Every child in America is now supposed to be above average. Every parent is supposed to raise his sons and daughters to be “leaders.” The empowerment motto is “you can have it all.”

In such a culture, considering yourself as a role player somehow sounds un-American. It is ill-fitting in this age to sacrifice one’s autonomy and individualism, see oneself as part of an institution, and ask, to borrow the wording of conservative intellectual Yuval Levin, What is my role, and what ought I do, given that role?