Losing Faith In Almost Everything

We go to famed Middletown, USA — Muncie, Indiana– for a portrait of tough times and Americans checking out of faith in almost everything.

Muncie, Indiana has been under the microscope of American sociologists for the better part of a century now. Middletown, USA. The archetype. The tuning fork. Know Muncie and you know the land, was the idea.

Well, if that’s true, two big reporters now say, we are in trouble – or, at least ready for some major change. They’ve gone back to Muncie and found Americans giving up on just about everything. Banks, schools, city hall, church. “In Nothing We Trust” is their headline. Wooph!

This hour, On Point: When it all falls down. We’re going back to Muncie.
-Tom Ashbrook

Ron Fournier, editor-in-chief of the National Journal Group. His latest article with Sophie Quinton is In Nothing We Trust.

Sophie Quinton, staff reporter at the National Journal.

National Journal "Johnny Whitmire shuts off his lawn mower and takes a long draw from a water bottle. He sloshes the liquid from cheek to cheek and squirts it between his work boots. He is sweating through his white T-shirt. His jeans are dirty. His middle-aged back hurts like hell. But the calf-high grass is cut, and the weeds are tamed at 1900 W. 10th St., a house that Whitmire and his family once called home. “I’ve decided to keep the place up,” he says, “because I hope to buy it back from the bank."

Salon "Fournier and Quinton’s piece goes on to describe the decline in various Muncie institutions: the mainline Protestant church dying as a corporate-inspired Megachurch thrives outside of town, some local government scandal involving improperly cast absentee ballots and an arrogant one-term mayor."

Reason "But none of this addresses the core argument of this wrist-cutter of a journalistic endeavor: Americans are losing faith in the institutions that made this country great."

American Radio Works "Robert and Helen Lynd published their groundbreaking study of an ordinary American community they called "Middletown" in 1929. "Middletown" is actually Muncie, Indiana, and over the years many other researchers have returned to study the people who live there."