Feeling Proud Again: Olympic Organizer Peter Ueberroth

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Several times in this century, war, crisis, social change and activism have been followed by reactionary backlash, and then by a period of consolidation and relative calm and prosperity. If this historical pattern means anything, the current mood is not a repudiation of social progress, but rather a signal that certain important social battles have been won and now, in a moment of calm, are being digested. "This relative calm has little to do with Reagan's conservatism," says Alexander. "Rather, it reflects the institutionalizing of many of the things he has been against for years."

The nation goes imperfectly on. Teen-agers commit suicide, for reasons that baffle. The homeless sleep in our doorways or on warm-air grates. The monster deficit, which some say is the equivalent of nuclear doom, presides over the vestibule. America has been on a spending binge for years, and the arithmetic is ominous.

Nevertheless, Americans need time to imagine themselves and their possibilities again. Philippe Lefournier, executive editor of the French financial fortnightly L'Expansion, returned from a recent trip to the U.S. with this summary: "A capital boom that is proportionately as immense as it was when the railroads were laid across the West in the 19th century. A capacity for discovery and innovation in technology that is leaving Japan in the dust. A wellspring of visceral dynamism so enduring that it somehow goes beyond the psychological. The U.S. is a new country. It's the new New World."