Book in Review: The Ethos of a Late-Modern Citizen, by Stephen K. White. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. 135 pp. $45.00 (cloth)

• DOI: 10.1177/0090591710372868
• Date: 01 October 2010
• Author: James Miller
• Published date: 01 October 2010
• Subject Matter: Articles

Books in Review
735
The Ethos of a Late-Modern Citizen, by Stephen K. White. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2009. 135 pp. $45.00 (cloth).
Reviewed by: James Miller, New School for Social Research, New York
DOI: 10.1177/0090591710372868
At the close of this book about the challenges facing contemporary citizens in
affluent liberal societies like the United States, Stephen K. White explains
that his writing throughout has been directed “first, toward introducing the
notion of ethos and providing some sense of why its usage in contemporary
political discourse has been growing; and, second and more important, toward
justifying the exemplary character of a particular ethos for citizens of the
wealthy Western democracies” (105).
In his reflections on these themes, White characteristically aims to strike a
judicious balance, between embracing critical theories often associated with
postmodernism and upholding traditional values associated with such classi-
cal liberals as John Stuart Mill. White can also, when he chooses, write more
clearly than some of his preferred contemporary interlocutors (who range
from Charles Taylor, Richard Rorty, and Sheldon Wolin, to William Connolly,
Chantal Mouffe, and Judith Butler). His even-handedness and open-mindedness
is admirable, and so is his willingness to define key terms—even if his recourse
to jargon is sometimes frustrating.
Here, for example, is White’s preliminary definition of what he means by
the word ethos: “For the moment, one only needs to understand that an
ethos is animated by a given set of ontological ‘figures.’ A constellation
of such figures [‘of self, of other, and the beyond human’] sustains an
ethos in the sense of prefiguring its cognitive perspective, moral bearing,
and aesthetic-affective sensibility” (4).
This convoluted passage is a bit puzzling, since the meaning of ethos in
ancient Greek isn’t especially recondite: it refers to the routine dispositions
(the habits or customs) that...