Puritan, Paranoid, Remissive: A Sociology of Modern Culture

First published in 1977, Puritan, Paranoid, Remissive investigates the process of the transformation of Western society in the twentieth century. The author questions assumptions of sociological fashion and goes beyond the descriptions of changes in the economy, government, education, the family, work, leisure and the arts, to a deeper level of historical cause. He proposes three-character types, or patterns of psychological disposition, to indicate respectively the Puritan past that is waning, the immediate paranoid past that has exemplified societys crisis of transition, and the remissive future, whose ideology already permeates the present. These types reflect his leading theme the historical decline of the authority of the individual.

John Carroll believes that culture has moved faster than character. Focusing on what is conventionally the upper middle class the bourgeoisie he proposes the emergence of a new remissive culture from the ruins of the old Puritan order, and concludes that the pathology, the remiss nervousness of contemporary Westerners, results from their futile attempts to adapt their enduring Puritan disposition to their hedonist ideals. The twenty-first century carries remnants of this transformation and will be of interest to students of sociology, philosophy, history and political science.