Recently we have seen a fierce backlash against those who dare to speak positively about bourgeois norms and culture. From the furor caused by a 2017 op-ed (“Paying the Price for Breakdown of the Country’s Bourgeois Culture”) by Amy Wax and Larry Alexander in the Philadelphia Inquirer, to the negative reaction against Robert L. Woodson’s follow-on piece (“Black Americans Need Bourgeois Norms”) in the Wall Street Journal, liberals and progressives have rejected what were once widely agreed-upon cultural precepts: that you should, for example, finish high school, get married before having children, and respect the laws.
What accounts for the Left’s negative reaction against those who extol bourgeois norms is the recognition that conservatives confidently embrace this particular set of values as better than a progressive set of values, at least when it comes to promoting personal fulfillment and societal cohesion. And because the Left is often uncomfortable making value judgments, the perceived judgmentalism on the part of conservatives infuriates the Left.
In his new book, Howard A. Husock looks to founders of 19th- and early-20th-century voluntary associations — Charles Loring Brace, Jane Addams, and Mary Richmond — who took it for granted that bourgeois norms should be promoted through mediating institutions of civil society. Husock makes the case that such norms still matter — and that in a market economy the institutions of civil society, not government, are still in the best position to assist individuals and families who are struggling, especially those who may benefit the most from exposure to bourgeois values.
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