Young Man on the Make

Young Man on the Make

Radicals of the thirties, Travers Clement has recently suggested, can be classified as repenters and dissenters. The former predominate.

Radicals of the thirties, Travers Clement has recently suggested, can be classified as repenters and dissenters. The former predominate.

Some magazines, such as Commentary, specialize in documents of repentance. The November 1953 issue carries an article by William Petersen called “Is America Still the Land of Opportunity?” He tries to show in ten pages that the opinion of most sociologists to the contrary notwithstanding, the America of a beautiful war economy is still a land of opportunity. Findings to the contrary are explained as distortions introduced by “scholarly myths,” Marxism and “nostalgic Americanism.” So far, the article is no different from scores of other exercises in repentance except for its especially shoddy logic.