Twentieth-century Americans live their lives in blithe insularity. The condition stems in part from our geography, which has rendered us effectively an island, bordered by oceans east and west and by harmless nations north and south. Yet it is not merely that Americans live thousands of miles down the road. The mystery of American insularity has its roots in our unusual history, our polity, our social structure, wealth, and individual sense of power. Even the thrust of technology contributes to it. detaching Americans from then fellows and allowing them to isolate themselves in their own audio and visual fantasy worlds.
Immigrants arriving from the Old World tilled an empty space. Without ancient ruins to daunt them, without forbidding social barriers to restrain their pursuit of happiness, without even much congestion to slow them down, Americans have been free to attend to their own yearnings. Not surprisingly. Americans have rarely looked abroad. When we travel we travel to Hiltons via TWA. Foreign ways do not much fetch us.
Comments