... do his best in situations he would rather have avoided. Toughness of character--that's what we think of when we think of Harry Truman. But something has happened to the American character in the last fifty years. Philip Rieff has called it "the triumph of the ... emphasis on feelings--"How do you feel about this?"--as if your feelings were the ultimate arbiter of what is right and wrong. In Debbie Boone's smash hit record back in the seventies, "You Light Up My Life," she sang, "It can't be wrong if it feels ...
