Robert Nisbet's Quest for Community

Thank you for this first-class presentation!  As this writer reviewed it, he recalled a book that he studied at the University of Wisconsin - Madison as an undergraduate.  It was Robert Nisbet's Quest for Community, which came out in 1953.  It is a classic and still in print!  In it, Nisbet adds another dimension of analysis to the writers whom you have reviewed here.  Nisbet speaks of "secondary" organizations, family, church, labor unions and other non-governmental entities that in effect stand as buffers between the individual and the state!  The erosion of these structures, of course, as you point out so clearly here, results in nihilism on the part of more and more individuals, for nothing exists to shape, nurture their ethical selves.  The erosion of these structures, however, provides a more chilling outcome.  The individual stands alone, isolated, without allies, against an ever-growing, all-powerful State!  It is the lone, isolated Individual against the gargantuan, all-powerful State!  Thus, the structures that nurture ethics also provide a buffer between totalitarian control of the individual and individual freedom and voluntary decision ethical decision making in concert with others.  For instance, can massive state public schools really replace the ethical nurturing of the traditional family structure?  It is not only nihilism that results from ethical collapse on the social level.  It is also the opening of a gateway to a police state, in which you cannot win against massive state agencies, e.g. the IRS or Internal Revenue Service.  Yes, we need to be fully alert to this looming danger, not just nihilism.  Dr. Rux