Can the ‘Four Americas’ Be Reconciled?

The Four Americas

Competing visions of the country’s purpose and meaning are tearing it apart, George Packer wrote in the July/August issue. Is reconciliation possible?

George Packer’s article had me nodding and shaking my head in alternation, and in the end caused me heartache that only a beer and a ball game could alleviate.

I doubt America was ever as unified before World War II as Packer suggests, but I agree we have become more fragmented in the postwar years. A contributing factor to which he doesn’t give enough attention is the decay of America’s once-great public-education system. During the Cold War years, the U.S. invested heavily in building a world-class system of K–12 schools and public colleges and universities, and this led to a flourishing of science, technology, the arts, and the