coalesced at century's end. Today the American state, faced with a steady decline in public confidence, has embraced a therapeutic code of moral understanding to legitimize its very existence.
By ranging widely across education, criminal justice, welfare, political rhetoric, and civil law, Nolan convincingly illustrates how the state increasingly turns to the therapeutic ethos as a justification for its programs and policies, a development that will profoundly influence the relationship between government and citizenry. In a tone refreshingly free of polemic, Nolan charts the dialectic relationship between culture and politics and, against the backdrop of striking historical contrasts, gives example after example of the emergence of therapeutic sensibilities in the processes of the American state.

About this title

About the Author

James L. Nolan, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Williams College and editor of The American Culture Wars: Current Contests and Future Prospects.

Edition details

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 081475791X
• ISBN 13: 9780814757918
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 410