We scan many books as we prepare our books for online sale. Seldom do we find such compelling narratives in the preface to a book, but what we found recently is worth quoting. It is from Michael Novak in a 1971 paperback Colophon version of "The Experience of Nothingness". We don't know if this qualifies as philosophy, since the category on the back has both philosophy and religion, but the words still seem to resonate over 40 years later as a contemporary observation on the American experience: We could not find this quote anywhere else on the Internet.

Many of the young still seem to be tempted by traditional American illusions—that the annunciation of moral goals is itself a moral act, that moral energy is the same as or better than political energy, that “progress” will come more or less automatically from good will (or other changes in consciousness), that morality consists in the individual’s “doing his thing” (hoary laissez faire), that there lurks up ahead somewhere, behind a hidden door, under a tree, within some hidden cave, a greening light of hope and prosperity and bliss: some magical dream drawing all Americans onward.

Many Americans, old and young, have seen too much, and absorbed too much pain to go on believing in mirages. Life is much more terrifying than easy hope pretends. Ugly, boring, painful, vastly disillusioning experiences stalk our lives. There is much more solitude in life than anything in the ideology of our education teaches us. The gratifications and excitements of upward mobility sooner or later abandon us to the dizzying inner spaces of our rootlessness.

We will not be relaxing in self-satisfaction after reading the above quote about  "a greening light of hope and prosperity and bliss". Click on the picture link below to read more or to purchase this book at the My-Lynx Associates website.