Essay: ON PATIENCE AS AN AMERICAN VIRTUE

THE war in Viet Nam is teaching the U.S. many things, among them a lesson in patience. Limited but growing American involvement, beginning with President Kennedy's increase in military advisers in 1961, has already lasted longer than U.S. participation in World Wars I and II. Yet the prospect is that any solution, military or political, is still some years off. "Patience is the one virtue the Communists have in greater abundance than the non-Communists," said President Johnson at the Hawaii conference. "We are going to have to show them that we have learned our lesson."

Viet Nam is not the only situation that calls for national patience. Everywhere, from Charles de Gaulle's chauvinist challenge to the latest mob pulling down an American flag, the world relentlessly tests American forbearance. Equally so at home. The urgency of the young, the struggle for Negro rights, the plans for the Great Society, the space race -all raise expectations of quick success to balance against the need for measured progress. The ability to find the right pace and the steady strength for the long pull are more necessary than ever. Yet there is, and always has been, a widespread feeling that the U.S. lacks these qualities.

"We are not a patient people," says Hubert Humphrey and most of the world agrees. Americans are seen-and see themselves-as restless and driven. New skyscrapers go up at the drop of a mortgage and are torn down almost as fast. Cars, houses, jobs and spouses are changed with an ease and rapidity that shocks the rest of the world. There is the ten-city tour of Europe in two weeks, the stand-up lunch, the precooked frozen dinner, the disposable dress, the phone call instead of a letter, the formal invitation sent by telegram. There is even, for some, instant bliss through LSD. The U.S. is running an economic fever trying to end poverty and pollution, put a man on the moon and end the war in Viet Nam all at once. Is this bad? Social Ethics Professor Roger L. Shinn of Union Theological Seminary thinks that it "makes us unfortunately Faustian and more than a bit sophomoric."

Three Revolutions

Psychology and anthropology are inclined to see America as a nation of spoiled children. "Americans want immediate satisfaction," says Manhattan Psychologist Harold Greenwald. "The car buyer can't wait a week for his car." Says Manhattan Psychoanalyst Sandor Lorand: "Patience is just another quality Americans forfeit when they live in this pressure cooker. From the day the child starts school, he is under pressure. No wonder he grows up impatient-first with others, then with himself."

Abroad, the most common charge against the U.S. is that it is impetuous, trigger-happy, and always looking for quick, easy solutions. President Johnson's recent peace offensive, sending a squad of envoys zinging around the world, was widely considered too high-pressure. On the other hand, many are all for American impatience. "Cows are patient, but I never thought of Americans as bovine," says Adman David Ogilvy. "The Russians are patient-they like their movies six hours long. The French are patient-they spend five hours preparing their meals. Patience is for peasants."