250 years
Past, Present, Future
I love America, but…
You know how folks point out that when you start a statement “I’m not a racist, but…” you are probably about to say something racist? Yeah.
You’re instantly on the back foot from a rhetorical perspective when you have to preface what you’re about to say. Front-load the defensiveness. Answer the most obvious criticism. You’re probably about to say something that proves you’re a piece of shit. So.
I love America, but…
Nationalism
Yuval Noah Harari asserts that when humanity really figured out how to cooperate that’s when our power, and civilization, really took off. One of the concepts underpinning that cooperation is the ability to lie. He has a story in Sapiens with a monkey promising endless bananas to another monkey to create motivation that has stuck with me for a decade. Call them lies, fictions, or just stories — they are what make humanity powerful. I like “stories” simply because I imagine people react more favorably to that framing.
Nationalism is one such story. So is religion. Corporations. History. The list is almost endless because our world is underpinned with things that do not exist in a physical reality. I like that word: “underpin.” Because these are fundamental things, essentially keystones to civilization. I think frequently people miss that they are the glue that keeps us moving forward because they give us a common set of mental models. We know what a nation-state is and that we are part of one. There are vast communities of religion that span nations. Corporations, too, spread out beyond national borders. All intertwined to form a global civilization of humanity where we juggle the mental models in our head. I’m talking to another American, or I’m talking to another Christian, or I’m talking to a coworker at my multinational employer on the other side of the world who won’t be celebrating the fourth of July.
These ideas all have holy texts too. The Declaration of Independence is one such holy text. So is the Constitution of the United States. Holy texts. Not because they are perfect — indeed the framers designed them in such a way that they would be able to change and move towards being “more perfect” as time went on. Not perfect, but holy. Sacred. They are part of the story of my nation and a huge part of the story of human civilization as well.
Patriotism
Patriotism, too, is a story. It is also an answer to a question. Is my nation the greatest in the world? Of course it is, I’m a goddamn patriot.
Thus my question today…
Is America the greatest nation in the world?
