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>So why would earlier generations of immigrants be different?
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>wojtek
the kind of individualism encapsulated in religious traditions such evangelism, born again christianity, fundamentalism. these religious movements reached a lot of people and propagated it's own kind of individualist ethos in that context. how? because those kinds of religious traditions argue that you aren't a "true believer" until you've made the choice on your own. you aren't a real baptist, member of the church of loaves and fishes, etc etc until you make a rational choice,all by your lonesome, after a time of testing your faith and deep soul searching.
that's just one aspect of it, i think. there are more. bellah et al explore this in habits of the heart.
i also think you forget the power that an individualist ethos has over people. have you ever read haskell on the rise of the social sciences? he argues that the complexity of social life during industrialization meant that people had to turn to new ways of explaining a complex, global-scale world to themselves and each other. social science filled that gap for those who'd left the religious world behind. but for those who didn't have access to that thought, i think individualist ethos of *you are responsible for your fate and your failure and you alone* is a very compelling answer to a world that is so complex and huge that it's hard to figure out. when it doesn't explain it, then the conspiracy theories and other such nonsense fill in the gap.
it's an easy life to live like that, actually. kelley