[lit-ideas] Re: All praise to JC
- From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:15:48 -0400
America is not the shining light on the hill, that I was taught
it to be by my educators
Reacting to the Cheever quote, I think he has identified a general theme of
dissatisfaction in human life, active in realms both large and small. It's the
old problem of desire, that desire is not the object of desire but an
ever-present state that has to be reckoned with as such, especially when one
attains a particular object of desire, and the desire behind the object is not
satisfied.
Looking at that in terms of the US, it's long been maintained that America is
most itself when it has its frontiers, a nineteenth century problem that found
some twentieth century satisfaction in the space program. I believe that space
exploration offers most non-authoritarian, non-theocratic (i.e., civilized)
nations a frontier that will supply general purpose, a purpose whose
paradoxical effects may include treating its earth-bound citizens with more
decency.
Mike's quote about "shining light" America is of course from Matthew, then from
the Puritan settlers in MA, then from JFK. It was an ideal espoused by Jefferson and
Adams as a way of indicating that the US was exempt from European monarchical rule and
was the standard bearer of rationalist secularism. That's more or less true. The French
Revolution, following Rousseau and Descartes, imploded and reverted to tyranny. The
American Revolution, guided by Descartes and Locke, ramified. (Franklin did not march
with a mob through the streets of Philadelphia, burning churches. There was a Lockean
respect for property and a Lockean optimism.)
It was true in the last century as well. In 1938, Europe had appeasers in
France and England, tyrants in Spain, Germany, and Russia; the US had FDR.
It's easy to forget that "American exceptionalism" has *some* truth in it, but
it does. All one has to do is imagine a world with China as hegemon and the
exceptionalist qualities appear if one is honest. Globalism tends to dilute those
qualities, as did the Cold War, but they remain. Ask an immigrant to the US if you know
any.
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