Aging & Wisdom Quote by Harold Rosenberg

America, for Rosenberg, isn’t a settled society so much as a perpetual makeover project. The line “civilization of people engaged in transforming themselves” frames national identity as performance: self-invention as civic religion. That’s not praise so much as diagnosis. Rosenberg, steeped in postwar cultural criticism, understood how quickly “freedom” in America slides into a demand to constantly revise the self to stay legible, employable, and admired.

His casting call is the real provocation. He replaces the old heroic types - “the pioneer and the immigrant” - with “youth and the Black,” shifting the spotlight from conquering space to contesting power. The subtext is that American renewal now comes less from expansion than from confrontation: generational rebellion and Black political struggle as the engines forcing the country to reimagine itself. It’s a bracing reframing of the 1960s as not merely a period of unrest but as the latest chapter in an American habit: turning social conflict into a narrative of reinvention.

The phrasing “the stars of the performance” carries a cool, slightly cynical bite. These groups are centered, but also consumed. America needs protagonists to dramatize its evolution; it elevates challengers while making them part of the show. Rosenberg’s intent is double-edged: he recognizes the moral and cultural force of youth movements and Black freedom struggles, while warning that the nation’s talent for turning transformation into spectacle can dilute the stakes.