Brad, I see you edited your first post. Thank you, thank you, thank you veeery muuch.
DeTocqueville and Baltzell in the context of this thread probably are pretty interesting but even if it may be a bit off the subject, I think some of Olmsted's fundamental beliefs about the benefits of community as a motivator of culture and civility and taste through community "landplanning" just may be more apropos to certain golf and golf architectural projects even if perhaps just a select few, and perhaps rare.
After all, who couldn't say that Tom Cousins attempt in Atlanta at Eastlake golf course and outlying community wasn't a stab at the very philosophy that Olmsted was essentially trying to achieve? In both cases the feeling of "community", of "belonging", seems to have been the goal of both.
I think one of the most important things to try to do in threads on this kind of subject is to try to put aside whatever may be our personal political beliefs and try to look at the bigger picture in an historic as well as a contemporary light. If we can do that we can probably find things in both worlds or both extremes that have some kind of utility somehow.
You may think I'm an elitist but I'm really not. I feel that there were some things that were valuable in the context of the concept of elitism at its finest---eg the concept of "Noblesse Oblige" as it once functioned at its best and purist was one of those things. Unfortunately it eventually devolved into prevalent snobbery and defensiveness on the part of those whose forebears may have practiced it best.
On the other hand, I'm not a fan of total governmental "social engineering". It has been shown to be a philosophy which has initial appeal and benefit but if taken too far becomes hugely negative in a social and culture sense.
I'm a big believer in various words and terms particularly if they can manage to convey the true meaning of the philosophy they represent. And I'm no fan at all of some of our fundamental terms or the general perception of them.
America as the land of Equality is one of those misperceptions. The United States and its unique and radical experiment in government never offered its citizens equality, and never really intended to. It only offered them "equality of opportunity". That denotes a contract, albeit it perhaps one of faith, between the government and its citizens and it requires a certain set of responsibilities on the part of both. Apparently too many US citizens have either forgotten or were never aware that they have a certain responsibility to themselves to act on their opportunities. Too many obviously think America offered them a free ride on which the government isn't upholding its end of the contract, or promise, or whatever it is that some US citizens think was offered to them by the United States of America.