Introduction

Abstract

TO MANY THOUGHTFUL Americans in the closing years of the twentieth century, the statistical evidence on the health of the culture speaks of a giant, fatal cancer, steadily and inexorably destroying the quality of life that was familiar and comfortable to anyone born before the Korean War. The data, regularly published in the press as if to titillate morbid sensibilities, confirm that one’s personal experience with social disruption is general: Marriages and families increasingly fragile; children of all ages appear more at risk; the elderly live longer, hollower lives; ethnic groups battle each other for an even smaller part of the national pie; women and men weary of ever understanding each other; and national resources and prestige decline as the business community grows paralyzed from competition, complacency, and cultural pollution. There are people in middle life to whom it seems difficult to remember a brighter day, when life promised hope, a future of meaningful connections, and children had a right to large dreams. Who could think positively about the future?...