Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, the past 30-40 years have been a period of surprisingly slow social change in America. Slow relative to the century that came before, slow relative to changes in the less developed or formerly communist countries, and slow—I suspect—relative to the decades to come. Slow change has meant that most Americans now live in houses similar or identical to those of their parents' generation. They likewise use similar appliances, recline on similar furniture, speak the same language, employ similar grooming products and standards of hygiene, are educated at the same institutions, wear similar clothing, eat similar foods, work similar jobs for similar hours each day, drive at similar speeds, listen to similar music and watch similar TV shows, sleep the same hours, and die of the same diseases. Even the themes of social and political debate remain those inherited from the 1960s: racism, sexism, affirmative action, diversity, inequality, sexual freedom, the size of government, the scope of market regulation, entitlement programs, income redistribution, taxation, deficits, "free markets" versus "social justice," free-trade versus protectionism, immigration, the environment, and so forth.
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