The older America, until the 1890s and in some respects until 1914, was wrapped in the security of continental isolation, village society, the Protestant denominations, and a flourishing industrial capitalism. But reluctantly, year by year, over several decades, it has been drawn into the twentieth century and forced to cope with its unpleasant realities: first the incursions of cosmopolitanism and skepticism, then the disappearance of American isolation and easy military security, the collapse of traditional capitalism and its supplementation by a centralized welfare state, finally the unrelenting costs and stringencies of the Second World War, the Korean War, and the cold war. As a consequence, the heartland of America, filled with people who are often fundamentalist in religion, nativist in prejudice, isolationist in foreign policy, and conservative in economics, has constantly rumbled with an underground revolt against all these tormenting manifestations of our modern predicament. Richard Hofstadter
About This Quote

In this passage from his essay, "The Outsider," William Gass speaks about the tensions that have been brewing beneath the surface of American society. In his view, these strains have been growing steadily as capitalism has changed and as Americans have been forced to face the realities of the modern world. These tensions tend to be felt most strongly by those who suffer from them, and so Gass speaks to them directly, addressing an America that is slowly coming around to the point of view that he believes it should hold: a status quo that is isolationist and fundamentalist. The tension he describes is a deep-seated one between old and new, but one that has come to a head because of America’s experience in World War II and its soon-to-follow Cold War with the Soviet Union.

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