MICHAEL BARONE "Hard America, Soft America;" Battle for the Nation's Future

Random House ^ | BOOK REVIEW

[Liz]

Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future

A peculiar feature of our country today, says Michael Barone, is that we seem to produce incompetent eighteen-year-olds but remarkably competent thirty-year-olds. Indeed, American students lag behind their peers in other nations, but America remains on the leading edge economically, scienti?cally, technologically, and militarily.

The reason for this paradox, explains Barone in this brilliant essay, is that “from ages six to eighteen Americans live mostly in what I call Soft America—the parts of our country where there is little competition and accountability. But from ages eighteen to thirty Americans live mostly in Hard America—the parts of American life subject to competition and accountability.” While Soft America coddles, Hard America plays for keeps.

Educators, for example, protect children from the rigors of testing, ban dodgeball, and promote just about any student who shows up. But most adults quickly ?gure out that how they do depends on what they produce.

Barone sweeps readers along, showing how we came to the current divide—for things weren’t always this way. In fact, no part of our society is all Hard or all Soft, and the boundary between Hard America and Soft America often moves back and forth. Barone also shows where America is headed—or should be headed. We don’t want to subject kindergartners to the rigors of the Marine Corps or leave old people uncared for. But Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America, and we have the luxury of keeping part of our society Soft only if we keep most of it Hard.

Hard America, Soft America reveals: • How the American situation is unique: In Europe, schooling is competitive and demanding, but adult life is Soft, with generous welfare bene?ts, short work hours, long vacations, and state pensions • How the American military has reclaimed the Hard goals and programs it abandoned in the Vietnam era • How Hardness drives America’s economy—an economy that businesses and economists nearly destroyed in the 1970s by spurning competition • How America’s schools have failed because they are bastions of Softness—but how they are ?nally showing signs of Hardening • The benefits of Softness: How government programs like Social Security were necessary in what was a harsh and unforgiving America • Hard America, Soft America is a stunningly original and provocative work of social commentary from one of this country’s most respected political analysts.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

MICHAEL BARONE is a senior writer with U.S. News & World Report and a contributor to Fox News Channel. He is the principal coauthor of the biannual Almanac of American Politics and the author of two acclaimed works of political history, Our Country and The New Americans. A graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, he lives in Washington, D.C.

[Liz]

Barone sweeps readers along, showing how we came to the current divide—for things weren’t always this way. In fact, no part of our society is all Hard or all Soft, and the boundary between Hard America and Soft America often moves back and forth. Barone also shows where America is headed—or should be headed. We don’t want to subject kindergartners to the rigors of the Marine Corps or leave old people uncared for. But Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America, and we have the luxury of keeping part of our society Soft only if we keep most of it Hard.

[Cincinatus]

I don't think that it's so much the existence of "hard" and "soft" America that's the problem -- it's that we've become unable or unwilling to distinguish which one is required for what purpose and when. Also, the tendency to "soften" seems to dominate most political discourse, even in war, as we've seen over the last few weeks.

[saveliberty]

I love Michael Barone, but he's missing something. I think that the companies teach our kids where public schools fail. And they reward based on performance. While "teaching" in public schools these days is almost against the law. Why should the kid respect the "knowledge" of someone who has them fill out forms and share the experience?

[Liz]

"Soft" is another word for political correctness, I'd say Barone is trying to plaster over the political correctness atrocity. Our culture despertaly needs new dialogues to explain, in order to correct, the societal messes left by liberals.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the review.

I heard Britt Hume interview Barron where he talked abit about the book and thought it would be good.

Got to dial up Amazon now.

[Miss Marple]

Barone talked about this on Fox over the weekend. It is a bit more complicated than this review indicates.

I thought it was a good way to look at things, and to understand why there is such a disconnect between schools and the public, the military and democrats, and business vs. unions. It also explains the political divide in our country.

[Liz]

I think that the companies teach our kids where public schools fail.

But why should they have to? What is the purpose of schooling if not to prepare kids for jobs? Most everybody has to have a job.

Our schools are obsessed with the NEA agenda which sacrifices academics on the altar of socially diverse and sexually explicit courses that do nothing to prepare kids for the business world.

You don't need to know how to put on a condom or where to get an abortion in order to get a job.

[Liz]

Saw the interview. Barone is an intellectual giant. I would imagine the book can be dissected several ways. Haven't read it yet.

[Helms]

Michael Barone also speaks about the Centralized Elites that since Yale Law School thought they were the very best and brightest. Note that there is not an quantum /astrophysicist or neuro-anatomist in the bunch.

Just a group of Charlatans.

[My2Cents]

Hard/Soft...Red/Blue...

[Dan from Michigan]

The school of hard knocks. Best school on the planet.

[NutCrackerBoy]

Barone's career seems to be on the rise.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

.

HILLARY's Lifetime M.O. =


"Rule-Making for others, Rule-Breaking for herself"...


...stated MICHAEL BARONE in a 1999 U.S. News & Report Magazine Column...

...and Repeated on the air in his Appearance on C-SPAN's 'Washington Journal' TV Interview Program shortly afterwards.


The Enemy is now Within...
and always has been.


.

[FierceDraka]

Hard to believe that those tiny blue areas cause so much trouble for the vast red areas.

[Right_in_Virginia]

I heard Britt Hume interview Barron where he talked abit about the book and thought it would be good. Got to dial up Amazon now.

I missed Brit's interview...but, I've long been impressed with Michael Barone's insights.

I'll catch up with you over at Amazon ;^)

[Riverman94610]

"What is the purpose of education other than to teach students how to get a job"?
How about to teach them how to appreciate good literature,music and art?How about exposing them how to be critical discerning thinkers and responsible adults?How about teaching them that a life of the mind is a worthwhile pursuit intrinsically?
Yes,someone who graduates from college and is not employable is pretty pathetic.I am saying,however, that goal should not be the SOLE purpose of higher education.
Riverman

[x]

I don't think that it's so much the existence of "hard" and "soft" America that's the problem -- it's that we've become unable or unwilling to distinguish which one is required for what purpose and when.

Good point.

During the Internet Boom there was a lot of talk about how the "soft" America was driving the economy. Cities went out of their way to woo gays, opera lovers, and design students thinking that they pointed the way to the high tech future. Of course it was all nonsense, but it's not clear that pitting the hard against the soft is really the answer either.

Everything comes down to basic and fundamental truths, but sometimes it serves us well to build on the fundamentals, and to take them as the first, rather than the last word in life. One ought to be able to oppose the excesses of soft America without reducing everything to the economic bottom line.

[Liz]

Don't miss the point. I'm talking basics---nut and bolts. You're talking the cream on top of the cake. And try to remember that social engineering is the big problem.

[saveliberty]

I don't believe in entitlements, so I don't think that companies should have to educate children, but they must think that they have to in order to be profitable.

The Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group found that there is no relationship between education spending and quality of education. Instead they found that children succeed when their parents do homework with them every night. Schools should actually teach facts, data and analytical thought, and parents should be monitoring the success or failure of the school(s) that their children attend.

[Imagine]

Credit the public education system in America (under the control of the extreme agenda of the NEA) for creating an educational system that advances educational ideology that permits children to advance with flying colors based upon their "feelings." And, of course, it is required that those feelings accept diversity, homosexuality, socialism, stateism, big government, phoney environmentalism, hate-religion, hate-conservatism, and all the other bull-sh*t that the left promotes -- but no undestanding that they must study the basics (reading, writing and computing) to make it in life. Grrrrr, I just hate what the NEA has done to American children.