Visions of the Good Society and the Religious Roots of American Political Culture.

POLITICAL culture; CULTURE; SOCIAL movements; IDEOLOGY

This article examines the historical roots of the cultural resources used by a number of social movements. Cultural resources are the symbols, meanings, ideologies and legitimacy that movements and other political actors use in their collective actions, they function to recruit members, persuade bystanders and neutralize their opponents. In U.S. politics, cultural resources drawn from religion are particularly potent even if religious groups as such are not prominent players within the movement. The substantive case used to explore the relations between U.S. religious and political cultures is rhetoric about the public or common good and the social arrangements that will achieve it. Public good rhetoric is something of a meta-theme in political culture, potentially available to any and all groups or movements within U.S. society. Rhetoric that envisions the public good and an ideal society is an important resource for actors in U.S. politics. Claiming to desire and act for the public good distances actors from charges of self-interest and provides grounding for more specific issue positions. The ambiguity of the symbolic construct of the good society is one of its strengths, as it provides a resiliency across historical periods, collective actors and various issues.