A vivid example of the powerful changing of the American mind during just a few short years in the twentieth century can be found this week on Turner Classic Movies, as the movie channel replays two films which I pointed out in an earlier article illustrate the radical change in American elites’ views of personal responsibility and moral accountability.

The films are Blind Alley, from 1939, scheduled for Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. EST, and The Dark Past, from 1948, showing at 6:45 p.m. EST, both on TCM as noted above.

I believe that a viewing of these two films after reading my article will give readers a vivid sense of the enormity of this change and the immense, deleterious consequences it brought about.—S. T. Karnick