American Mania: When More Is Not Enough Essay

INTRODUCTIONIt takes immense courage to question something that has been so firmly inscribed into ones mind or something that everyone accepts as normal, it also takes great insight to be fit to see past the monotony and mundane details of life and observe something that is greatly and equally poignant a nation. Mr. Whybrow accomplishes this with great eloquence in his book American mania.Adam smiths American imagine of depth and desireThe book begins with the chapter titled Adam smiths American dream of depth and desire in which Mr. Whybrow gives an account of his taxi ride on the way to the airport to contract a flight from Los Angles to New York, he tells his story in almost a poetic way describing the myriad of scenes that he observes. He points out everything that agnizes him reflect on how rapidly the world is moving and how everyone is world swept away with this storm and how no one stops to think about where theyre actually headed and how everyone has less and less ti me for the small things in life, things which once were considered to be the essence of life.The author seeks to explicate the dramatic shift away from social concern and toward competitive self-interest that occurred during the closing decades of the 20th cytosine (p. 257). Whybrow, himself a British immigrant, advances the hypothesis that Americans are a nation of migrants who are outfitted not entirely with the self-seeking genes but also with the restless, risk-taking genes of those who have risked all to look for a new land of opportunity. Whybrow argues that extremely migrant people are novelty seekers, restless and optimistic risk-takers,CONCLUSIONWhybrows theories are charged because they not only revisit the possibility of psychoanalysis in the alliance of culture, speculating beyond the anthropology and identity government that all cultures are just as advantageous, but also challenge us to reassess the inadequacy of our psychological descriptions. Identifying a cult ure as hectic or obsessed is somewhat useful in attempting to avoid the idea of national character but to propose a basic personality as the repository of a societys values, from which individual character differentiates is a mammoth task Mr. Whybrow manages to make the reader question the values and beliefs that we have come to cherish so dearly.WORKS CITEDPeter Whybrow (2006) American Mania When More Is Not Enough. Retrieved on 18th October 2006 from http//www.amazon.com/American-Mania-When-More-Enough/dp/0393059944