But something is wrong.

But what are we to make of a man who is committed in the most radical sense to the proposition that truth is attainable by science and that emotional gratification is attainable by interacting with one's environment and at the highest level by the enjoyment of art? It seems that everything is settled for him. But something is wrong. He has settled everything except what it is to live as an individual. He still has to get through an ordinary Wednesday afternoon. Such a man is something like the young man Kierkegaard described who was given the task of keeping busy all day and finished the task at noon. What does this man do with the rest of the day?
the rest of his life?

--Walker Percy, Signposts in a Strange Land (1991)

I am not ashamed...

I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed at myself for having at one time been ashamed. About eighty-five years ago they were told they were free, united with others of our country in everything pertaining to the common good, and, in everything social, separate like the fingers of the hand. And they believed it. They exulted in it. They stayed in their place, worked hard, and brought up my father to do the same.

—Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)

"your great common man"

"Oh I am aware that we hear a great many flattering things nowadays about your great common man—you know, it has always been revealing to me that he is perfectly content so to be called, because that is exactly what he is: the common man and when I say common I mean common as hell. Our civilization has achieved a distinction of sorts. It will be remembered not for its technology nor even its wars but for its novel ethos. Ours is the only civilization in history which has enshrined mediocrity as its national ideal. Others have been corrupt, but leave it to us to invent the most undistinguished of corruptions. No orgies, no blood running in the street, no babies thrown off cliffs. No, we're sentimental people and we horrify easily. True, our moral fiber is rotten. Our national character stinks to high heaven. But we are kinder than ever. No prostitute ever responded with a quicker spasm of sentiment when our hearts are touched. Nor is there anything new about thievery, lewdness, lying, adultery. What is new is that in our time liars and thieves and whores and adulterers wish also to be congratulated and are congratulated by the great public, if their confession is sufficiently psychological or strikes a sufficiently heartfelt and authentic note of sincerity. Oh, we are sincere. I do not deny it. I don't know anybody nowadays who is not sincere. ... We are the most sincere Laodiceans who ever got flushed down the sinkhole of history."

—Aunt Emily in Walker Percy's The Moviegoer (1961)