Stars define civilization, as no single natural feature on Earth--tree, rock, stream, or mountain--can be said to define cultures. - Yi-Fu Tuan

America is a much newer experiment in human living, one with moral concerns at its core. In this respect it differs from Europe, which has preferred sophistication and worldly wisdom to "righteousness," and resembles China, which saw the universe itself as essentially a moral order. However materialistic Americans may be in their economic pursuits, their ceremonies emphasize the material far less than European societies have. America has imposing official architecture. Washington, D.C., boasts a radial baroque stateliness. Yet one of its most important buildings, the White House, is a modest dwelling, its scale far smaller than that of the palaces of Europe and Asia.

A special target of examination ought to be how societies differ in making room for pauses in the midst of life, for it is during such pauses that individuals are able to appraise the meaning of what they have undergone.

Children learn early in life that they cannot always count on their parents’ attention much less their smiles, a lesson in human unpredictability that has to be learned over and over again.