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When an idea like that grows prevalent, it hurls a considerable threat at the forces of stability. Henry Adams defined history as "social development along the lines of weakest resistance." Certainly, the major political shifts of the past 60 years support that definition. But if the areas of resistance have looked as vulnerable as the Maginot Line at some points in our history, they have shown themselves exceptionally, even ruthlessly, strong and adamant at others. For nearly every liberation of the period—political, social, cultural—there has followed a limitation backlash or regression. See how the world spins today, for all its unleashings, half of it locked silent under dictatorships and totalitarian governments. Indeed, the central paradox of this period may be that never before in history has the world lived with so much freedom and repression simultaneously. At times, this living arrangement has seemed almost companionable, each cri de coeur begging for the slamming of a door.
The Russians revolt, the Russians repress. So too for the Cubans, the Chinese. Repression in the democracies has taken milder forms—"conformity" or concessions to "the bureaucracy," the drab repetitiveness of life brought on by all those marvelous modern conveniences or by those awful government regulations. Ever since the late 1940s the creature of the times has asked: Where is the sense of self that freedom was supposed to assure? Men in gray flannel suits caught the 7:20 a.m. from Darien, Conn., folded the Wall Street Journal in all the right places, nursed a Gibson at the club and eyed the secretary. "Robots, Smith. Mark my words; we're going to be replaced by robots." How can you tell? Strung out along the airport roads, one Pizza Hut, one Burger King; "We do it all for you." Say, what city is this? The Organization Man, The Double. The Invisible Man, both black and white, is judged by his credit cards ("Do you know me?"), relies on television for his frame of common reference, stares at reruns of The Stepford Wives, Frankenstein and Dracula. "The living dead, Smith. That's what we are. Care to try my Walkman?"
It is not that the age has been bereft of individuals, mad and violent individuals in particular. The list of strange and dangerous national leaders who have arisen in our times makes quite scary reading: Pol Pot, Peron, Arafat, Idi Amin, the Ayatullah, Gaddafi. But for the common run, this has largely been a time when individuals have identified themselves with groups, classes and movements. In the recent past, Americans have seen the emergence of black nationalists, Gray Panthers, homosexuals, the women's movement and ethnic groups by the dozens. By amassing in numbers, the members of such organizations gain political influence and often effect political ends, which is their immediate purpose. Yet there also seems to be some personal value or solace in these group identifications, needs filled beyond the practical.