Who killed the American Dream? David Leonhardt, a senior writer at The New York Times, picks up his magnifying glass and investigates in Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream. Note the past tense in the title. In order to find the culprit, we must first learn about the deceased. What was the American Dream? As Leonhardt notes, while the range of definitions is vast, at its root, the American dream is about progress. In particular, he zeroes in on a “core part” of the dream, that children will lead better lives than their parents did. Leonhardt makes the definition … [Read More...] about Whither the American Dream?
Main Content
Recent Posts
Stuck in the Middle With You
In 1944, Friedrich Hayek wrote in “Why the Worst Get on Top” in his The Road to Serfdom: It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative program—on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off—than on any positive […]
Battle Cry in the Culture War
Let’s start with a quick quiz. Name this book: The United States is in great peril because it has abandoned its Christian roots and is being taken over by people who are immersed in a humanistic worldview which is antithetical to God. The result will be a tyranny which will oppress Good Christians everywhere. Trick […]
Crafting a New Evangelical Imagination
“All great systems, ethical or political, attain their ascendancy over the minds of men by virtue of their appeal to the imagination; and when they cease to touch the chords of wonder and mystery and hope, their power is lost, and men look elsewhere for some set of principles by which they may be guided.”Russell […]
Older Posts
A New Poetic Masterpiece
One fine summer day, I wandered over to the Stimson Room in the Mount Holyoke library. It’s a gorgeously wonderful place to read—quaint, comfortable chairs, and quiet. It’s also the room where they house a large selection of books of poetry. Looking up from the serious tome I was reading, I noticed on the shelf […]
Commerce and Culture
Consider the Introduction to Economics class. One of the intriguing challenges in teaching that class is that you can neatly divide the room into two camps. These two sets of students are not only taking the course for very different reasons, they are rather suspicions of the other group, wondering a bit why those others […]
Is The Bride of Christ Beautiful Too?
Beauty is all the rage. In the Movie of the Moment (Barbie, obviously), there is a scene in which Barbie sits on a bench next to an elderly lady, looks at her intensely, and breathlessly exclaims, “You are beautiful.” Studio executives suggested cutting the scene because it served no real point in advancing the plot. […]