ONE NATION AFTER ALL.

By Alan Wolfe. Viking. 384 pp. $24.95

Elites commonly declare that the American public has become extremely contentious, even angry, about religious and political doctrines and behavior. Wolfe, by refreshing contrast, sees a nation "dominated by the ideas of the reasonable majority: people who believe themselves to be modest in their appetites, quiet in their beliefs, and restrained in their inclinations." The Boston University sociologist bases his conclusions on 200 in-depth interviews with "middleclass" Americans in eight suburban sites, and buttresses that research with national polls conducted by others.

Wolfe finds that most Americans reject an absolutist sense of religious or political truth. They basically are centrists, holding religious and political values but accepting the views of those who disagree. By 167 to 19, for example, Wolfe’s respondents believe that "there are many religious truths and we ought to be tolerant of all of them."

Although the respondents have little faith in government, Wolfe reports that they reject "the case for social and political decline that preoccupies social critics and social scientists." The great majority believe that American society is basically fair. They dispute the notion that "the country as a whole has lost its bearings." Indeed, almost everyone interviewed (184 to 5) feels that "the United States is still the best place in the world to live."

Much evidence documents that most nonelite Americans share these Panglossian views. Yet the data themselves reveal anxieties lurking beneath the optimism. A substantial majority (133 to 49) agree that "compared to 20 years ago, Americans have become more selfish." By a modest margin (110 to 92), most say that "the prospects facing my own children are worse than they were for me when I was a child." A large majority (177 to 16) feels that "it has become much harder to raise children in our society." And the in-depth interviews find many parents worrying that affluence is corrupting the moral fiber of their children. All is not right with middle-class America.

All is not entirely right with One Nation’s approach, either. Most serious to a student of stratification is the way Wolfe deals with social class. He reports that only 10 percent "classify themselves as either lower class or upper class," with the rest saying middle class. But this does not demonstrate that the United States is a middle-class country. People from Japan to Eastern Europe do the same. To identify oneself with the upper class is boastful; to identify oneself with the lower class is invidious. So when presented with this three-class question, nearly everyone reports middle-class status.

Back in 1948, however, the social psychologist Richard Centers asked respondents if they were upper class, middle class, working class, or lower class. Given the fourth choice, a plurality of respondents— between 35 and 45 percent in the United States and elsewhere—placed themselves in the working class, a noninvidious response. Published as The Psychology of Social Class (1949), Centers’s findings have been replicated in recent surveys. Middle class, as used by Wolfe and others who identify the United States as a middle-class nation, seems to include everyone not living in dire poverty or great wealth. If so, it is not a useful analytic concept.

Despite this flaw, One Nation is a thoughtful, provocative, and data-rich book. It needs a sequel. Fortunately, Wolfe is in the middle of research to provide it. One hopes the next volume will explain why the conservative and liberal literati so exaggerate the failings of their nation.

—Seymour Martin Lipset