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Never a lender nor a borrower be: abundance, debts, and personality in American culture

≈ 2 mins de leitura

Rob Kroes

In the early days of the American Studies Movement the quest was on for establishing and defining what was variously called the American identity, the American character, the American mind, or even the American Self. American Studies scholars varied on the theme of American exceptionalism, “divine election” or “chosenness,” manifest destiny and the fore‑‑ordained westward course of empire, or geographical determinism. As for the 1950s’ historians, reference is sometimes made to them as constituting the “consensus school” in American history. It takes a shared history of like‑‑mindedness, a national – if not notional – consensus, for there to be such a thing as one national identity, or one national character. Yet, given this fevered quest for one shared national character, it is nothing but utterly ironic that much of the intellectual debate in the United States in the 1950s was set by a book – The Lonely Crowd – that was out to explore “the changing American character.” The book, as this article argues, stands in a long line of social critics who read the signs of the times in the changing behavior patterns of their contemporaries. A critical review will lead me to my ultimate question. What possible cultural reflections can we see of a current situation where all of America, at every level, internationally as a sovereign state, nationally as a government, and down from there to the level of individual businesses and families, is in deficit, on a scale of indebtedness unprecedented in its national history? Are there any clear signs of cultural characters emerging to reflect this state of affairs?

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ISBN: 978-989-26-1307-9
eISBN: 978-989-26-1308-6
DOI: 10.14195/978-989-26-1308-6_9
Área: Artes e Humanidades
Páginas: 227-248
Data: 2017

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