Word: griffith
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Egalitarianism: "That all men were created equal is one of the great fictions," argues Griffith, and has become as absolute as "the divine right of kings." Where excellence is snubbed as undemocratic the second-and third-rate rule...
...Belief in Disbelief. In the first third of the book, Author Griffith offers his autobiographical press pass to American life. Seattle-born, Griffith had a boardinghouse boyhood more apt for the pen of Dickens than the brush of Norman Rockwell. Entering the University of Washington in the Depression year of 1932 as a journalism student, he learned, he admits, precious little about journalism or anything else. In such "vast, endearingly inadequate academic ballparks," Griffith argues, "the indulgent curse of mediocrity in American life begins...
After rising from police reporter to assistant city editor of the Seattle Times, Griffith went east in 1942 on a Nieman fellowship, then joined TIME. When foreign news duties took Griffith to Europe, he, like many another American, fell under the spell of the Continent's ancient glories, but coolly assessed its caretaker, rather than dare-taker, cultures. He admired the well-bred aplomb of knowledgeable Englishmen whose ease of manner gives "the impression of having already lived once," but found "too many reserved seats" in English life. He was drawn to the independent French spirit of live...
...Dreams. As for what is awry in his native land at midcentury, Griffith picks three inter-related targets...
...Author Griffith proffers no ready cure for the distemper of the times. He raises a muffled cheer for a selfless elite that would set high cultural standards and hew to them. But he spurns existing elites as too withdrawn, 'insecure, and narrowly snobbish for the task...