1. Bellah Slide Show HMXP 102 adapted from Dr. Fike’s slideshow

2. Background on Robert N. Bellah http://www.robertbellah.com/: brief biohttp://www.robertbellah.com/ http://www.robertbellah.com/biography.ht ml: more extensive biohttp://www.robertbellah.com/biography.ht ml http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_N._Bell ahhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_N._Bell ah

3. Bellah’s Biography “Robert Neelly Bellah is an American sociologist and educator, who for 30 years served as professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley. His books on the sociology of religion, including Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditional World (1970), The Broken Covenant (1975), Habits of the Heart (1985), and The Good Society (1991), have shaped the discipline. In 1985, Habits of the Heart won The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for "Current Interest" and, in 1986, was a Jury Nominee for the Pulitzer Prize in General Non-fiction. In 2000, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Clinton.” Source: http://www.robertbellah.com/http://www.robertbellah.com/

4. Questions about Freedom Is freedom all about doing anything you want to do? Is “true freedom” “the freedom only to do that which is good, just and honest”? Would most of us consider these two approaches to freedom to be a false dichotomy? Is a continuum a better model? How do you respond to the implication that following your desires is not freedom but a type of bondage? Since we are communal beings, can we ever be truly free? What is the essence of freedom in your opinion? What is your definition of it?

5. Various Other Questions What are the fundamental issues that we face today? How are morality and class structure related? How do the parts of this text relate? Bellah talks about freedom; then he discusses the elite vs. the “global underclass.” What’s the connection? Do we have what some politicians calls “two Americas”? Do you hear echoes of Marx’s ideas in Bellah’s text? What IS “The Moral Crisis in American Public Life”? What is the “Public Affairs Mission” that he prescribes? END