kate’s Reviews > Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man > Status Update

"Proving oneself in the free arena of competition is the test of manhood, truth, and political wisdom. And this is always, in the end, a way of proving oneself to /oneself/. The striver can never stop striving. It is because Nixon is so totally this sweaty moral self-doubting self-made bustling brooding type, that he represents the integral liberalism that once animated America and now tries to reassert itself."

"Every American is told that this land guarantees him 'opportunity'; if he fails, it is his own fault—so he must not fail. Yet if he succeeds, it must be as a 'common man', one who moved out from an equal starting place. He must start the race again every day, doubt past achievement, justify his success by repeating it.As Wilson put it, he must forsake 'connections' and rely only on 'character' for his moral credit."

"The competitive ethic makes us think of any American as 'on our team' when we are competing abroad, with other countries, but reduces that same American to a rival, a potential enemy, in our domestic competition, our struggles against each other in the marketplace; so that patriotism is degraded from love of countrymen to mere hatred of foes, mere xenophobia."

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