Geroge Packer identifies four national narratives in his recent piece at The Atlantic titled “How America is Fractured Into Four Parts.” I am sure I will be talking more about this piece in the future.
- “Free America” draws on “libertarian ideas, which it installs in the high-powered engine of consumer capitalism.”
- “Smart America” believes in credentials and expertise–not just as tools for success, but as qualifications for class entry.”
- “Real America” champion popular democracy and “brought an anti-intellectual bias to American politics that never entirely disappeared.”
- “Just America” does “the hard, essential thing that the other three narratives avoid…it forces us to see the straight line that runs from slavery and segregation to the second-class life so many Black Americans live today…”
Read the entire piece here.