When wave after wave of immigrants came to America from Europe, the predominant motive for their immigration was to better themselves socially and economically. They believed in the possibilities of work and thrift. They had a puritanism of their own which complemented the puritanism of the original English settlers. As early as 1959, Weigel believed that America seemed to be following the pattern of past cultures in their growth and decline. The achieved national prosperity weakens the puritanism and no effective dynamism is substituted for it.
Movement is in terms of momentum from the past, but it is gradually being slowed up.
Weigel believed that the flight from puritanism rendered Americans collectively incapable of the rigors of training to meet social challenges. Training is hard and only some kind of puritanism, stoic or Christian, can make it palatable. America's retreat from puritanism has made self-sacrifice unattractive, the basic presupposition for great action of human significance. Weigel feared that a hedonistic spirit was undermining the social fabric of American life. This is not freedom in an ethical sense but sheer irresponsibility and a form of despair.