Shorthand: E pluribus unum, i.e., “Out of many, one.”
Am I allowed to quote my OP? I feel like people show up and post without having read it, and that post contains the question I’m raising, to wit:
It’s the very diversity that we are proud of and brag about (“The Melting Pot”) that is the fundamental reason that we cannot all get along. TOO many different backgrounds, ethnic identities, religious differences, differences in values, and NO umbrella that everyone will agree to peacefully and respectfully co-exist under.
The effect is multiplied by instant media and communication, which is the curse and the blessing of modern life. Small rebellious, ignorant, destructive pockets of people can now find other like-minded anarchists and band together pretty darned fast.
What is missing is what I believe is the key to harmonious relations whether in families, marriages, or nations, namely The Assumption of Good Will, which I define as beginning with the assumption that the other person (parent, child, employer, spouse) does not wish you harm. In our society today there are chips on many many shoulders-- just look at the investigations and lawsuits named in headlines every day.
Okay, I’m getting depressed writing this…
I’m glad I’m old and will be dead soon. I feel sorry for y’all who have children and grandchildren. I can only hope that there will be a huge backlash at some point and civility will once again be fashionable.
The headlines are not a random, unbiased sample of America. The assumption of good will still exists, but the instances where it breaks down get all the publicity.
But was that the point? Or did we retcon it? especially the “society AND government” part. The USA was founded under the premise of a federal state being organized by/for “We the [white, male, adult, Christian, literate, land-owning] People” under the principles of the Enlightenment. Originalist Justices would tell us, the Founders did not set out to create a new society except insofar as replacing hereditary titling with “merit” (meaning wealth creation/accumulation), otherwise the participation of “others” has always been under a sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit, premise that “you are welcomed here, but know your place”.
Thanks for that. I have trouble counting to two sometimes.
My point, if you really require aid in understanding it, is that even defenders of the status quo need to qualify their weak assertions with "quite"s and such–even they can’t muster a full-throated defense of the failed American Experiment as a success. I find that more telling than my criticisms would be. We are a mess, and obdurately refusing to acknowledge that painful truth is the clearest sign of the mess we’re in up to our necks. And maybe beyond.
I think you’re right, that the FF* did not picture everyone sitting at the table as equals, in spite of the Enlightenment language in our founding documents. They knew that you can’t get this many different oars in the water at the same time and expect the boat to do anything except go in circles until the rowers get fed up and beat each other to death with their oars.
I think that this argument is incredibly corrosive and why we are collapsing. There is this belief, especially among white boomers that we’ll be fine because they just want it to be true. Essentially, the American Experiment is a bedtime story white boomers tell each other so they can keep kicking the can down the road.
The answer is there has always been a belief in white people that our better natures were ascendant. It has only been shared by those whom white people allowed to be almost as good as themselves – whitish immigrants from Not-England, mainly. Everyone else knew the truth, that the Experiment was created by and for whites. Really, for white men.
The proof is when not white and not men people start asking how that experiment’s coming along.
As I approach the “EXIT” end of my ride, I find I’m much more pessimistic than I was when I was closer to the “ENTRANCE” end. In my youth, I was all “Yeah! Gotta revolution! Gotta revolution!” as a remedy for all the cultural and social ills around me, but now I see that no substantial progress has been made, particularly in the diminishment of the presence of open racists in mainstream American values. I would say that in the past 50 years, they have gotten bolder and more open about their retrograde values. In my younger days, it was unthinkable that any POTUS could show the slightest empathy towards the Klansmen demonstrating at Charlottesville. Now it’s not only thinkable, but we’re about to renominate that POTUS. I give us an “F” (for “Fuck, yeah, we’re a failure.”)
I agree. The next revolution won’t be cultural, it will be class-based. When the mob starts hanging billionaires from the lampposts, we’ll see some changes. If the “American Experiment” is to survive, we’ll need to eat the rich. A quick return to Eisenhower level tax rates would be a start. Totally ditch “Citizens United” and every other corporate gift.
Guillotines may not be necessary. But I wouldn’t count on it.
What, exactly, is the argument that you find so corrosive? I don’t see an explicit argument in what @Odesio said, but I suspect the implicit argument you are seeing is something like:
Things have been worse in the past
We survived then.
Therefore, we will inevitably survive now.
I don’t think that’s what @Odesio was saying; I think it’s more like:
Things have been worse in the past
We survived then.
Therefore, there is reason to hope/think that we will survive now.
Now that argument I can get behind. And I find it significantly less corrosive than an argument that things are hopeless and we are doomed.
I think this idea that we had a bad thing happen before therefore we will be okay now is corrosive. It’s based on a simplistic understanding of what the civil war was and ignores its repercussions that we are still facing today. We are collapsing now because of the civil war, the peace we made by allowing the continued subjugation of blacks and the lionization of the enslavers. The fact we let the losers write the history of the civil war is why we are were we are.
I think the American Experiment has not failed, but tested, and though got very damaged under Trump seemed to be holding true to the American Experiment in its damaged state. The dictatorship option you mention was stopped due to our adversarial 2 party system and separation of powers. Where it is generally in the best interest of politicians to unite against a power grab, and preserve our freedom.
So the question of the melting pot, as I took it the melting pot was not to create a stagnate unified US society, but have each culture add to its flavor to the pot which eventually works its way through the whole. As such new ingredients were always added and usually find their place in society as they work their way to fully accepted US citizens as they melt in and generationally leave their small enclave communities. As such I still think it’s working but also I think we have tended a bit more to the salad bowl as of late.
