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Society
Published in: Society 4/2015

01-08-2015 | Symposium: The Legacy of Robert Nisbet

Caritas and Community: Reflections on the Conservative Sociological Art of Robert Nisbet

Author: Judith Adler

Published in: Society | Issue 4/2015

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Abstract

Nisbet’s conception of sociology practiced as an art form: multivocality, tolerance for uncertainty, wealth of invention, reservation of judgement. Tocqueville as exemplar. Nisbet’s own writings evaluated in the light of his best insights. A southern white perspective on the central state, shaped in later years by quest for recognition in a rising conservative movement. Lesson to be gleaned: discernment in the deployment of wit, and cultivation of ‘caritas’, essential features of sociological writing capable of enduring the test of time.
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Footnotes
1
Morse, M (1959) Mathematics and Art. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 15(2): 55–59, quoted as the concluding lines of Nisbet, R (1962) ‘Sociology as an Art Form.’ The Pacific Sociological Review 5(2): 67–74.
 
2
Adler, J (2014) Sociology as an Art Form: One Facet of the Conservative Sociology of Robert Nisbet. American Sociologist 45:8–21; Nisbet, R (1976) Sociology as an Art Form. New York: Oxford University Press.
 
3
Nisbet, R (1986) The Making of Modern Society. New York: NYU Press, p.56.
 
4
The Making of Modern Society, p.153.
 
5
Nisbet, R (1978) Preface. Journal of Contemporary History 13(4): 630.
 
6
Nisbet, R (1985) The Conservative Renaissance in Perspective. The Public Interest, 81: 133–134, 140.
 
7
The Making of Modern Society, p.165.
 
8
Merton, Robert and R Nisbet, eds. (1976) Contemporary Social Problems. New York: Harcourt Brace, p.736.
 
9
Nisbet, R (1975) The New Despotism. Commentary 59(6): 31–43; Nisbet, R (1975) Twilight of Authority. New York: Oxford University Press, p.201; Nisbet, R (1988) The Present Age. Scranton: Harper and Row, p.134.
 
10
Nisbet, R (1959) The Decline and Fall of Social Class. Pacific Sociological Review 2(1): 11–17; Kristol, I. (1983) Reflections of a Neoconservative: Looking Back, Looking Ahead. New York: Basic Books, pp.76ff.
 
11
Nisbet, R (1971) The Degradation of the Academic Dogma: The University in America, 1945–1970. New York: Basic Books, p.183; Nisbet, R. (1992) Teachers and Scholars: A Memoir of Berkeley in Depression and War. Rutgers: Transaction Publishers, pp.109–120, 123, 161.
 
12
The New Despotism, p.37; Nisbet, R and Perrin, R (1977) The Social Bond, pp. 304–5; Nisbet, R (1982) What to Do When You Don’t Live in a Golden Age. American Scholar 51(2): 232–3; Nisbet, R (1982) Genius and Milieu. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 126(6): 448; The Present Age, pp.129ff.
 
13
Nisbet, R (1973) The Myth of the Renaissance. Comparative Studies in Society and History 15(4): 476.
 
14
Nisbet, R (1982) Prejudices. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp.286–288.
 
15
What to Do When You Don’t Live in a Golden Age, p.229.
 
16
The Making of Modern Society, p.9.
 
17
Nisbet, R (1974) The Decline of Academic Nationalism. Change 6(6): 26–31.
 
18
Nisbet, R (1979) Conservatism. In A History of Sociological Analysis, eds. T. Bottomore and R. Nisbet. London: Heinemann, pp. 80–117.
 
19
Nisbet, R (1985) How Has the United States Met its Major Challenges Since 1945? Commentary 80(5): 76.
 
20
Prejudices, pp. 255–257.
 
21
How Has the United States Met its Major Challenges since 1945? p.76; The Present Age, p.37.
 
22
De Bonald and the Concept of the Social Group. Journal of the History of Ideas 5(3): 315–331; The Conservative Renaissance in Perspective, p.138.
 
23
The Degradation of the Academic Dogma, pp.179-181, 230; Nisbet, R (1979) Who Reads Novels? A Symposium. American Scholar 48 (2): 165–190; Genius and Milieu, p.448.
 
24
Nisbet, R (1950) Review of Human Society, by Kingsley Davis. American Sociological Review 15(2): 307; Teachers and Scholars, pp.176-177.
 
25
Nisbet, R (1943) Rousseau and Totalitarianism. The Journal of Politics 5(2): 93–114.
 
26
Nisbet, R (1986) Roosevelt and Stalin: the infamous courtship of a patrician and a revolutionist. Modern Age 30(2): 103–112; (3/4): 205–217.
 
27
Nisbet, R (1969) Social Change and History: Aspects of the Western theory of Development New York: Oxford University Press; Nisbet, R (1970) Genealogy, Growth and Other Metaphors. New Literary History 1(3): 351–363.
 
28
Nisbet, R (1973) The Social Philosophers: Community and Conflict in Western Thought. New York: Thomas Crowell.
 
29
Nisbet, R (1969) The New Philistinism. TransAction May: 54–56; Prejudices, p.5; What to do When You Don’t Live in a Golden Age, p.235.
 
30
Prejudices, p.189; Twilight of Authority. New York: Oxford University Press, pp.97–99.
 
31
Nisbet, R (1953) The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press.
 
32
The Myth of the Renaissance, pp. 487–489.
 
33
Nisbet, R (1961) Foreign Policy and the American Mind. Commentary 32(3): 199–201.
 
34
The Conservative Renaissance in Perspective, p. 137.
 
35
Nisbet, R (1980) Conservatives and Libertarians: Uneasy Cousins. Modern Age 24(1): 2–8; The Conservative Renaissance in Perspective, p.129.
 
36
Nisbet, R (1948) Politics of Social Pluralism: Some Reflections on Lammennais. The Journal of Politics 10(4): 764–786.
 
37
Twilight of Authority, p.96.
 
38
The Conservative Renaissance in Perspective, pp.316-318.
 
39
Prejudices, pp. 316–318.
 
40
Mathematics and Art, pp.57, 59.
 
41
Nisbet, R (1959) The Contribution of Georg Simmel: Comment. American Sociological Review 24(4) pp.479-481.
 
42
Prejudices, pp.106–107; What to do When You don’t Live in a Golden Age, pp.230, 234–236.
 
43
Nisbet, R (1979) The Octopus Revisited. Social Research 46(3): 487–516.
 
44
Nisbet, R (1969) Sociology as an Idea System. American Behavioral Scientist 12: 34–37.
 
45
Teachers and Scholars, p.3.
 
46
Nisbet, R (1952) Conservatism and Sociology. American Journal of Sociology 58(2): 170, 175; The New Despotism, p.33; Prejudices.
 
47
Rousseau and Totalitarianism, p. 108; The New Despotism, p.38.
 
48
Rousseau and Totalitarianism, p.112; De Bonald and the Concept of the Social Group.
 
49
The Conservative Renaissance in Perspective, p.131.
 
50
Nisbet, R (1973) The Future of Tenure. Change 5(2): 28.
 
51
The Conservative Renaissance in Perspective, p.135; The Making of Modern Society, pp.16–17.
 
52
Conservatives and Libertarians: Uneasy Cousins, p.7.
 
53
Douthat, R (2010) introduction to Nisbet, R [1953] The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom. Wilmington: Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
 
54
(1978) The Dilemma of Conservatives in a Populist Society. Policy Review 4: 98–99; Prejudices, pp.60–61.
 
55
The Dilemma of Conservatives in a Populist Society, p.101; (1979) Progress and Providence. Society Nov/Dec.: 4–7.
 
56
The Conservative Renaissance in Perspective, p.139.
 
57
The New Despotism, pp.35, 38; Twilight of Authority, pp.201, 217.
 
Metadata
Title
Caritas and Community: Reflections on the Conservative Sociological Art of Robert Nisbet
Author
Judith Adler
Publication date
01-08-2015
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Society / Issue 4/2015
Print ISSN: 0147-2011
Electronic ISSN: 1936-4725
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-015-9907-1

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