What America Means to Me

This post is a response to this post by Pax, particularly this passage:

"Sitting there in that class, awkwardly shifting in my chair made me realize how uncomfortable I am in myself as an American. This attitude is nothing new, but I sadly have no Patriotism to this country. I'm not sure if I've ever known what it means to be an American-- because I'm not sure there is really such a thing. In most countries, there's not as much ethnic diversity as in the US-- whereas the US is a wonderful mix of mutts. We don't really have a place to belong and the label of American more satisfies location rather than mindset-- and for some reason whenever I say this I offend lots of people."

Well, I'm not offended by the passage above, but I do disagree. Well, I do agree that the US is "a wonderful mix if mutts", but I think that America *is* about a mindset. America was founded on a mindset. People came to the New World to find freedoms they couldn't find in their mother countries. People came to America to get a fresh start. In the Old World, you were often bound by your social class, but in America, a man could go as far as his imagination and effort could take him. I know it's a bit of a cliche now, but America has always truly been the Land of Opportunity.

Of course the world has evolved, and the USA is no longer as unique as it has once been. In addition to the world changing, the USA has also changed a lot over the last 233 years. A lot people think it hasn't changed for the better. A lot people will tell you "This country aint what it used to be.". I actually agree that this country "aint what it used to be", but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. In fact I think we are a far better country than we were 233 ( or 133 or 33 ) years ago, and I think out best days are ahead of us.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not one of these jingoistic fellows who thinks that the USA can do no wrong. Unlike some people, I don't think patriotism and dissent are mutually exclusive. On the contrary, I don't think one can be truly patriotic without dissent. Patriotism without dissent is almost by definition jingoism. True patriots should want their country to be strong and successful, and there are few things that can cause any organization to fail more spectacularly than overabundance of yes-men.

I couldn't help but think of this yes-man brand of "patriotism" as I watched an interview with a father who said he objected to the speech President Obama was going to give ( and subsequently did give, but not before parents pressured school boards into making sure kids were given the option to not watch the speech ) to the nation's school children. The father said that he didn't want his son to watch the speech because he believed Obama was going to highlight America's problems. He said he believed that the USA was the greatest country in the world, and he didn't want his son to be told anything different. If I could have spoken to this guy ( and to be honest, I was screaming at the father in the TV screen like a lunatic as I watched the interview ), I would have told him the following:

"I agree with you that the USA is the greatest country in the world, but I'm a bit disappointed that you apparently have no desire to keep it that way. Apparently you think the USA should just rest on its laurels. Apparently, you think the USA should do nothing to improve itself. How can we possibly continue to be the greatest country on earth unless we strive to be the best? A true patriot should always want the USA to get better, and we can't get better unless we admit our faults and work to correct them. If history shows us anything, it's that complacency is the enemy of success."

Of course, this guy probably would have replied with something like ...

"Screw you, Commie! USA! USA! USA!"

So yeah, there are a lot of problem with this country and I'm not afraid to acknowledge them. We still have big problems with racism, sexism, and homophobia, our health care system sucks, our national debt is huge, our politicians are largely beholden to corporate interests, many people are apathetic about the state of the country, and lately it seems that least apathetic people are also the most ignorant people. I'd list more problems, but if I did, this blog post would go on forever.

Still, I'd rather live in this country than any other. I'm still proud to be an American because I still believe in America's ideals. I still feel we can live up to those ideals. America isn't as great as it could be and it's quite possible that we've been surpassed by other nations in many different ways. However, I firmly believe that there is no country that has a much potential as the USA, and I still have confidence that we will eventually live up to that potential. We have potential that no other country has, because even 233 years after its founding, the USA is still unique. It's unique in a way that can be be summed up by these iconic words at the base of the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor, You huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless tempest-tossed, to me: I will lift my lamp beside the golden door.

As some long-time readers might remember, this is the second time I've quoted the passage above in a blog post. Sorry for being repetitive, but I couldn't resist quoting Emma Lazarus' words again, because I think they really sum up what America means to me. If had to pick one word to epitomize the past, present, and future greatness of the USA, I would pick "immigration". Immigration is really what makes American unique. Sure, other countries have immigration, but very few countries were built on a foundation of immigration. As Pax put it, the USA is a "wonderful mix of mutts". We have a tremendously heterogeneous population. Most other countries in the world have homogeneous populations. If you go to Japan, you'll find that most people are ethnically Japanese. If you go to Germany, you'll find that most people are ethnically German. In countries like Germany and Japan, it's still unlikely that an immigrant will ever be considered to be a "real German" or a "real Japanese person". In the USA, you don't have to be from a specific ethnic background to be considered an America. Sure there are still a lot a people in the USA who think "real American"="white American", but the USA did just elect the son of an African immigrant to the highest office in the land ( see this post for my thoughts about that ) . In the USA *anyone* can make it to the top, and this gives us an advantage over most other nations in the world. Immigration gives the USA a far deeper talent pool than any other nation in the world. In Germany and Japan, all the most important jobs are held by the best German people available, or the best Japanese people available. In the USA, the most important jobs will ideally ( admittedly, the USA has not lived up to all of it's ideals perfectly ) be held by the best people, regardless of their ethnic background. ( Hmm, I hope it doesn't see like I'm picking on Germany and Japan. Those were just the first two countries with homogeneous populations that popped into my head. However, I can't help but think that the heterogeneous nature of the USA's population is one of the reason's why the USA prevailed over Germany and Japan in World War II ( admittedly, with a lot of help from the UK and Russia, which certainly have much more homogeneous populations than the USA ). After all, if Germany hadn't driven out so many brilliant non-Aryan scientists, Germany would have certainly developed the Atomic bomb before the USA ).

Admittedly, there are still a lot of people in the USA who believe in racial purity ( and whites are not the only people guilty of this ), but those people are living in the past, and people like my bi-racial sons are the future. If you look at the demographics trends, you'll see that the USA will probably not be a primarily white nation by 2050. I believe this is a very good thing, because the USA should not be about race. A truly multiracial USA can be a model for the rest of the world. As I noted in the video below, I really feel that the best long-term way to combat racism is to become to become such a multiracial society, that the distinctions between races start to fade away:



Another thing that gives the USA great potential is the natural entrepreneurial spirit of American culture. Sure, some people might call it simple greed ( and there's certainly far too much of that ), and perhaps there are not as many Horatio Alger stories in the USA as there had once been, but there are still plenty of success stories in the USA that are uniquely American. For example how many other countries could produce a Bill Gates? Now, I'm not a huge fan of Bill Gates ( I'm writing this post on my Mac ), but the circumstances of his success might make one exclaim "Only in America!".

Bill Gates was a brilliant young man. He scored 1590 out of 1600 the SAT ( Note: This is a standardized test that pretty much all college-bound high school student take in the USA. ) and was accepted into Harvard University. After about a year at Harvard, he decided to drop out and start his own software company. According to his Wikipedia page ( which cites Gates autobiography ), "He had talked this decision over with his parents, who were supportive of him after seeing how much Gates wanted to start a company.".

How many other nations on earth does something like this happen? In most nations, if you were accepted to ( arguably ) the most prestigious university in the country, you would never think of dropping out, and you would almost certainly not get the blessing of your parents. Let's face it, dropping out of Harvard to start your own company is a huge risk, but Americans have a mindset that often leads to that kind of risk-taking ( BTW, Steve Jobs was also a college drop-out. ).

Of course such risk taking is not always a good thing. Personally, I've never had the guts to take those kinds of risks in life, and more often that not, that kind of risk taking ends in disaster. For every Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, there are thousands of people who wished they never dropped out of college. However, there's something I love about that. There's something I love about a culture that lends itself to both spectacular successes and spectacular failures. Take the US education system for example. Every year statics are released about the math and science proficiency of school children around the world, and every year, the USA performs terribly compared to the rest of the world. However, take look at this link. That link is a list of all the Nobel prize winners by country. As you can see, the USA has had far more Nobel prize winners than any other nation. Of course, the USA has a rather large population, but even if you take the population differences into account ( see this link ), the USA still does a lot better than lots of countries in which school children vastly out-perform US school children. How does one account for that? How does one account for that fact that the USA is apparently full of ignorant school children but brilliant scientists? Well, I think it has something to do with the American mindset. Countries with highly performing school children tend to have societies that place a high value on education. These societies also tend to value conformity. For better or worse, the USA isn't like that at all. I'm not saying it's good thing that the lots of folks in the USA don't value education, but I think it is a good thing that there is probably a lot less societal pressure to perform well academically in USA than in a lot of other nations. The USA may have a lower percentage of high-performing school kids than other nations, but because of the lack of societal pressure to perform well academically, I think that high performing students in the USA are probably ( in general ) a little more self-motivated than high performing students in other nations. For better or worse, there's a lot of academic freedom at each level of the US education system. Kids are given the freedom to make choices, even if they are the wrong ones. Of course, most students do make the wrong choices, which is why we are a largely ignorant nation full of people who don't believe in evolution and think that the sun revolves around the earth. Of course that same system also produces good number of self-motivated people that make the right choices. These are the types of people who win Noble prizes or change the world in other ways ( Gates, Jobs, Edison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, etc. ).

Of course, I'm not even sure if the "American Way" is the best way in education or anything else. I'm not really trying to put any other nation down. All I'm saying is that the "American Way" is certainly unique, and I certainly love it. That's why I think America really is a about a mindset. For better of worse, I think there is an America way of thinking. It's not like we have a hive mind or anything, but I think that there are certain attitudes that most Americans share. While an Ivy League educated northeast liberal like myself may not have a lot in common with some guy from South Carolina who goes to anti-Obama rallies, I think we are probably both strivers, both believe in freedom of choice, both have an entrepreneurial spirit, both love our country passionately, and both want to do what we can to make our nation better. That's all part of the American mindset that I think most of us share.

So, I guess, the bottom is that I love my country, but I love what it has the potential to become even more. I hope that in 100 years, the USA is a completely multi-racial society were everybody kinda looks vaguely like Tiger Woods ( OK, perhaps that's a bad example because Tiger isn't exactly Mr. Handsome, but you get the idea ). I hope we live up to Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream that we can be a nation where people "will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character". I hope we can be a nation that continues to lead the world in innovation and ambition.

Actually, truth be told, I wish those kind of things for the whole world, but unfortunately, most countries don't have the societal structure to pull this off. In lots of countries, half of the people ( the women ) are treated like second class citizens. In lots of countries, you can't rise to the top unless you practice a certain religion, have a certain color skin, or were born into a certain social class. The USA certainly hasn't eliminated problems like sexism, racism, or religious discrimination, but I see the potential in the USA to rise above these hurdles. There's so much potential in the USA, and I think the USA has a responsibility to live up to its potential. I know it sounds corny, but if the USA can truly live up to its potential, the USA can be a beacon of hope for the rest of the world.

OK, well it's getting late, and I should probably finish this post. However, considering the patriotic mood this post has put me in, I've decided to finish it with the link below: