Ashwin Nanjappa đ"Mr Wang saw important, enduring patterns in what Americans might overlook as the wallpaper of their lives. He spotted subtle controls everywhere. The police did not have to mandate identity cards because the government persuaded each citizen to volunteer to have one by calling it a driverâs licence & issuing it through a motor-vehicle agency. Big corporations such as Coca-Cola relieved the government of management over the lives of millions."
"The voluntary pursuit of financial wherewithal, rather than any ideology or political system of coercion, was the ultimate source of stability. Technological superiority had become the source of Americansâ sense of national superiority.
Mr Wang was astonished by the public libraries. American libraries gave everyone access to the knowledge of generations."
What an astute observation!
"Mr Wang admired how Americans put their thin history to work inculcating a shared political tradition. He was impressed by the pageantry [of the inauguration of the president], by the creation of a tradition strong enough to guarantee the transfer of authority. The important result, he wrote, âis not that the new president has power, but that the old president thus loses powerâ."