I think it was Harry Truman's phrase: "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." It represented a certain toughness of character which was typical of Harry Truman. Truman didn't want to do certain things, including being president. All you have to do is see the picture of him at his inauguration to realize that he really wanted to be some place else. But his sense of duty, his sense of loyalty, his sense of personal responsibility led him to 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 therapeutic," by which he means that the ethic that is appropriate for therapy ha…