The American Century: Literature since 1945 527culture survived well into the next decade; and some, like the feminist and ecological
movements, effectively became part of the cultural mainstream. Nevertheless, the
election of such an un-alternative, un-radical president as Nixon, and his reelection
in 1972, did signal a shift in the national mood that was gradually confirmed in the
1970s and beyond. The Vietnam War was brought to an ignominious end, removing
one of the major sources of confrontation and revolt. Black Americans remained
economically dispossessed, but the civil rights movement did increase their electoral
power, and so gave them the opportunity of expressing their dissatisfaction through
the ballot box rather than taking to the streets. The children of the postwar “baby
boom,” who had fueled the fires of apparent revolution, began to enter the workforce
and take on the responsibilities of jobs, homes, and families. And, while the United
States continued to prosper – the gross national product had risen to 974 billion in
1970 – there were worrying signs of possible economic crisis. Inflation was worse
than in most Western European countries; the balance of payments deficit began to
grow to frightening proportions; while the dollar steadily lost its purchasing power.
As the economic situation grew harsher, especially after the oil crisis of the early
1970s, more and more Americans narrowed their horizons, devoting their attention
and energies to the accumulation and preservation of personal wealth. One com-
mentator christened the 1970s “the me decade”; another referred to the culture of
narcissism. And these significant tendencies did not alter with the resignation of
Nixon. First Gerald Ford, and then later Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, offered
notable alternatives to the radicalism of the 1960s. With Carter, for instance, there
was a new emphasis on the limits to growth and power and a new, introspective
moralism: “Your strength,” he told the American public at his Inaugural in 1977,
“can compensate for my weakness, and your wisdom can minimize my mistakes.”
The rhetoric of Reagan might have sounded similar, at times, to that of Kennedy –
when, for instance, he talked about building a shining city upon a hill or declared
that the best years of America were yet to come. But this rhetoric occurred within
structures of belief and assumptions that were quite different from those of the
assassinated president. For Reagan, the crucial appeal was to the past, the mythical
American past of stable, familial, and to an extent pastoral values, that, as he saw it,
it was the duty of Americans to recover; and to this predominantly backward-
looking impulse was added a strong sense of personal responsibility, a feeling that
each American should look after himself or herself, which found little room for
accommodating the communal vision of an earlier decade.
Reagan might have appealed to the past. Later, in the 1990s, Bill Clinton might
have tried to claim some of the spirit of the 1960s for himself, with his talk of being
part of a raw, new postwar generation, his declaration of belief in a place called
Hope, and, not least, his use of an old movie showing him, as a boy, shaking hands
with John Kennedy. The two President George Bushes, father and son, might suggest
in turn a warier, more conservative America. What all these presidents have in
common, however, is what they have presided over: a dissolution of the old social
and cultural markers. Many of the great nation-states have disintegrated: notably,
that sinister “other” of Cold War America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.GGray_c05.indd 527ray_c 05 .indd 527 8 8/1/2011 7:31:29 PM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 31 : 29 PM