In the Atlantic’s 150th anniversary issue, they asked a variety of authors, inventors, intellectuals and cultural figures to comment on “the future of the American Idea and the greatest challenges to it.” The responses are interesting to read, even as many of the respondents struggle to define the American Idea, much less predict its future.

John Updike, George Will, Google Founder and CEO Eric Schmidt, Edward O. Wilson, Nancy Pelosi, Greil Marcus, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Pinsky, Sam Harris, Frank Gehry, Judith Martin and many others participated. Many of the reactions align the state of the American Idea with our country’s current direction, rendering it bleak, while others are more hopeful. Some are creepy (Tim LaHaye, the author of the Left Behind screeds), some are shallow (Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, whose piece could be a tourist brochure), and some are outright pricks (Tom Wolfe, whose patronizing essay makes me relieved I never bothered to pick up I Am Charlotte Simmons).

Below are some thought-provoking excerpts:

Azar Nafisi, author, Reading Lolita in Tehran

In order to keep the American idea fresh and new, it must be constantly challenged. For the American idea to endure, we have to “light out,” and to find new ways to resist the “sivilizing” impulse of the Widow Douglases and Aunt Sallys among us.

And yet today it seems that America, gripped by social and political crisis, has become almost forgetful of that idea. Cynical, shallow, defensive, and at the same time arrogant and greedy, it is unfaithful to its instincts and refuses to be reflective, mistaking blame for criticism and self-criticism, and believing that success at any cost is more important than failure with honor, taking as its ideal the Widow Douglas’s paradise rather than Huck Finn’s hell.

The question is: Can we still hope to be a little less “sivilized”?

Cornel West, professor of religion at Princeton University

Since the ugly events of 9/11, we have witnessed the attempt of the Bush administration—with elites in support and populists complacent—to promote the niggerization of the American people. Like the myopic white greed, fear, and hatred that fueled the niggerization of black people, right-wing greed, fear, and hatred have made all of us feel intimidated, fearful, and helpless in the face of the terrorist attacks. And, as in the 19th century, we’ve almost lost our democracy.

Joyce Carol Oates, author

How heartily sick the world has grown, in the first seven years of the 21st century, of the American idea! Speak with any non-American, travel to any foreign country, and the consensus is: The American idea has become a cruel joke, a blustery and bellicose bodybuilder luridly bulked up on steroids, consequently low on natural testosterone, deranged and myopic, dangerous.

Eric Schlosser, author, Fast Food Nation

The America that I love bears little relation to the freak show now peddled by Hollywood and the cable-news networks. I’ve had the privilege of spending time with some of the poorest people in this country and some of the richest, and it’s left me feeling that we have far too many of both. The best lives, the happiest and most satisfied ones, seem to be lived somewhere in between. I have no tolerance for the anti-Americanism overseas or the complacency here at home. I worry about the extremes and the extremism that have deeply taken root—the anger, the arrogance, the lack of empathy and compassion. The current state of the union brings to mind Thomas Jefferson’s famous remark: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”

And finally, my favorite, by author David Foster Wallace, which I’m going to quote in full (although I have no idea what a “Gramm-Rudmanewque space limit” is)

Are some things still worth dying for? Is the American idea* one such thing? Are you up for a thought experiment? What if we chose to regard the 2,973 innocents killed in the atrocities of 9/11 not as victims but as democratic martyrs, “sacrifices on the altar of freedom”?* In other words, what if we decided that a certain baseline vulnerability to terrorism is part of the price of the American idea? And, thus, that ours is a generation of Americans called to make great sacrifices in order to preserve our democratic way of life—sacrifices not just of our soldiers and money but of our personal safety and comfort?

In still other words, what if we chose to accept the fact that every few years, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?

Is this thought experiment monstrous? Would it be monstrous to refer to the 40,000-plus domestic highway deaths we accept each year because the mobility and autonomy of the car are evidently worth that high price? Is monstrousness why no serious public figure now will speak of the delusory trade-off of liberty for safety that Ben Franklin warned about more than 200 years ago? What exactly has changed between Franklin’s time and ours? Why now can we not have a serious national conversation about sacrifice, the inevitability of sacrifice—either of (a) some portion of safety or (b) some portion of the rights and protections that make the American idea so incalculably precious?

In the absence of such a conversation, can we trust our elected leaders to value and protect the American idea as they act to secure the homeland? What are the effects on the American idea of Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Patriot Acts I and II, warrantless surveillance, Executive Order 13233, corporate contractors performing military functions, the Military Commissions Act, NSPD 51, etc., etc.? Assume for a moment that some of these measures really have helped make our persons and property safer—are they worth it? Where and when was the public debate on whether they’re worth it? Was there no such debate because we’re not capable of having or demanding one? Why not? Have we actually become so selfish and scared that we don’t even want to consider whether some things trump safety? What kind of future does that augur?

FOOTNOTES:
1. Given the strict Gramm-Rudmanewque space limit here, let’s just please all agree that we generally know what this term connotes—an open society, consent of the governed, enumerated powers, Federalist 10, pluralism, due process, transparency … the whole democratic roil.

2. (This phrase is Lincoln’s, more or less)