[lit-ideas] Morris Berman
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 16:06:42 -0400
"By 1976, when [Jimmy Carter] got elected, I think we needed that. The American
people were willing to listen to someone who was talking in those terms. The
only problem is that's to swim against the tide of American history. Our whole
history, from the revolution, has been posited about defining ourselves in
terms of opposition. It was about not being someone else. There's a problem
with that. If you're going to define yourself in terms of what you're not, in a
certain sense you're never going to figure out who you are. That's the Achilles
heel in American history, that we don't know. As a result you're always going
to be nervous, you're always going to be on edge, and you're always going to be
projecting the problem outward. Jimmy comes along at the right time and says
lets not look outward and look at ourselves. For a couple years we were willing
to do that, but it was something so out of step with the rest of American
history that it couldn't be sustained."
http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/2006/04/end-of-empire.html
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