the second the problem may be noted only when the different cultures clash openly and explicitly.
Bellah sees American culture in terms that show it to be distinct and explicit practice that is incorporated in specific artifacts and products. Bellah says of the four people examined in the first chapter of the book Habits of the Heart that "they represent the ways in which Americans use private and public life to make sense of their lives." Bellah also finds that beneath their obvious differences "there is more than a little consensus about the relationship between the individual and society, between private and public good" and that this is because they all share to some degree a common moral vocabulary Bellah calls the "first language" of American individualism.
At the same time, Bellah shows that these four people have difficulty in justifying the goals of a morally good life, and Bellah finds that this points to a characteristic problem of people in our culture:
For most of us, it is easier to think about how to get what we want than
...