“The philosopher George Santayana once observed that Americans don’t solve problems, they leave them behind. If there’s an idea they don’t like, they don’t bother refuting it, they simply talk about something else, and the original idea dies from inattention. If a situation bothers them, they leave it in the past” (David Brooks, On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense [New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004], 47).