Greetings my fellow Americans!
I’ve opened most of my articles for AFNN with this salutation, but haven’t explained what it actually means to consider you (and myself) to be American, nor to enjoy fellowship as Americans. I did attempt to explicate what America is NOT in an article several months ago, but stopped short of diving into the converse. I also delivered a fairly lengthy series on the Principles of Liberty early on in my AFNN career, based on a robust framework laid out by W. Cleon Skousen in The 5000-Year Leap.
So, what could still be missing from this distinction we call America; or better still, why have we not been able to sufficiently sustain it, and instead appear to be losing the meaning of it? We have a written Constitution, we have both shared and individual language for what America is and is not, and many of us appear to have an intellectual understanding and concept for what this should look like. What is happening?
I think C.S. Lewis beautifully captured the essence and fundamentals of this in his radio broadcast on the Three Parts of Morality, transcribed in his book, Mere Christianity:
“What is the good of drawing up, on paper, rules for social behaviour, if we know that, in fact, our greed, cowardice, ill temper, and self-conceit are going to prevent us from keeping them? I do not mean for a moment that we ought not to think, and think hard, about improvements in our social and economic system. What I do mean is that all thinking will be mere moonshine unless we realise that nothing but the courage and unselfishness of individuals is ever going to make any system work properly….[A]s long as men [and women] are twisters or bullies they will find some new way of carrying on the old game under the new system. You cannot make [people] good by law: and without good [people] you cannot have a good society.”[1] [emphasis added]
Lewis also highlighted the three concerns of morality (i.e., (1) behavior between individuals, (2) the internal coherence and cohesion of the individual, and (3) the ultimate purpose of human life), and how modern societies were focusing on the first and forgetting the other two.
There is no such thing as America in the vastness of creation and nature. We have language for what America is and is not, and that is all we have. America is basically nothing more than a social construct and compact, wholly concocted by humans; in that light it has been no different, nor any less fragile or prone to bastardization or disintegration than any other concept, hypothesis, narrative or society which has been put forth from the minds of humans. Any physical properties which have been assigned to the elements of what represents America (or any other societal construct) have been (and continue to be) associated solely through words and thoughts which have been shared amongst humanity, and either accepted, rejected, or never taught.
It was intellectualized long ago that a land mass (as distinguished from the sea) would be named North America, and a goodly portion of it considered to constitute the United States after many who chose to live and have children on it declared in writing that they were now members of their own social discourse, and not that of the places they had left. They later wove the narrative for their new society, in which they would mutually agree to abide, so that all member individuals could enjoy relative freedom and liberty. They also set up places to meet called schools which would be used to teach these narratives to their children, so they could carry on this social compact.
OK, so why has this been disintegrating, and seemingly at a much more rapid pace in recent times? We’ve had the physical forms of the United States of America (like the national flag) around us for generations, and we’ve had anthems, pledges, holidays and parades to commemorate this novel linguistic achievement. And while there have always been those around and among us who’ve not accepted that this discourse has been superior in elevating the overall human condition to any other society heretofore contrived on this third rock from the sun, we’ve been able to maintain sufficient cohesion, and appreciation, in our shared narrative as members of the United States of America.
Our enemies recognized, long before we did, just how easily our American discourse could be unraveled with mere language, if the narratives which provided the meanings and purposes of the physical “American” forms could be subtly and systematically altered and/or never taught. As they have gradually assumed control of our governmental, education, and mainstream media systems, they appear to have (at least temporarily) found the solution to dissolving the linguistic American bonds between us. As mentioned earlier, however, we’ve always had enemies both without and within our borders, so why has that dissolution escalated?
I believe Lewis nailed it way back in 1944, when he recognized that we were collectively going through the observable motions of a civilized and highly advanced society, but were losing the invisible internal discipline and housekeeping skills of the individual, as well as the “why” of western Christian culture and eternal life. We managed to maintain the symbolism of America, but have been systematically losing the substance of why being American has mattered, not just to us, but to the rest of the world; we’ve also been taking our relative freedom and liberty for granted, and our appreciation for how and why it has been superior in these ways to all other nations and cultures has proportionately diminished.
America is not a thing; it exists only in us and through us. It lives or dies in our collective hearts and minds. We must regain our appreciation and awareness for just how blessed we have been to have lived in the United States of America, and rekindle, deepen, and harden our senses of duty and responsibility to do what must be done to keep it. We’ve relied on others to do this for us for far too long.
Find other true Americans in your neighborhoods and localities, and pray for discernment and guidance toward your role, and the actions you need to take, in making America great again. America is US.
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