Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

estated it by saying that the intermittent racket of our little neighborhoodreassures us (“le vacarme des petits coins où nous vivons nous rassure”).[Laughter.]There lies a great difference between Europeans and Americans. Tryas he will, the American cannot find any such soothing support in his socialor natural surroundings. The racket in which he lives is greater than anyEuropean vacarme—not because it is noisier (any European city is noisierthan an American city), but because of the disparity of things which pressupon his attention.The disparity arises because he is not deeply connected with any ofthem. And his inability to find any reassurance in this turbulence of unrelatedphenomena which is his environment is increased by his unprecedented andpeculiarly American consciousness of multitude and distance and magnitude.An American is differently surrounded.It all goes back to the problem of identity. Where does the Americanderive his confidence that, among so many millions, he is one, and thathis being one is supported and justified? A European’s environment is sopervasive, so dense, so habitual, that it whispers to him that he is all rightwhere he is; he is at home and irreplaceable. His at-homeness is related tothe concrete things about him.Gertrude Stein used to quote in this connection a phrase from theMother Goose rhymes: “I am I,” said the little old lady, “because my dogknows me.““I am I,” says the European, “because the immemorial repetitions ofmy country’s way of life surround me. I know them and they know me.”An American can have no such stabilizing relation to any one place,nor to any one community, nor to any one moment in time. Americans aredisconnected. They are exposed to all place and all time. No place nor groupnor moment can say to them: We were waiting for you; it is right for youto be here. Place and time are, for them, negative until they act upon them,until they bring them into being.Illustrations of this disconnection? Illustrations of so omnipresenta condition will scarcely persuade those who have not long observed it inthemselves and in those about them; Europeans have long been struck withconsternation at our inability to place emphasis on the concrete aspect ofthings. Taking tea with a friend in London, I am told that I must return todine and go to the opera.“All right,” I say, “I’ll hurry home and change my clothes.”“What?”191