Today the American character is in a strange condition. It remains strong and resourceful enough to take on new burdens just at the moment that its weakness and weariness seems most acute. The trouble with our big national projects of warfare and welfare is that, as a rule, the American character is beside the point.
Paradoxically, our various military and civil experts, charged to pursue our national greatness, fail to take advantage of the full greatness of the American people: our ability to govern ourselves at a tangibly human scale — face to face, stranger to stranger, neighbor to neighbor.
What draws us into these distinctly American encounters? Not an abstract libertarian concern for freedom. Not an abstract liberal concern for justice. Not an abstract conservative concern for virtue.
Disarmingly, habit and memory are closer to the truth. This is who we are. This is what we do. When that ceases to be true — and there are troubling indicators that our identity in this respect is not at all what it used to be — then the American character will have changed in a way that no exercise of political power will be able to do much to alter.
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