I really should double check things I think I remember. It wasn’t an essay, just a entry from “In Our Time” about cultural icons of the 70s. Here it is in full:

/3 It acknowledged — subtly sometimes, but irrefutably — that we’ve done wrong and bad things but are capable of doing better. It reminded me of the Clinton inaugural line
“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”