The Great Divorce

A mericans are not ungovernable, but politicians, intellectuals, and administrators of all types have regularly dashed themselves on the rocks trying to get Americans to conform, to obey, to fill out their forms in triplicate, or to seek permission. In fact, this quality about the American people is so deep and so multifarious that the category of “libertarian” is inadequate to describe or contain the entirety of the impulse.

Although they are today held out as antagonists and opponents, libertarians share this rebellious attitude toward authority with populists. But adding even that term still doesn’t cover the whole of it. There are also entrepreneurial and prophetic energies in American life, again as often opposed to each other as conjoined with one another.