THE PRACTICAL AMERICAN
Roper, Elmo
BOOKS The Practical American by ELMO ROPER When Stuart Chase agreed to get together some opinion research figures on the thoughts and behavior of Americans to provide the Fund for the Republic...
...We are a bit vague about capitalism as well...
...And there are few researchers with his gift for clear and communicative prose...
...We do not understand the basic principles of a free society, as articulated in the Bill of Rights, nor do we understand the basic principles of the Communist society we oppose, and so have little comprehension of the essential difference between open and closed societies...
...We believe in science but cannot define it...
...Chase finds a number of issues on which interest has not been sufficiently aroused, with consequent ignorance or confusion...
...He then proceeds to a fascinating analysis of American attitudes in most major areas ol life...
...nine out of ten of us take the optimistic view that more people are good than bad...
...We are in favor of civil liberties—up to a point...
...We respond to men more than issues, generally stick to one party but don't see great differences between Democrats and Republicans...
...Chase begins by explaining just what public opinion research is, how it has developed, and what it can do for American democracy...
...Our most characteristic political attitude is apathy, broken by the quadrennial excitement of "Who's going to win...
...3.95...
...Basically we want a mixed economy, where business, labor, and government act as counterbalancing forces...
...pragmatism may sound shallow and materialistic, but its effect on American life has been both sane and liberating...
...The result is American Credos, a profile of the mid-Twentieth Century American culled from an enormous mass of public opinion data...
...Politically, we have avoided ideological binges and have created one of the few functioning democracies in the world today...
...We are all for education, but more for its economic benefits than its intellectual enrichment...
...It has in recent years been gathered together at the Roper Public Opinion Research Center at Williams College, in the hope ol providing enlightenment to social scientists and, ultimately, self-enlightenment to Americans...
...Yet our practicality has its unquestioned limitations...
...And as for change and adaptability, we have often been ahead of our elected leaders in seeing the demands of the times...
...Our economic system has been one of unparalleled productivity...
...We will fight if necessary, but we prefer to negotiate, and survive...
...the data was scattered about the research institutions of the country and hence not available to one man's scrutiny...
...Nor are we, as a people, aware of the helps to understanding now available in the social sciences...
...Harper...
...Not given to deep philosophical thinking or high aspiration, Americans are chiefly interested in achieving the concrete goods of life...
...We are capable of saying "no" to something called the "welfare state" while saying "yes" to social security, public housing, Federal aid to schools, and medical care for the aged...
...Whatever our motives for education, we have created more of it for more of our people than any other country...
...Here, in these charted areas of ignorance, lies a challenge to our leaders and educators...
...On foreign policy: The isolationism of twenty-five years ago is dead...
...Finally, we hope for the best...
...He finds us unaware of the imperatives of the nuclear age, the massive effects of technology, the true goals of education, the implications of the population explosion...
...Americans know their place in the world and see the first concern of national policy to keep that world at peace...
...There are few writers with his understanding of public opinion research or with his ability to tell good research from bad...
...We believe in religion, but seek its reassurance more than we give our devotion...
...As for freedom—we may not completely understand it—we are for it—for ourselves and everyone else...
...Our deepest concerns are personal, centering on our homes and our families...
...This American American Credos, by Stuart Chase...
...216 pp...
...The core trait running through varied American attitudes seems to be a down-to-earth practicality...
...Domestically, we are against Communism, but we are not quite sure what it is...
...Chase is in a unique position to provide such enlightenment...
...The danger is that as a normal people taken up with the day-to-day activities of our immediate lives, we shall fail to be sensitive to the larger issues on which our fate as a nation depends...
...BOOKS The Practical American by ELMO ROPER When Stuart Chase agreed to get together some opinion research figures on the thoughts and behavior of Americans to provide the Fund for the Republic with "a check against overenthusiastic generalizations," he soon found himself in deeper than he planned...
...A few years ago such a profile could not have been written...
...As Chase points out, when we are interested and involved, we tend to bring good sense and decent instincts to our consideration of issues...
Vol. 26 • August 1962 • No. 8
