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?
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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 […]
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Roth and Original Sin
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner wrote that line in Sanctuary, published in 1931. In this sense, Philip Roth is Faulkner’s heir. Roth is a strange author to recommend. He writes beautifully, wrestles with deep questions, and his books are quite well described by his own definition of satire: “Satire […]
Watching the World Go By
“An occasion for serious study and reflection.” In the late 19th century, Stephen Crane (shortly before he published The Red Badge of Courage) spent a few years writing accounts of New York City, collected by the ever-invaluable Library of America. In “Coney Island’s Failing Days,” we read this: As we walked toward the station the […]
Dante’s Road Trip: Purgatory
If you mention Dante, most people who recognize the name instantly associate him with Inferno. It is actually quite surprising how few people even know that Inferno is just the first part of a larger work, The Divine Comedy. (I know this because we had a dog named Dante, so I had many occasions to […]