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001			muse87194
003			MdBmJHUP
005			20210127151808.0
006			m o d
007			cr||||||||nn|n
008			200729r20202016xxu o 00 0 eng d
020			_a9780692725474
035			_a(OCoLC)1183730412
040			_aMdBmJHUP _cMdBmJHUP
043			_an-us---
050		4	_aE169.12 _b.O53 2016
082	0		_a973.932 _223
100	1		_aO'Neill, Tom, _eauthor.
245	1	0	_aWhy the Center Can't Hold: A Diagnosis of Puritanized America _cby Tom O'Neill.
264		1	_bProject Muse,
264		3	_bProject MUSE,
300			_a1 online resource (xv, 347 pages)
500			_aIssued as part of book collections on Project MUSE.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (pages 335-337) and index.
505	0		_aOur accelerating disinvestment in education -- The growing ascendance of the rich -- Our tenaciously expanding belief in force -- The sense nature can take whatever we dish out -- How the signs of incoherence cohere in pointing toward disintegration -- Skepticism about history -- Skepticism about beauty -- Skepticism about morality -- Skepticism about anything being known absolutely (absolute skepticism) -- "Fundamentalism will save us!" -- "God will save us from ourselves!" -- "The next election (or the one after that) will save us!" -- "I've decided to be a survivor!."
506	0		_aOpen Access _fUnrestricted online access _2star
520			_a"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." These words from Yeats's poem "The Second Coming" provide Why the Center Can't Hold with its organizing theme. And although Yeats was describing the grim atmosphere of post-World War I Europe, O'Neill regards the poem's pronouncements as eerily predictive of the state of the world as we are currently observing it. O'Neill takes them as predictive of the agency in particular of the United States--the "Center"--in bringing about in the world the more general chaos we are now observing (relative to various refugee and migrant crises, the emergence of sophisticated and even postmodern forms of militant and cyber terrorism, banking and other monetary crises, environmental catastrophes under the aegis of climate change, the defunding of public higher education, the persistence of virulent forms of racism and other types of intolerance, the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, the marginalisation and even outright elimination of human labor forces, etc.). O'Neill provides historical analyses that illuminate why this is the case, and he also asks what changes in the United States -- in its politics, in its socio-cultural formations, and in its beliefs and (supposedly common) values -- might help us to avoid the seemingly inevitable (and lamentable) destruction that lies ahead.
588			_aDescription based on print version record.
650		0	_aCapitalism.
650		0	_aReligion and sociology.
651		0	_aUnited States _xIntellectual life _y21st century.
651		0	_aUnited States _xCivilization.
655		0	_aElectronic books.
655		7	_aElectronic books. _2local
710	2		_aProject Muse, _edistributor.
776	1	8	_iPrint version: _z9780692725474
710	2		_aProject Muse. _edistributor
830		0	_aBook collections on Project MUSE.
856	4	0	_zFull text available: _uhttps://muse.jhu.edu/book/76509/
999			_c27045 _d27045