American life, at least in times of peace, lacks external discipline is grossly apparent. There is a widespread want of that demeanor ordered by the sense of some higher whole, which gives purpose, alertness, and dignity to personal behavior. Our society is full of people, of all ages and classes, who have more liberty, in the sense of unrestriction, than they know how to use. Having emancipated themselves from restraint and lacking worthy ideals of what to do next, they spend themselves in crude and inept behavior, not definitely harmful, perhaps, but disgusting from the state of mind it displays. I am inclined to think there is something deceptive about this apparent laxity, and that the American compares well in real self-control with the individual of more orderly societies.
American life is slipshod rather than anarchic.
One great task laid upon us is to justify democracy by proving that it has a constructive and disciplinary energy and is by no means the mere individualism and spiritual disorder that its enemies have charged. I should say that of two societies suffering equally, one from too little external discipline, and the other from too much, the former was in a more hopeful condition. It is, other things equal, more adaptable, in an earlier and more plastic stage of development. If the people are not lacking in constructive power you may expect them to develop as much discipline as they need. But a well-developed formalism, on the other hand, is a mature, rigid thing, not likely to transform itself into freedom by a gradual process, capable of reform only through revolution.