Loss of Depth

Yeridas hadoros (the decline of generations) it would appear is not limited to Jews as we move ever further from Sinai. Among the nations of the world the decline might be even swifter as popular culture becomes ever more degraded and dehumanizing.

These glum reflections were inspired by Doris Kearns Goodwin’s remarkable A Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. The “team of rivals” refers to the three men who competed withLincoln for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination all of whomLincoln subsequently brought into leading positions in his cabinet. Secretary of State William Seward who had been considered by many the inevitable Republican nominee in 1860 becameLincoln’s closest advisor and confidant.

Goodwin interweaves the biographies of all four men of the post–Revolutionary War generation. Those biographies are based in large part on diaries and letters. (Will future biographers examine Twitter accounts?)

Politicians in those days invariably spent much time away from home and generally did not take their families with them. Nor did they return home by plane every weekend. The only means of communication were the long letters written home. These letters reveal relationships of a depth several orders of magnitude deeper than the virtual “friending” of today.