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Canada, in Lloyd Axworthy's famous distinction, wields enormous "soft power," in contrast to America with its old-fashioned "hard power." If you say so, Lloyd. But it seems to me the real distinction is more profound — between hard culture and soft culture. That shrewd analyst of demographic and political trends, Michael Barone, recently published a book called Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future. It's hard to imagine anyone writing a book called Hard Canada, Soft Canada; that question got settled a generation ago. We're not the only ones, of course — a...

The subtitle of Michael Barone's useful book, Hard America, Soft America, is "Competition Vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future." I thought of the book yesterday while reading yesterday's Washington Post article on the latest trend in Soft America: Cuddling parties. Here's an excerpt (caution - read with an empty stomach): If Reid Mihalko is right, nearly all of us are desperate for someone, anyone, even someone we've just met, to hold us, rub our feet, stroke our hair. And because this is about healing, this someone might give us a long, soul-baring kiss. Then, our needs fulfilled,...

For years I’ve been mulling over the phrase, “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” and I have finally concluded that the statement is usually true apart from egregious counter-examples like the SS–where what did not kill them turned them into sadistic wraiths. In our society we generally acknowledge that the only way to gain strength and prestige is through working hard and enhancing one’s innate abilities. Even though some may dispute this reality, the proof is in the peripherals as there is probably not a work place in the country lacking one of those mundane “Sharpen the Saw” posters....

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...

Michael Barone, America's foremost political analyst, wonders why America produces so many incompetent 18-year-olds but remarkably competent 30-year-olds. The answer is in his new book, "Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future." It illuminates the two sensibilities that sustain today's party rivalry.