  American democracy has an exacting challenge. Lacking the time to live in the mind, Americans use quantity as a justification for lack of quality in their achievements. Quantity is potentially infinite and assures unrivaled busy-ness, but is it worth it? No, according to Santayana, if self-realization is the goal of individual life. Of course, circumstances make it difficult, perhaps impossible, for some individuals to order their lives reasonably and attain the practical wisdom to achieve individual happiness. America’s economic success would appear to make this possible for many, but to succeed Americans must abandon servility to mechanism and economics. What is needed is a life made free by a recovery of the capacity to have a vision of the good life (Persons and Places, xxxiv). According to Santayana, the fanatic is a person who has lost sight of their goals and redoubled their efforts. To supplant this busy, blind, relentlessly quantitative existence, we must regain sight of our goals. Individual life should be structured in light of those goals.