At least since 1845, when Henry David Thoreau took off for Walden Pond to find out, before he died, whether he had ever lived, Americans have admired the individualist willing to leave society behind to discover his true self. But they have also admired him from a distance. For every lonesome cowboy, for every adventurer willing to fly solo across the Atlantic, for every monkish worshiper of solitude, most Americans, until well past the middle of the 20th century, were only too happy to find in faith, family or subdivision the security they needed to get through the insecurities of life.
America may once have been the land of the free and the home of the brave, but to the social critics of the 1950's it was a community of conformists. Americans lived in lonely crowds. The organization men wore gray flannel suits. The women were stunted by the feminine mystique. The children, rebels without a cause, grew up absurd and emerged uncommitted. Ruled by a power elite, the affluent society was shaped by hidden persuaders. Americans would have been better off if they had been able to come of age in Samoa.
None of this is true anymore. The institutions that once provided the security Americans craved have been transformed before their eyes. Corporations that used to offer lifetime employment now compete to lay off workers, unprotected by weakened unions. Government, once controlled by the sturdy WASP establishment, is increasingly led by conservatives, who detest government. Suburbs have merged with the cities from which they offered the promise of escape. And the family is no longer a haven; all too often a center of dysfunction, it has become one with the heartless world that surrounds it.
As the opportunities to discover isolated places like Walden Pond disappear, more Americans are following Thoreau's path, looking inside themselves for the certainties their institutions no longer seem to offer. They do not need to escape from society, because society has escaped from them. America, no longer a nation of sheep, has entered the age of autonomy. People may not have a clue about how to survive on the prairie in front of an open campfire, but they are pretty much on their own when it comes to finding a mate, rearing children, choosing a career or planning retirement.
On the surface, America seems as conformist as ever, its malls indistinguishable from one another, its entertainment strikingly homogenous and its coffee, though much improved, still remarkably uniform. But deep inside, Americans are exploring a new frontier. Though they still believe in God, uphold the family and love their country, they increasingly decide which God best suits their temperament; which family structure works for them; and whether their country's government is worthy of their trust.
In March, The New York Times Magazine conducted a poll that asked Americans not about their party affiliations but about their beliefs, fears, anxieties, fantasies and opinions. The results of the poll demonstrate the degree to which Americans find themselves falling back on their own resources when it comes to thinking about the conditions for a good and meaningful life.
The Inner God
No one should ever underestimate Americans' faith in faith. Despite a widely perceived trend toward secularization, 49 percent of the respondents to the Times survey said they were about as religious as their parents; 21 percent said they were more religious. That said, Americans are not theological. Doctrinal disputes leave most people cold. Americans want a capacious God who smiles on everyone, not a jealous God protective of one particular version of his teachings.
Paradoxically, Americans have a specific distaste for the theological doctrine that has informed our national morality from the beginning: Puritanism. The Puritans believed in an inherent human depravity that could be countered only by God's willingness to extend, even arbitrarily, his grace. Such Calvinistic teachings have no place in the American mind today. Americans are inveterate optimists; 75 percent believe in the intrinsic goodness of people, which suggests, whether they fully realize it or not, that they no longer subscribe to the Judeo-Christian notion of original sin. Americans are simply too nice to see Satan everywhere around them.
Sunday 27 June 2010
The Pursuit of Autonomy
via nytimes.com
