Resisting the Reactionary Impulse
![Image](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWKiJ1XdGtAxoG_XxbH_AqyrnkXadZJU643tdQRw6qkeWEFEkFe_bCEBKYf5NzsERhAqz88RTnbQX1lKMCseKNm3YtqPNcawmyE5xLD5rPpIBS-5f2aYACI8lHSZzs8s_1E-ZaFB_Ha4csy0iGVIjr4-MKFlSPIvVT_bsuj9rOYd3mMtJOTDNAa0UrLI96/s320/America%20in%20the%201950s.webp)
Many of us in conservative circles long for, what we envision as, those halcyon days of an American monoculture. There is, I will admit, good reason for this yearning. Robert Putnam, in The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, characterizes the time after the Gilded Age and before the 1960s liberation movement as an era of we-ness, where social cohesion was strong and civic-engagement was blossoming. Putnam illustrates this time with his famous inverted-U curve (otherwise known as the "I-we-I" curve): Many of us would like nothing more than to return to the mid-20th century, when we truly had a common culture and deep love of country. But we must face the music: times they are a-changin'. Actually, they've already changed drastically. Troy Olson, whom I often have disagreements with regarding "turning the clock back," conceded in a recent piece for this blog that the period of the 1950s - characterized by a domina