American Eternal
On the things I don't take for granted
I love living in America.
It is an incredible country; culturally, geographically, and economically, America is one of one. We have abundant prosperity, transcendentally beautiful nature, and many individual freedoms which are protected by centuries of legal precedent and powerful institutions.
I full-throatedly reject the miasma of performative dismay about America and her future that is pervasive in online and social media spaces, especially in liberal-progressive elite culture. Ordinary people everywhere are working hard and not freaking out. We do not need this much doom and gloom from the upper middle class. It is long past time to quit complaining so loudly and start doing more quietly.
If you think something is wrong, take action in your life to fix the problem or forever keep your peace. Talk is cheap and it is only getting cheaper.
I celebrate America for still being the only country in the world where anyone from anywhere can melt into a new national identity and be embraced by her citizens as one of their own. This sense of camaraderie is a rare and precious thing worthy of being cherished and celebrated. It is one of the many things I love about America.
I celebrate America as it is far and away the least racist place in the world. Nowhere else has this much diversity along so many dimensions. Nowhere else has this many different kinds of people getting along so well in close proximity, freely exchanging culture and goods. This is a beautiful thing.
I celebrate America as a safe haven for religious refugees. People in America of all religions are free to worship and organize together, protected from both government and societal oppression. This kind of freedom is not to be taken for granted; many people in the world must still worship in secret, whispering their praise to God in the shadows for fear of persecution. In America people can worship joyously and loudly, just as God intends.
I celebrate America for our freedom of expression, an especially powerful and unique right. Many countries, even first-world countries, have substantial restrictions on free speech. Imagine getting arrested and sentenced to real jail time for posting something online that offended someone (if you don’t want to imagine, you can just move to Britain and experience it for yourself). The comprehensive rights protecting free speech in America are a blessing not to be taken for granted.
I celebrate America’s culture of artistry and innovation. America is full of many kinds of people who have much to offer each other and the whole world. Our culture travels the globe in part because it contains and reflects so many multitudes, a full-spectrum chromograph of artistic wavelengths from the commercial mainstream to the underground. America is a culture where fresh and original connections get made, drawn from a rich tapestry of cascading influences.
I pay no heed to apocalyptic narratives of impending future doom or American decline. Every generation has its doomsayers and every time they have been wrong. Betting long on America and humanity is a good bet. Climate change narratives underestimate the positive effects of shifting climates as well as the potential for technological innovations to rapidly change and redefine our conception of what is possible to achieve in our relationship with the environment. AI-death-God narratives underestimate the divine complexity of consciousness and overestimate the fact that a computer being able to arrange words together without understanding them is more akin to a ventriloquist’s trick than proof of a sentient dummy.
It is, in fact, arrogant to proclaim doom and spread unfounded misery. To inflict your narrow-mindedness on others. To claim that you alone can read what the future holds, that only by listening to you can the rest of us be saved. But it is a marker of humility to accept that the future contains a deep and profound capacity to surprise you.
All this is to say, and doubly so if you are troubled by “the current state of affairs”: everything is going to be okay. America is a beautiful place full of amazing, passionate, hard-working people. The future is bright.
I am eager to receive and celebrate the uncertainty of the future together with my fellow Americans (and the rest of the world) as it is revealed to us, one day at a time.
God bless.
Beautiful! 🙌🏼