Community and Alienation

Douglas Sturm (d.2014) was Professor of Religion and Political Science at Bucknell University.

"The volume is coherent, constructive and engaging. The editor provides lucid accurate sketches of the contributions and defines well the purpose and scope of the whole endeavour. A fitting tribute to Dallmayr and should prove of vital interest to all concerned with modernity and postmodernity and the possibility and promise of reconstructive thinking and practices." —Canadian Journal of Political Science"Ten essays, originally prepared for different occasions, ply from various angles the common thesis that the politics of process thought is "communitarianism" rather than "individualistic liberalism." —American Political Science Review"The publication of this volume is a major landmark for those interested in bringing process thought effectively and realistically to bear on public affairs." —Journal of Church and StateIn the second half of the volume, "Applications," Sturm takes up specific aspects of constitutional formation, of corporate structure, of political participation, and of ecological awareness in essays that draw on his capacities as a master teacher to synthesize, typologize, and present very wide-ranging bodies of material." —Journal of Religion"From the outset Sturm establishes that process theology is much more congenial to the Aristotelian notion of the polis than it is to the social contract theory of Hobbes and Locke. The latter reduces the responsibilies of government to the protection of private interests and to the defences of this society of interests from external challenge. Consequently, this priority of individual, private happiness over communal public happiness prevents us as citizens from engaging in "a deeper, more complex understanding of oursevles and a richer, more thickly textured sense of the goodness of our lives." —Review of Politics"Community and Alienation: Essays on Process Thought and Public life, by Douglas Sturm..., is the finest and most elaborate attempt at a political theory from a process perspective to date." —Process Studies