The force of the advertising word and image dwarfs the power of other literature in the 20th century.

The American experience stirred mankind from discovery to exploration. From the cautious quest for what they knew (or thought they knew) was out there, into an enthusiastic reaching to the unknown. These are two substantially different kinds of human enterprise.

American civilization, from its beginnings, had combined a dogmatic confidence in the future with a naive puzzlement over what the future might bring.

Our attitude toward our own culture has recently been characterized by two qualities, braggadocio and petulance. Braggadocio - empty boasting of American power, American virtue, American know-how - has dominated our foreign relations now for some decades. Here at home - within the family, so to speak - our attitude to our culture expresses a superficially different spirit, the spirit of petulance. Never before, perhaps, has a culture been so fragmented into groups, each full of its own virtue, each annoyed and irritated at the others.

Never have people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed. For never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer.

. . . the messiness of experience, that may be what we mean by life.

Disagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension.