Is America in Decline?
In a lengthy and widely cited cover story for theJanuary/February 2010 issue of The Atlantic magazine that serves as the conceptual framework for Mass Humanities’ seventh annual fall symposium and is paradoxically entitled “How America Can Rise...The Uses and Abuses of Theories of Decline
Is the United States in decline? There is only one thing that we know for sure in response to this question, namely that we have no idea. Theories of decline abound, as they always have (those who are inclined to see the dark side, always will), but only in historical...Have a Day
As one who once dropped out of an excellent small college in Vermont in the middle of sophomore year as a result of having to say “Hi” to everyone I passed on campus, I may be thought to be too dyspeptic to write on “the compulsion to be...Tyranny of Cheerfulness
When a major earthquake struck the Bay Area in 1989, I phoned my friend Sue in Oakland to find out if her home had been affected. My call went to voicemail. A positive message, recorded for all their worried out-of-town friends and family, assured: “We’re...E-Edition
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