Midwest at Dusk
By DAVID BROOKS
NYT
If Balzac were alive today, he would plant himself in that region of America that starts in central New York and Pennsylvania and then stretches out through Ohio and Indiana before spreading out to include Wisconsin and Arkansas. He’d plant himself in the working-class families in this area.
He’d do it because this is the beating center of American life — the place where the trajectory of American politics is being determined. If America can figure out how to build a decent future for the working-class people in this region, then the U.S. will remain a predominant power. If it can’t, it won’t.
It would take a Balzac to understand the perplexities and contradictions one finds in these neighborhoods. On the one hand, people are living with the daily grind of getting by on $40,000 a year, but they’re also living with Xboxes and smartphones. People in these places have traditional bourgeois values, but they live amid a decaying social fabric, with high divorce rates and skyrocketing single parenthood numbers.
Many people in these neighborhoods distrust government but still look to it for help. They disdain Wall Street but admire capitalism. They are intensely patriotic but accustomed to globalization. If you talk to people on the coasts about The Sixties, they often think of Woodstock. If you ask people in this region about The Sixties, they might remember the last time there were plenty of good jobs instead.
(More here.)
NYT
If Balzac were alive today, he would plant himself in that region of America that starts in central New York and Pennsylvania and then stretches out through Ohio and Indiana before spreading out to include Wisconsin and Arkansas. He’d plant himself in the working-class families in this area.
He’d do it because this is the beating center of American life — the place where the trajectory of American politics is being determined. If America can figure out how to build a decent future for the working-class people in this region, then the U.S. will remain a predominant power. If it can’t, it won’t.
It would take a Balzac to understand the perplexities and contradictions one finds in these neighborhoods. On the one hand, people are living with the daily grind of getting by on $40,000 a year, but they’re also living with Xboxes and smartphones. People in these places have traditional bourgeois values, but they live amid a decaying social fabric, with high divorce rates and skyrocketing single parenthood numbers.
Many people in these neighborhoods distrust government but still look to it for help. They disdain Wall Street but admire capitalism. They are intensely patriotic but accustomed to globalization. If you talk to people on the coasts about The Sixties, they often think of Woodstock. If you ask people in this region about The Sixties, they might remember the last time there were plenty of good jobs instead.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home