"Is 'American ideas' one of those phrases, like 'how women are' or 'the will of the West to survive' that are to thinking as huffing gasoline is to breathing?"
— Purdy, Jedediah (b. 1974)
Author
Date
September/October, 2017
Metaphor
"Is 'American ideas' one of those phrases, like 'how women are' or 'the will of the West to survive' that are to thinking as huffing gasoline is to breathing?"
Metaphor in Context
So, are Paul Ryan, Barack Obama and other nation-of-ideas defenders just hypocrites, or dupes? Is it better to look the American beast in the face and admit that it has always been a regime of "majoritarian bandits," as the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates judged in his book Between the World and Me? Is "American ideas" one of those phrases, like "how women are" or "the will of the West to survive" that are to thinking as huffing gasoline is to breathing? Or is there still value in Americans committing ourselves to shared ideas? The answer depends on what those ideas, in 2017, should be.
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Jedediah Purdy, "Is America Still a 'Nation of Ideas'?" Politico (September/October, 2017). <Link to politico.com>
Date of Entry
09/05/2017
