I’m currently reading Allan Carlson’s The “American Way”, a history of 20th Century American political thought regarding the American family and its relationship to national identity. Carlson’s main thesis is that the “American Way” predominantly revolves not around propositional or ethnic identity, but family life. Maybe I’ll do a book review on it sometime.

What strikes me about the book’s account of early 20th century American politics is how concerned politicians used to be with the good of the American people as people. It was the chief concern of men like Theodore Roosevelt. Even issues such as feminism and immigration were contextualized against the backdrop of collective national good.

Young men, fill your home with as much joy, beauty, and meaning as you can. Teach your family to sing, worship, laugh, read, work, and do every other good and natural thing. Make your home a safe haven, a little world unto itself; a beacon of hope and joy in the gloom of this vast dystopia.

The modern world is unprecedented in its ability to provide huge amounts of economic leverage to almost everybody. We have a huge amount of resources at our beck and call. We can call upon a large number of virtual servants to fulfill our desires at a moment’s notice, and do so relatively cheaply. We have many levers we can pull, and each one of them can move a lot of stuff. The device you are reading this on is one such lever.