[More evidence of America's robust tradition of socialism appears in today's NY Times:]
Why America Sees the Silver Lining
By JOHN LELAND
In the rolling tributes to Ronald Reagan last week, a question lingered: why was he revered by not only those who had fared well in his America, but by many who had not.
One answer, no doubt, lies in a conviction that runs throughout American history. It is the faith that we are all on the verge of joining the favored class ourselves. In a 2003 book, "Something For Nothing: Luck in America," the cultural historian Jackson Lears wrote that two archetypes have defined America's sense of destiny. One is the self-made man (rarely woman), who believes he will get rich through his own hard work. The other is the gambler, who believes that with the next turn of the cards, providence will deliver the Main Chance.
The first, of course, provides one of America's official scripts, the stories Americans tell about themselves. In a global poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2002, 65 percent of Americans said their success depended on forces within their control, more than double the percentage in old world countries like Italy and Germany, and triple that of India, Turkey or Pakistan.
But it was a mark of Mr. Reagan's optimism that it tapped the idealistic in both types. Though we often think of the hard worker as rational and the gambler as deluded, both involve a characteristically American leap of faith.
"Americans have always had a stronger belief in the ability of the individual than reality would support," said Alan Brinkley, a professor of history at Columbia University. "The key is the idea of social mobility, the Horatio Alger vision. There's enough truth to that idea for it to survive, but never as much social mobility as the myth suggests." ...
<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/13/weekinreview/13lela.html>
Carl
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