The Mediocre American

Abstract

Xou recognize immediately, of course, that the mediocre of my title is a construct, just as the American of whatever kind is a figment of the critical imagination-whether he be the ugly American, the quiet American, or the civilized' the overadjusted' the insecure' the blatant American-pick any adjective you choose. Certainly I shall not label anyone who bothers to read these remarks as mediocre; so we may continue to have the comfortable feeling, you and I, that we are in a charmed circle, and that whatever I have to say applies always to the other fellow. Among the many voices that have been raised to diagnose the general malaise of our time-our restlessness of mind, the dissolution of our common standards and even our common framework of ideas-is that of the historian Sir Llewellyn Woodward, who thinks we need to restore to our contemporary society the sense of belonging' Belonging' for Sir Llewellyn, is not the same thing as conformity, and certainly not the same thing as the togetherness which is the Madison Avenue equivalent for conformity. A group of men and women huddled together in a bomb shelter feel togetherness' I dare say, but they don't belong to anything except a common reservoir of fear. Sir Llewellyn means some kind of new and wider understanding of ourselves, and he wonders how far we