ABSTRACT
Americans have always reserved the right to reinvent themselves—to wade into the waters of rebirth and emerge with new faiths, new livelihoods, new spouses, new sexual preferences, and even new names. The cult of unending self improvement, our informal national religion, takes as its primary article of faith the idea that who a person was yesterday or happens to be today does not determine who he’ll be tomorrow.… This is the land of clean slates and second chances. (Kirn, 2002, pp. 28–29)
