Hartz noted in the mid-1950s that the distinctive American ethos he described can lead to either messianism or isolationism, with a tendency to oscillate between the two. „An absolute national morality,“ he wrote, „is inspired either to withdraw from ‚alien‘ things or to transform them: it cannot live in comfort constantly by their side.“
—Paul Pillar, Why America Misunderstands the World, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016), 16.
