The Communitarian Dream
a) Explain how systems of hierarchy and assumptions about social status (status differences) inform and support Winthrop’s conception of a “Christian community” in Puritan New England. How do underlying systems of hierarchy effect his moral argument? In other words, is his moral argument still compelling or workable when hierarchy is accounted for?
b) Although few Americans today would point to communitarianism as their American Dream, most Americans do report today a strong sense of isolation and alienation, and a strong desire to belong and be recognized and understood by society and by their communities. Explain how social status and hierarchies in the United States today prevents us from taking Winthrop’s ideal community seriously as a goal for our current American Dream. Does his argument on accepting difference and “divinely ordained” differences have purchase in today’s American culture? Why or why not?
