Wolfe, Alan. "Remembering Alienation." New Republic. 2010.

Abstract:

The uneasiness, the malaise of our time, is due to this root fact: in our politics and economy, in family life and religion—in practically every sphere of our existence—the certainties of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have disintegrated or been destroyed and, at the same time, no new sanctions or justifications for the new routines we live, and must live, have taken hold.” These words appear in The Quest for Community, which was published in 1953, one of the major works of American conservatism to appear in that decade. They were not, however, written by its author, the sociologist—yes, sociologist—Robert Nisbet. To make his point about the alienation that is pervasive in modern society, Nisbet cited the words of another figure associated with his discipline, C. Wright Mills…

Read online on New republic: Remembering Alienation