Looking for the Real America by Tom Veblen Ah, America. By all reports, for better or worse, our popular culture is transforming the world; its music, art, and lifestyle—captivating the young, bemusing the mature, confusing the old. Espousing democracy and extolling the American way of life, we're out in the world—as entertainers, business people, tourists, soldiers and sailors, academicians and politicians-exuberantly trying to reshape it in our own image. The image of Americans at work and play, entranced with the unpredictable interplay of social and technological dynamics, absorbed with enterprise and scouring the world for new thrills, has the whole world transfixed-including ourselves.
What's going on? Why should this be? What is it about the United States of America that so energizes us? And so intrigues others? What next? And how, if you really want answers to these questions, do you go about getting them?
One way is to get in the car and drive around the United States, asking questions and soaking up answers. if it worked for Alexis de Tocqueville in 1826, it might work for me. Would I find, as did he, a nation that believes in a better tomorrow and that knows how to get there?
“They [the Americans] have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man, they judge the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be advantageous, the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; they admit that what appears to them today to be good, may be superseded by something better tomorrow. "-Alexis de Tocqueville
With de Tocqueville's thoughts in mind, I pulled away from the curb at my home in the District of Columbia one sunny day last summer, intent on discovering the state of our culture. Seven weeks, 10,562 miles, ten campgrounds, eleven friends' and relatives' homes, nine motels and hundreds of human encoun-ters later I had zig zagged my way to the Pacific Coast and back and had the answer, albeit an idiosyncratic one.
Our popular culture is not the easiest thing to get your arms or mind around. Materially, think about the venue: what a stupendous physical setting-awesome variety, awesome scale, awesome scenery, awesome urban grandeur, and some pretty awesome urban and industrial ugliness. Intellectually and spiritually, think about the people: what a remarkable diversity of intellects, aspirations, races, talents, ethnic heritages and values. What grand institutions they raise up-those of democratic governance and those of enterprise, uplift and renewal. What big ideas they embody: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; public education; "Go West, young man, go West"; China missions; the New Deal; jazz; the Marshall Plan; the Peace Corps; a man on the moon.
The Material Dimension
The United States is undergoing a vast, decades-long building boom—with no end in sight. Wherever one turns-from the Washington metropolitan complex to West Virginia to Oklahoma to New Mexico to California to Colorado to South Dakota to the Twin Cities of Minnesota to Wisconsin to Indiana and to Ohio-the infrastructure is mushrooming, or has mushroomed or before long will be mushrooming.
Long familiar landscapes and cityscapes have given way or are giving way to new and grander; taller and shinier; more useful; more elegant; new and always bigger roads, ramps, bridges, airport facilities, school campuses, office buildings, medical centers, government complexes, prison compounds, office parks, gambling casinos, golf enclaves, ski resorts, museums, and housing developments as far as the eye can travel. Nobody seems to build just one of anything anymore—or modestly. Grandness and clustering are everywhere in vogue. In places like Little Rock, Amarillo, San Luis Obispo, Provo, Sterling (CO), Cheyenne, Sioux Falls, Madison, and Columbus (OH), clusters of 3,500-square-foot homes, 500,000- square-foot shopping malls and miles-long manufacturing and distribution complexes are springing up all along the interstates and freeways that now define these quintessential mid-sized American towns.
The reason for all this economic bustle is clear. The scale, diversity, and velocity of personal and public consumption in this country is sweeping all before it. As it turns out, the friends and acquaintances I visited, and their friends and acquaintances—most all of them products of the great American middle—have all gotten rich relative to their wildest youthful dreams and they're out there spending. And then there are the folks I didn't meet and don't know—old and young, newly arrived or just visiting from abroad—all are out and spending as well.
Why else, as I drove across the United States, would I find myself having to compete so vigorously for the necessities of a tourist's life? Road space? Even Oklahoma City has a traffic rush hour. A place to eat? just try to get a decent'table at a first-class restaurant in Santa Fe without a reservation. Or a quick breakfast at a Denny's in San Diego around 8:00 a.m. A place to stay? It's best to call ahead if you want a nonsmoking room in any motel. A camping spot? Forget it in Big Sur or any of the national parks if you don't get there early.
To gain perspective on the scope and magnitude of the American's shopping spree, I blended in with the crowds of eager shoppers at the Wal-Marts and Price Clubs from Harrisonburg (VA) to Albuquerque to Provo to Madison; observed the intent and savvy buyers in the commercial strips of Tulsa, Eureka, Sioux City and Silver Spring; sauntered with the expensively clad couples through the boutiques, art galleries, and upscale malls in Santa Fe, Carmel, and Boulder; sat in with the often overweight diners in eating and drinking places in, around, and between all these destinations; joined the hoard of vacationers at the resorts, golf courses, marinas, and campgrounds that have sprung up everywhere.
One wonders about all these consumers. But not alone. In Oklahoma City a Wal-Mart floor manager responded to my query about the shoppers besieging her store. "Where are all these people coming from, and how is it they have so much money? I have no idea. I only know there seems to be no end to the buying." In Durango the owner of an upscale Italian restaurant: "Where are all these people coming from? I haven't a clue. But I can have a table for you within an hour or so." At a campground in the Big Sur the host had a more considered answer: "Two-thirds of our guests are from overseas—mostly French, German or Australian. They have lots of vacation rage of sex and violence on television and at the movies, are demanding that their schools take more responsibility for the outcomes.
The sense that schools have relaxed their standards is pervasive. The big issue is values, not technical competence. It's sobering to talk with parents who have taken the drastic step of home-schooling their children. As my informant at a muffler shop in Eureka (CA) put it, "There's a whole lot of trash in the world and lots of it is finding its way into our school. My kids won't make it if their values aren't right so we decided not to put up with it any longer. We've been forced to take things into our own hands, and we're educating them at home." Talk about individualism, enterprise, and fortitude. Talk about a challenge to the country's intellectual development.
The Spiritual Dimension
America's increasing complexity—more and more vigorous people; more and more beguiling, material things; more and more friendly technologies; more and more challenging ideas—seems to have us flummoxed. Contending notions clash, a blend of the profane and the pure. Secularism, scientism, religionism, materialism, frugalism, politicism, fractionalism, racism, communitarianism—the country is full of visions and visionaries—not to mention the kooks and the crazies. It is evident that we are in the midst of a spiritual crisis of sorts. This is not surprising, given the advance of science, the remarkable upsurge in knowledge and the bringing together of such diverse cultural ideas. The range of cultural issues, in which spiritual development is viewed as the ultimate solution, is remarkable: entitlement vs. enterprise; equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome; racism vs. integration; science vs. fundamentalism; feminism vs. machoism; tribal and ethnic instinct vs. civic ethic; government vs. corporate business power; family vs. the collective; the environment vs. us all.
Given the average American's passion for nature, the environment emerges as one of our most emotionally charged issues. At breakfast one morning in Santa Barbara, a former professor put it suc-cinctly: "The American society has adopted an adversarial stance with nature, In such a contest I can tell you for sure who's going to win. There's time for a course correction but certainly no assurance that we will get our act together in time."
So, what to make of the material, intellectual and spiritual churning? As it turns out, there's both good and bad news.
The Bad News First
America's absorption with the "bigger and better," "here and now," "what's in it for me?" and "how do I get ahead?" is spiritually and intellectually distracting. A fair number—perhaps a growing number—in the great American middle, in their rush to find heaven here on earth, somewhat numbed by the power of technology and the cultural flux, are turning from self-reliance to special pleading with hardly a pause to consider the consequences, importuning corporate America and the national government to provide. "The common good? What's that? All I want is what I'm entitled to—be it a price, a job, low interest rates, autonomy, health, entertainment or whatever."
The situation may be worse than we think it is. The idea of corporate governance has been picked up by education, medicine, law, research, government, and even (by all that's holy) the nation's eleemosynary sector. Many with whom I visited seem enamored with running everything "like a business" even though not everything is like a business-nor should it be. The emergence of a corporate state in which the material considerations overwhelm the intellectual and the spiritual in our lives is a danger, and a chilling thought as our society grows in its global reach and complexity.
Driving around America, probing the thoughts and aspirations of friends, relatives, business associates, waitresses, gas station attendants, hotel clerks, campground supervisors, German campers, grocery clerks, and bookstore habitues—in San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Eureka, Provo, Wendover, Pagossa Springs, Boulder, Dakota City, Grand Forks, Hallock, Minneapolis, La Crosse, Spring Green, Madison, Lafayette, Indianapolis, Richmond, Chillicothe, McArthur, Athens, Parkersburg, Cumberland, Penn Alps, and Potomac—I discovered that America is as vigorous, vital, and irreverent as it likely ever has been.
It is evident that for the individual with wit and imagination and a little backbone the promise of America—prosperity and individual freedom—is undiminished. The United States dominates in many fields and particularly in its corporate sector, is creating a staggering array of opportunities for the rightly motivated, wisely counseled, and adequately prepared.
There is every reason to believe that U.S. business, at an accelerating and historically unprecedented rate, will continue to create even more wealth. In a culture enamored of material progress, business emerges as a dominant social force. Competent, enterprising, beguiled by visions of change and growth, spurred on by the technological dynamic, business people are intent on advancing their own and the soci-ety's welfare. In the process they are creating a "super" or "world" business culture of awesome dimensions and great power.
Guiding this enterprise, the common sense of the average citizen is clearly evident. Committed to vocation (knowing that practical ends rule this world), open to nature (believing that there is a greater good), and looking for adventure (sensing that enterprise and salvation are one), the Americans encountered on my drive are a challenging bunch. Friendly, open, engaging and competent, they a:re seemingly without guile.
Believe it, the cardinal virtues, though muted by the cacophony and the urgency of everyday life, are alive and well. Wherever one goes, ambivalence about our culture of affluence is palpable, and this is the best sign that our materialism, in the end, will be held in check. Immersed in the challenge of affluence, accomplished Americans ask the right questions: "Can we learn from it?" (in Santa Barbara), "How best can we share it?" (in Humbolt), "How do we manage it?" (in Durango), "Do we deserve it?" (in Sioux City), "How long will it go on?" (in Minneapolis).
The keys to social acceptance and a good life remain education, engagement, and real (income-producing) property—probably in that order, the overwhelming thought being, try and you will be, accepted; engage and you can prosper; disengage and you get left behind—and no one will feel sorry for you. What goes around comes around.
Demanding, beguiling, and disorienting, our culture celebrates the individual and competence and hard work; dreams of community and leisure; scorns exclusivity and getting-something-for-nothing.
America is on a roll. As in deTocqueville's day, still in the act of becoming, materially, intellectually, and spiritually...
TOM
VEBLEN (95) is a general management consultant and covener of the Business Firm
Roundtable. He is active in the Council on Foreign Relations and the Institute
of Management Consultants and serves on the boards of the Patterson School of
Diplomacy and International Commerce, Pax World Service, and the American Near
East Refugee Agency.
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