American Background

AND KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY--Margaret Mead--Morrow ($2.50).

This book is a discussion of the U.S. future written by an anthropologist--Margaret Mead, author of Growing Up in New Guinea, Sex & Temperament. Says Miss Mead: "This is not an attempt to take off Americans' clothes. ... It is an attempt to say: In the last 17 years I have been practicing a certain way of looking at peoples. I bring it ... to you ... at this moment when no American can escape the challenge to use what special or accidental skills he has."

Before we can turn to any major problem of war and peace, says Author Mead, we must learn what we are ourselves. Without this knowledge we cannot judge our aptitude for fighting, peaceful living, cooperation or reconstruction.

What We Are. Above all, most of us are third-generation Americans. Grandfather did his best to leave the Old Country behind him, to train Father to be an American. He also berated Father for being too "American" in his free & easy attitude towards his parents. Father suffered from seeing Grandmother "wear a kerchief over her head," was embarrassed by Grandfather's "broken accent." Father carried into American life "the attitude of the second-generation American"--"a combination of contempt and avoidance" for European things and people. So strong was this attitude, says Miss Mead, that it often became the dominant national spirit "in those parts of the country which we speak of as 'isolationist.' "

Third Generation. The third generation is conscious of having a grandfather who sought liberty in a new country, but his picture of that "epic" is dulled by the fact that Father does not respect the old man. It is his simple duty to outstrip his father.

Thus begins, says Miss Mead, the typical American race for success. Success, not class, she insists, is the American standard of a man's value, rooted deeply in the Puritan belief that toil and struggle are the proper works of man. "In his parents' every gesture, the child learns that although they want to love him very much . . . they are not quite sure that he will deserve it, that when they check him up against the baby book and the neighbors' baby, he will come out A-1 and so worthy of complete, blind love."

Thus, from the first, a child must struggle in competition if he is to be loved and respected. All that he does is judged by father, mother, teacher, friends, in terms of how good or bad it is in relation to the behavior of others.

To the American's passion for success, says Author Mead, must be added other deep-rooted characteristics. One is the conviction that an American must be able to "take it." But as a balance to this "toughness" is the expanded American form of British "fair play" -- the dislike of "picking on" a weaker person.

Finally, there is the old chip-on-the-shoulder tradition: there must be an excuse for violence before the American can feel morally justified in being aggressive.

How will this national character face up to total war? asks Author Mead. How can it best be drawn upon to fight now and reconstruct later? Some of her suggestions :

> Because Americans trust themselves more than their parents, they also trust themselves more than their generals, leaders, officials. This means "that we can only move forward as a whole people" and that our leaders' appeal to us must be as people like ourselves.

> Washington must not lay down hard & fast rules of action. "Our strength comes out when we feel that we are grown up and in control, but ebbs away from us when we feel a parent hand."

>Suppression of bad news for the sake of "morale" is a fatal mistake. When it happens, the American looks at his leaders with a "strong suspicion that our 'morale' is just another name for your skins."

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