Your average American generally and your
average flag-waving, parade-attending American specifically, is likely to be
unaware of two facts.
First,
when Republicans and Democrats, “liberals” and “conservatives,” in government
and Big Media reference America, they have something very different in mind
than that entertained by everyday Americans when the latter refer to their
country.
Secondly, Republicans and
Democrats, “liberals” and “conservatives,” in government and Big Media, despite
the appearance of consistent disagreement, actually endorse one and the same
conception of America. It is the conception of America that, for reasons that
will later be disclosed, is championed by the Mono-Party, the Regime, or, as I call it, the
Big GAME (Government-Academic-Media-Entertainment complex).
From this stance, America is an Idea.
America is depicted as the first and
only nation in all of human history to have been “founded” upon a “principle”
or “proposition.”
Thus, like any other idea,
like any other mental phenomenon, it is
fundamentally immaterial. What this in turn
means is that while America is typically identified with certain particulars
like a landmass, a government, a legal order, etc., ultimately it is a trans-historical,
trans-cultural Idea that just happens to be
instantiated—imperfectly instantiated—in such contingent, material forms.
In the last analysis, then, America is an
Idea that, as such, is borderless.
As to the exact character of
this Idea, proponents differ amongst themselves. Usually, however, America is
conceived as a creed affirming “human rights,” “Democracy,” ideals of Freedom
and Equality, or something along the lines of these abstractions. But
however its proponents decide to construe the Idea, they agree that
America’s identity is anchored in this
timeless, immutable Essence.
This Idea or Essence is also
normative. It is ethical: The Idea is something to which all human beings
the planet over should aspire.
In this vision of
America-as-Idea, we see ontology and ethics converge seamlessly: America,
ultimately, is a moral reality.
America-as-Idea also
implicates its own peculiar epistemology.
Because the Idea purports to be a timeless object of discovery, it is said, as
Jefferson says of our “unalienable rights,” that it is “self-evident.”
That is, the epistemology is
unmistakably and inevitably rationalist. Knowledge
of the Idea is a priori, independent of
experience. Hence, in theory, it is accessible to all rational creatures in all
places and at all times.
This conception of America is
the official, contemporary understanding promoted by The Big GAME, the Regime. It is the vision of leftist
ideologues and the Deputized Right, of “progressivism” and Big Conservatism
(the Big Con) alike.
The question as to why or how
it is that partisans of seemingly different
stripes have managed to coalesce around the same conception of America can be
answered easily enough even on the dubious assumption
that such partisans really are of
different stripes:
From the vantage of
America-as-Idea, America is an ideological or creedal nation.
In other words, America so conceived is an ideology.
Admittedly,
America-as-Idea—an idea that is racially, culturally, ethnically, and
theologically-neutral—is a potentially (but
by no means necessarily) conciliatory device in the increasingly multi-racial,
multi-ethnic, and multi-religious America of 2018. Nevertheless, it isn’t
likely for the sake of reconciling rival racial and other interests that the
movers and shakers of the GAME labor tirelessly to depict America as an
ideological nation.
America-as-Idea serves purposes that are at
once political and economic.
America-as-Idea,
given its character as an ideology, can be concisely reduced to a small handful
of propositions that, with minimal effort, virtually any person can learn by
rote. Given that it consists of abstractions, and abstractions, by their
nature, are general and vague, America-as-Idea readily lends itself to
conscription in the service of virtually any agenda that its proponents seek to
advance.
By annexing to itself the Nation
of Immigrants myth, America-as-Idea not only permits endless immigration from
everywhere on the planet; it positively encourages it. While
it’s true that relatively few of its proponents explicitly advocate on behalf
of a literally borderless America, and while it’s undoubtedly true that most
proponents of this vision of America recognize the undesirability, or at least
the impracticality, of welcoming the world’s population into their country,
it’s no less true that any restrictions they seek to impose on immigration
can’t but appear as arbitrary and,
therefore, unfair:
If America is an Idea that,
like every other mental entity, is literally borderless, comprised as it is of
a principle or small set of principles that can effortlessly be confined to
memory and affirmed by anyone with the inclination to do so, then any person in
any location of the world in effect becomes an American the moment he or she
pledges allegiance to these principles. Immigration law designed to
impose caps and quotas, to say nothing of bans on immigrants from certain
countries, can only appear as, at best, a practical and temporary
expedient. Or maybe it will strike observers as a necessary evil.
At
worst, restrictions on immigration will be viewed as unjustified, the
expression of “discrimination,” “racism,” “xenophobia,” and so forth.
Even legislation regarding
the steps for citizenship must appear morally suspect from the perspective of
the champions of America-as-Idea, for, to reiterate, a person becomes an
American the moment that he or she embraces the Principle that is America. The
bipartisan chorus regarding the “brokenness” of America’s immigration system, I
submit, reflects this belief. After all, it is virtually always and only those
who want more immigration and amnesty (by some euphemistic
name or other) who most loudly bemoan our “broken” system.
So,
America-as-Idea, vis-à-vis endless, Third World immigration, serves the
economic interests of Big Business and the Chamber of Commerce by way of
supplying cheap labor, and it serves the political interests of Democrats and
leftists by supplying votes.
Yet there is also an ideological
interest advanced on this front: The “Anti-Racism/Diversity” offensive of the
GAME requires America-as-Idea.
Since
America is an Idea, it no more belongs to a person or exclusive set of people
than do Plato’s Forms, Augustine’s Divine Ideas, or any other ontological or
moral propositions purporting to be timeless, universal, and objective.
America-as-Idea, that is, is
not a creation; it’s an object of discovery.
America-as-Idea,
by way of the massive planetary immigration that it encourages, serves the
ideological end of combatting “White Privilege” and “institutional racism” and
promoting Diversity, Tolerance, and Inclusion. It as well facilitates
“free trade” and “capitalism.”
On
the foreign policy front, America-as-Idea provides the ideological underpinning
for limitless military interventionism. If proponents deem that governments
have insufficiently affirmed the Idea that is America—the ideal of Democracy,
say, or Human Rights—then “regime change” is a moral necessity and the regime’s
subjects ripe for “liberation.”
The
policy of interventionism, like immigration, speaks to the ideological,
economic, and political ambitions of the agents of the GAME.
Ideologically, the ideals of Freedom,
Equality, human rights, and Democracy get an assist from the enterprise of
going to war in their name.
Economically speaking, the
Military-Industrial-Complex against which President Eisenhower long ago warned
his fellow Americans is enriched. Not only do military contractors profit
enormously, but so too do those in the media profit via ratings and
circulation.
Politically, those in government can
use the occasion of war to drum up fear and impress upon their constituents a
sense of national “crisis,” which is a Godsend for politicians in that a crisis
is always pregnant with possibilities for the consolidation of power, further
centralization of government authority, and, of course, reelection.
And there is no crisis like that of war, the
penultimate call for the mobilization and collectivization of human resources.
So, your garden-variety, patriotic
American will do himself a good turn to bear in mind the many uses and
interests that this ahistorical fiction of America serves the next time he
hears a politician or pundit refer to America as an Idea.
Jack
Kerwick [send
him mail] received his doctoral degree in philosophy from Temple
University. His area of specialization is ethics and political philosophy. He
is a professor of philosophy at several colleges and universities in New Jersey
and Pennsylvania. Jack blogs at Beliefnet.com: At the Intersection of Faith
& Culture.
Previous
article by Jack Kerwick: Conservatism and Abortion
