“Once, we are told, a hardy species of freelance thinker roamed the landscape of the American mind. This breed was independent, fiercely so. It practiced social and cultural criticism but never used jargon, and its accessible manner won a large audience. It prospered until not much later than the 1950s. Indeed, it is possible to speak of that decade as a kind of golden age. But then something happened. More particularly, the 1960s happened, and the 1970s– an era of disintegrating consensus, of proliferating theoretical schemata, of perverse refusals to follow the guiding example of one’s elders. Smart young people decided not to write well.”