I am an American. I say that not out of tribal pride, or with shame for being complicit in a imperial system. I only state this because it true at least conceptually. I was born into and lived the vast majority of my life in the geographic area that operates under the rules that the concept of America dictates. I agree with some, disagree with others, but regardless, I am a small replaceable cog in this giant multigenerational idea. My life is influenced by trade deals that the concept of America allows regardless of my opinions of them. There are thousands of pages of legal script that I would not know how to read if I even wanted to have an informed opinion on them, and they are constantly being updated. Somehow this this reality trickles down to me forming the highly competed on backdrop of my life. I’m oblivious to the vast majority of it. I naively assume most of my national backdrop is just the way reality has always been, ignoring the legal and cultural wars to make it just so.
As a concept, I feel America has failed to live up to its ideals, but I am unaware of any culture that has created a human rights utopia, that is at least for me what Americanness distills down to. In practice America has killed, enslaved, and exploited, people as all civilized people have. Slavery, genocide, resource theft can be understood as the fuel of civilization. But I think there is something in that we don’t define ourselves by these practices. We do them out of necessity. I won’t argue that we are not cavelar with who we destroy, or that we don’t destroy unnecessary . Perhaps though, through technological advancements and the raising of our collective consciousness, we could leave behind these habits and still maintain within the American identity. Not all unifying identities would allow for this.
So why do we want to maintain his identity? This depends on whether we want to maintain a nation state identity of course. Some claim to not want to have a nation state identity, but it seems most people saying this have still not chosen to opt out fully. Without some way we can identify collectively, how will we be able to create the belief infrastructure and social formalities to establish the trust that is necessary for the communication we need to opp into the system even partially. So why an American identity then. It's a damaged brand for many. Maybe we should rebrand ourselves through political / cultural revolution. On the other hand its has been established to be a credible brand even by people who hate America. Try to start your own country and get people interested in an elections. It's very difficult, which is why I think more people want to reform our identity rather than rebrand it. There no guarantee people could form an collective identity today that covers so many people. There no guarantee on how long it would take to do this if it was possible. And we don’t know what principals people will unite under. For these reasons I think there is value in keeping the brand America, at least until I hear something that is better, which I haven't yet.
I think the vast majority of people are on the same spectrum of being critical of America but also recognizing it as a functional part of some global system. The only two groups who I feel actually want to abolish American as a unifying identity are Democrats and Republican.. Of all the major groups composed of people living within the geography that is labeled America, I only see these two group who rather put the priorities of their organization above the priorities of being an American. To be clear I don’t think we should worship American values out of some patriotic duty, but out of the practicality. When America does bad we all suffer, because we are the ones who compose it. Not to say when America does well we all do well, but at least it's possible .
Whether we choose to still see ourselves as Americans or not, I am deeply suspicious of anyone seeing themselves as a Republican or Democrat. First problem I have is no matter what anyone's beliefs are, we are all enmeshed in a global economy that includes both Democrats and Republicans . How could any of us fully extract ourselves in modern economy from people who have political differences. Just like we may not agree with America but we are still a file in its operating system. We may agree with none of (pick your party) contemporary views, but we are still connected at least economically by people who do.
My second reason for this distrust is that the beliefs of both these organizations are constantly changing. They don't seem to change because common people are trying to work around a problem, but because elites within these social paradigm find ways to market to different demographics. Whatever ideology either of these groups have, seems to be created strategically to appeal to certain demographics, not because these groups have specific concerns which they most certainly do not as they are just ideas. People within these groups may have specific concerns, which may be what drew them to these groups, but they are a small expendable piece in a large indifferent social structure.
Finally I think these two groups are too reliant on each other as an enemy. If Democrats did not have Trump to fear/hate what would they unite behind? If Republicans did not have cringy democrats to feel superior to intellectually would they be united? I believe the answer to both questions is no. Of course democrats will replace Trump and Republicans will replace cringy Democrats. These unifyeriers may change but I doubt future unifieirers won't be further variations on “us good/ them bad” . Not to say America does not have its conceptual enemies. Terrorist , communist, Drugs. But I don’t think America needs these enemies, to bring people together. Perhaps America exploits our fears as to strengthening our cultural identity, but I believed we would have been able to form a collective identity without these otherings. I don’t believe either one of our 2 major political parties could say that.
This is also not to people won’t divide among liberal conservative lines, which is in my opinion a much older conversation than this political language. We Humans are unique in the way we can operate in different size groups. Most of human history it is thought we operated in bands about 100 -150 people. In these groups we have no need for formality as we have the biological ability to communicate effectively with a everyone. We have enough neuro matter to keep track of everyone’s sensitivities, status, likes, and dislikes. We have no need for an etiquette in theses small groups. Conservatives at heart, seem to want to return to this. Less rules, less restrictions more family etc etc. Maybe libertarian may overshoot this bit and want to center on being an individual, which I don’t think humans have ever been. Many other conservatives want to return power locally which is still way more complex than our small band, but I see conservative energy generally going in this direction.
Humans for at least 10,000 years have also been organizing in larger and larger groups. This requires formal etiquette, as we do not have the biological ability to have informal relations with millions of people. In order to accomplish this we need a certain amount of repression. In return we get access to treasures around the globe. Both materialistic ones, but also I feel more importantly mental ones. We get to put our brains together to solve problems that are much too complicated for 150 humans to solve. Cars, phones, air travel, cures phones, gps and anything else invented in the last 10,000 years are possible because of this. I feel like the push into these world is what defines being liberal.
That said who want to to be in just one of those world If we as humans can flow through both these states should we not be both liberal and conservative. Should we not have to wrestle with these ideas to see we can best live. Does anyone want to exist fully in the hive, yet how many of us fully want to relinquish any benefits from the hive. Doesn’t to say I’m a conservative or i'm’ a liberal stop us from thinking of the full potential of what we could choose to be. I do not see anything wrong with someone having a lot of conservative opinions, or a lot of liberal opinions, but I am confused by anyone who is a conservative or who is a liberal. Why should we identify ourselves with the ideas that are hitchhiking through our brain.
It is diametric tension between our traditional understanding and our limitless ability to invent a untested future that I believe we should all be struggling with. I know I don’t know where the answers are, and I question anyone who does. To identify along political tribes imply we have an understanding, but all our lives are saturated with so much novelty no one can really fully understand how history will judge us , if it judges it at all. The idea of a nation state may morph into something else, perhaps something that creates less war. Maybe in 50 years there will not be Americans because the idea of America no longer exist, or maybe everyone on earth will be American, or French Canadians. Whatever the scenario I hope we are ready for this moment history.
