Hardly more than a quarter-century after Henry Luce proclaimed “the American century”, American confidence has fallen to a low ebb. Those who recently dreamed of world power now despair of governing the city of New York. Defeat in Vietnam, economic stagnation, and the impending exhaustion of natural resources have produced a mood of pessimism in higher circles, which spreads through the rest of society as people lose faith in their leaders. The same crisis of confidence grips other capitalist countries as well. In Europe, the revival of fascist movements, and a wave of terrorism all testify, in different ways, to the weakness of established regimes and to the exhaustion of established tradition. Even Canada, long a bastion of stolid bourgeois dependability, now faces in the separatist movement in Quebec a threat to its very existence as a nation.
亨利·卢斯曾（Henry Luce）称下一个世纪将由美国主宰，可是一百年还没过去四分之一，美国那股信心就泄了。曾几何时，美国上层领导做着称霸世界的美梦，现在连管理小小纽约市都分身乏术。面对越南战争惨败，经济持续下滑，自然资源濒临耗尽，美国上层阶级也觉得形势不容乐观，悲观情绪蔓延至普通民众，他们对领导人更没信心了。其他资本主义国家的信心也在逐渐崩塌。欧洲法西斯势力死灰复燃，恐怖事件屡见不鲜，种种迹象都证明资本主义政体脆弱不堪，资本主义即将走向终结。加拿大作为老牌资本主义国家，长期以来证明了资产阶级的可靠性。如今魁北克民族运动兴起，加拿大恐怕连保证国家完整都很难说。
The international dimensions of the current malaise indicate that it cannot be attributed to an American failure of nerve. Bourgeois society seems everywhere to have used up its store of constructive ideas. It has lost both the capacity and the will to confront the difficulties that threaten to overwhelm it. The political crisis of capitalism reflects a general crisis of western culture, which reveals itself in a pervasive despair of understanding the course of modern history or of subjecting it to rational direction. Liberalism, the political theory of the ascendant bourgeoisie, long ago lost the capacity to explain events in the world of the welfare state and the multinational corporation; nothing has taken its place. Politically bankrupt, liberalism is intellectually bankrupt as well. The sciences it has fostered, once confident of their ability to dispel the darkness of the ages, no longer provide satisfactory explanations of the phenomena they profess to elucidate. Neoclassical economic theory cannot explain the coexistence of unemployment and inflation; sociology retreats from the attempt to outline a general theory of modern society; academic psychology retreats from the challenge of Freud into the measurement of trivia. The natural sciences, having made exaggerated claims for themselves, now hasten to announce that science offers no miracle cures for social problems.从国际角度、多维度看当今乱局，美国并不缺乏攻克时艰的勇气，资产阶级似乎用尽了一切方法，却不想出新的、有建设性的意见。种种困难威胁着要吞噬资产阶级，他们却只是摆手，无能为力。资产阶级政治危机反映了整个西方文化危机，西方人绝望地意识到这是现代历史潮流，只能尽力驱使它往理性的方向走。先前资产阶级推崇的自由主义政治理论早就站不住脚，无法解释福利国家和多国合资公司发生的一切，可也没有新理论提出代替自由主义。自由主义不仅在政治上不合时局，理论上也依靠不住了。自由主义下发展的科学理论曾自称能驱散时代的黑暗。可理论中说不会出现的现象正在现实发生着，人们也无法用这些理论给出合理的解释。新古典主义经济理论解释不了为何通货膨胀率高时失业率也高；社会学无法建立现代社会理论框架；学术心理学达不到弗洛伊德理论那样精密。资产阶级自吹自擂这些自然科学理论多么伟大，现如今却夹着尾巴说科学本就不是什么妙药，解决不了社会问题。
当前全球范围内都出现这种揣摩不透的情况，说明问题并不能归因于美国人的怯懦。
它已没有能力，也没有意志面对来势汹汹、令人无法招架的重重困难。
人们普遍对现代历史进程茫然不解，无法以理性指点迷津。
可现在科学对自己擅长解释的现象再也拿不出令人满意的答案了。
社会学面对勾画现代社会理论的重任已经打了退堂鼓。心理学界的学究们则回避弗洛伊德的挑战，去玩弄心理学的细枝末节
现在却急着宣布科学不会奇迹般的解决任何社会问题。
From The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch
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