The Blog | Philip Slater: The Heart is at the Periphery | The Huffington Post

I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd someday make a comment to Philip Slater. I used to read the "Pursuit of Loneliness - American Culture at its Breaking Point" a number of years ago traveling to Irving Goffman's sociological "paradise" an island of about 3-4000 people, to Grand Manan Island in Canada, where I once considered living as an immigrant. My grandfather had come from that island and became an American, though he served in the Canadian Black Watch in WWI at 16 (I hope!). Four wars later he used to take us there as youngsters. Your point is well taken, the proposed static creation could harm the Union (many states up until just 100 years ago, 3 generations, weren't states at all) and I might think the "static" imposition of the lack of citizenry for some (blacks, from what was a large slave market, Mexico) actually tore the Nation apart, along with some other factors I've studied in my anthropology and historical archaeology you helped inspire me to. Thanks.