ABSTRACT
Ronald Reagan was president then; a majority of his generation supported his 1984 reelection bid. He was just a bit too young to vote that year but preferred Jesse Jackson during the Democratic presidential primary. Reagan represented the ascendant majority, Jackson spoke for the campus left, and the two defined the main political spectrum of the time. If libertarianism had such a broad appeal that it could attract a former Maoist like Foucault, communitarianism—popularized by Habits of theHeart—was at least as influential. Communitarians argued that the Americans had become too individualistic, too emotionally and morally disconnected from their fellow citizens. Crime, poverty, tyranny, racial injustice, gender inequity, and environmental degradation may be among the chief issues at any given time. Beneath such specific challenges, however, are two general categories of problems.
