OPINION #2: What is the American Identity?
What features define the American mindset?
What conglomerate of traits compose the American mind?
The American archetype has become a global standard, more or less, for the average accumulation of choices made in Western culture. It is, practically, the predominant cultural force in the world today. Seeing as how the U.S. is a melting pot of cultures, it is often thought that there is no true, single identity with which every American subscribes themselves to. That being said, there are some underlying flavors that are inherent to the American character as a whole, the broth with which this American melting pot is made. In this short essay, I will be compiling a few viewpoints I thought were both equally unique and valid from the opinions of the avid historian and the layman. Of these four viewpoints, only one is mine. The first three will be the (educated) opinions of social scientists, critics and doctored historians alike.
Rupert Wilkinson’s Four Fears
The British historian Rupert Wilkinson proposes that the American character is overshadowed by four fears. Wilkinson’s book, “The Pursuit of the American Character”, is a relatively quick read and provides a chance to get an “outside” view of America - sometimes, one has to be removed from equation to determine the final result. In his book, Wilkinson covers these four fears in depth.
- The first fear he mentions, is the fear of being owned. America has long been an experiment in liberal ideals (ideals relative to their time, specifically) - and the opportunity provided to the everyman marks a defining trait in early American history, and arguably paved the way for a massive expansion of human rights on a global scale. Many of the American forefathers were escaping oppression, and their fears have persisted as such that they almost unanimously insisted on creating a government weaker than that of the British mother they had just left. There were certainly varying degrees of argument in terms of how limited the power of the federal government should be - the Federalist vs. Anti Federalists at the Constitutional Convention, for example - but even the most strong models of federal governments the Federalists could produce paled in comparison to the consolidated power distribution of Britain. Furthermore, I would be outright negligent to not mention slavery. African American culture was, and still is, a wholly distinct culture from its origins, but has always been a prevalent voice in mainstream American culture. Upon emancipation and Reconstruction after the Civil War in the United States, the freed slaves actively reinvigorated within the common American mind that fear that had led them to create the country in the first place. The fear of being owned can perhaps most easily be illustrated with why Communism has, historically, possessed an inherently distrustful and scary aura to the Americans (according to Wilkinson, that is).
- Wilkinson’s second fear, was that of falling apart. When America was first stitched together from its seemingly unrelated pieces, and further still happened to make for a lovely patchwork quilt - many of the wiser political scientists realized just how fragile such a union was. The early Constitutional Conventions were chaotic parties where political compromises were the party favors provided to anyone who could make their case. Further so, this fear was not magically dissolved after the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. It lingered until it actually came into fruition during the American Civil War. Even then was the reunification so frangible that Union forces had spent over twelve years after the end of the Civil War supervising and assisting in the Reconstruction of the South. One could argue, I might add, that this fear is also expressed on the personal level with the need to have a perfect life, perfect face, perfect family, etc. It is specifically and ultimately, on the individual basis, the fear of falling apart was made personal, through the fear of losing identity or control in a turbulent world.
- Wilkinson’s third fear, was that of falling away. This fear is such that it motivates Americans to remain politically engaged to this day. This fear is about Americans losing their way and abandoning the dreams of the American forefathers - including the idea that America should be the “moral beacon” of the world. The original concept of America was relatively utopian and there is a constant concern that this societal perfection will be eroded by the temptations of the material world. I would further postulate that one could see this fear as a primary motivator of the riven political division in America. If people have different ideas of what America’s morals and ideals are, this deeply embedded fear would keep them fighting for the image they believe is best for America, and the world perceiving the U.S.
- Wilkinson’s final and fourth fear is the fear of winding down. This is the fear of losing the boundless energy which still pervades the dynamism of American business today. The great “American Dream”, in which Wilkinson uses the definition of it as “the idea of going from rags to riches (and to higher subsequent social or global positions) is broadly, and culturally, accepted as being attained through enormous energy and diligence. When the economic gears of the American nation begin to slow down, and the waters of our culture become stagnant, this fear can manifest itself in ways such as small cultural revolutions or prominent shifts in government policy. Even further so, when the American energy as a nation fades in comparison to other countries, such as India or China, this fear is thusly increased.
Wendell Berry’s American Duality
In contrast with the British historian Rupert Wilkinson’s underlying factors of American character, environmentalist and writer Wendell Berry describes American culture as being more than composed of simple fears. He portrays American culture as an eternal war between a powerfully divided, yet subtle, duality of character: Half of the American mind desires a constant expansion, while other half seeks to prioritize the preservation of the homestead. In Berry’s book, “The Unsettling of America”, I have interpreted as such that Berry believes the value of expansion has always been favored by the American people, which is made evident by its manifestation in governmental foreign policy. This trait is inherently dominant over the other half of the American character. The longing of American people to connect and completely “settle” into their homes - both in terms of the natural world and the community - has historically been bullied into being a small facet of American identity. Berry claims that because the American people have nowhere to left from themselves (seeing as how all realistic frontiers presented to America have been conquered), the American character must lose grip on the values of geographical, cultural, and materialistic expansion or face extinction. It is only after the desacralization of countless frontiers will the American people realize that those values can never completely satisfy their spiritual needs. Essentially, people need to learn to transition to the other half of their duality; they must learn to tame their hunger as a people with nowhere left to go but home. Berry presents a rather bold and eschatonic view, if I do say so myself, but I personally think it is an equally valid one which deserves more scholarly recognition.
David Fischer’s Subgroups
Now, on the other hand, it is important to provide a theory by the Harvard professor David Hackett Fischer that tries to make clear that there is no one, true underlying culture that composes the American identity. Rather, he argues in his book, “Albion’s Seed”, that the American cultures can be divided into four encompassing and geographically-oriented subgroups, each one heralding from a large cultural migration that originated from mutually unique groups in Europe.
- He attributes the exodus of pilgrims and puritans, who traveled mostly from Eastern England counties and the Netherlands to the New England region, as becoming the Northeastern subgroup. This cultural subgroup of the U.S. can be defined by their high priority of socializing communal benefits (such as healthcare or education), while simultaneously juggling a rugged and hawkish corporate culture.
The mass migration of cavaliers and indentured servants from Southern England to Virginia and the Carolinas transmuted into the Southern subgroup. This subgroup can be characterized by a high sensitivity to disgust, and tendencies towards aristocratic nature.
I would add onto this theory myself by trying to explain the plantation culture: The majority of the people who migrated from Southern England tended to either be rich investors in a new world, or from the bottom ranks of English poverty. They also tended to be the most irreligious (though certainly not atheists, in the modern sense), in particular when regarding their rationale for moving to the future American nation. In a land of opportunity where the richest man was put on equal footing with the poorest, the different tiers of the Southern economic strata employed racism as an effective tool to unite the disconnected rich/poor Southern Englanders. And, even more so, I think that out of fear of becoming subservient lower class members again, the cavaliers sought dominance themselves (which was given to them in form of slaves). - Fischer’s third mass migration can be categorized into that of the Middle Englanders and Quakers to the Midwest and Middle Atlantic of the U.S. He claims that this group of compassionate and innovative peoples were the leading zealots in both the abolition movement and industrialist culture in the forthcoming and developing country. It is perhaps because knowledge and conventional wisdom was shared so freely among the intellectuals of Quaker community that they received their relative blessing of managing both a progressive and stable society.
- Fischer’s fourth, final, and fully fundamental mass resettlement was that of the Scotch-Irish peoples. They are famously known as the frontiersmen of the fledgling America, and rightfully so: Being looked down upon by their more “cultured” brethren, and being the chronologically last distinct population to migrate en masse, they were more at home on the western territories of Eastern Appalachia. The Appalachian subgroup was the primary culture responsible for the expansion westward. Their questionable morality and brash persistence in the face of adversity later gave birth to the stereotypical depictions of the Far West: Individualistic, Agrarian, Cynical, and Resourceful. However, this wasn’t necessarily a choice: to survive on the borders of the nation, one must possess those qualities to survive.
- While this subgroup was not mentioned in Fischer’s Four, I do think it deserves notice. The culture created by the introduction of African peoples (through questionable methods) into the already “European” Americas (I would argue that European settlers quickly lost their sense of identity that made them distinctly European) begot a unique conglomerate of what started off as slave culture, but had evolved by the 1970’s into the African American culture we see today.
A Personal Theory
To conclude this essay, I would like to present a theory of my own - an amalgamation of some of the previously stated theories, and observations made while reading the book “The American Pageant”, by David Kennedy and Elizabeth Cohen. My thesis is that the American identity can easily be encompassed by the idea that we are always rebelling against the perceived suppression of individualism. The American colonials experienced opportunity and liberation from a monarchic order in a manner that had never been seen in history before. To be specific, the migrations of people used to socially-stratified state with distinct hierarchies of dominance, to a resource-abundant and lawless land, would have a drastic psychological effect on the said people. For further example, look at British policies like “salutary neglect”, which essentially granted the colonials the freedom necessary to both survive and thrive on their own in the New World. However, policies like salutary neglect would inevitably come around to nip Britain on the butt - pragmatically speaking, the British had granted the colonials too much freedom in too small amount of a time for them to psychologically adjust. This created a radically free people who would desire never to return to the confines of authoritarianism again.
It is also extremely important to note that, unlike the Catholic French-Canadian empire to the North, and Catholic Spanish-Mexican empire to the South, the colonies of Britain were by majority Protestant (Maryland being the clear exception). Protestantism different from Catholicism in multiple ways, but most importantly Protestant doctrine stresses that the Bible alone is the source of God’s will. This allowed for a mental environment that encouraged individualistic interpretations of the Bible - as opposed to Catholicism, where the individual is expected to interpret the Bible in the same manner as the Pope in the Vatican does, regardless of time or place. This vast schism between the peoples of the Christian denominations translated into real differences in the actions of the people who adhered to them. Where Catholics saw service to the Holy State as equitable to service with God, the Protestants saw sanctimonious service as being downsized to the community within stone’s throw, and the self. These religious views, coupled with the sudden gift of nearly limitless governmental and economic freedom, forged a genuinely new culture in the British-American colonial domain. This culture can thus be defined by its Protestant background, and can be placed in modern context by the degrees of which we Americans are willing to rebel against the perceived suppression of individualism - even if it may be at our own long-term disadvantage.
Conclusion
This brings me to the end of my essay. To quickly recap the three professional theories: Wilkinson claimed the American was driven by four fears, Berry believed the American character was split between an unbalanced duality of expansion and the “settling” of the home, and Fischer said that the American culture could be identified by four (five, in my opinion) ethnic migrations. I hope you found any of the three established theories worthy of adoption, or at the very least, insightful. Moreover, I sincerely hope you found my own thesis steady on its own ground. As always, I welcome criticism, constructive or not, considering my points or the others. I know I missed other theories, like Frederick Turner’s Frontier Thesis (which I personally and fully believe to be the most correct one), but I wanted to relay some lesser known, but equally credible ideas.
Sources
- Berry, Wendell. The unsettling of America: culture & agriculture. Counterpoint, 2015.
- Fischer, David H. Albion's Seed: The Four British Folkways in America. Oxford University Press, 1989.
- Wilkinson, Rupert. The pursuit of American character. Harper & Row, Publishers, 1989.