BEYOND THE SEESAW MODEL - PUBLIC COMMITMENT IN A CULTURE OF SELF-FULFILLMENT

Communitarian sociological theory and research of the past 30 years ha s often assumed that a growing culture of self-fulfillment, or ''perso nalism,'' is ultimately incompatible with commitment to the public goo d. This article argues that this ''seesaw model'' does not exhaust the possible relations between personalism and public commitment. It borr ows insights from radical democratic theories to argue the existence o f a form of public commitment that is enacted through, rather than imp eded by, personalism. A cultural analysis that highlights everyday pra ctices enables us to conceptualize this personalized form of public co mmitment, which goes unrecognized in communitarian accounts, and which gets discussed only in formal theoretical or social-psychological, te rms in radical democratic theories. A case example of personalized pub lic commitment in recent grass-roots environmentalism illustrates the limits in the seesaw model and speaks back to radical democratic theor ies of public commitment by illuminating how the individualized commit ment they theorize may work in everyday cultural practice. I conclude with suggestions for further theoretical work on personalism.