Someone once said that in every person is three personas: how others see us, how we see ourselves and who we really are. I want to add two more to that: how we want to see ourselves in the future and who we want to be in the future. How we want others to see us in the future might also be counted in that, but for the sake of argument it's superfluous and obsolete. You shouldn't care too much what others think of you, especially in the future.
These five personas all have to do with what defines us. Heritage, personality, taste, culture, sexuality and many other variables all go in to our personal definition, "personal" here meaning "of or relating to the persona." Personal fulfillment can only come by making the four important ones--"how others see us" not included--as closely tied together as possible. The closer "how we see ourselves" and "who we really are" are to each other, the more objectively we have to and do look at ourselves and the more honest with ourselves we become. Similarly, only keeping in mind "who we want to be" and "how we want to see ourselves in the future" can bring us closer to those ideals.
It's basic "leadership" and life-skills training: "I am a lazy person. I see myself as a lazy person, even though my friends think I'm really neat. I want to be a self-motivated person. I want to see myself as really cool and self-motivated." Given an example of how this thought process works, it becomes obvious how much self-scrutiny and honesty is required. You have to learn to look at yourself objectively without objectifying yourself. Maybe a better word would be "perspectively." So the person in this example makes a goal to become more self-motivated and less lazy. They go on runs, they stop doing so much facebook, they become a blogger. (By the way, does this sound familiar to anyone? It's because it's universal or ought to be.)
Through the process of becoming more self-motivated, they become more self-motivated. That's the wonderful thing about personas: unlike good logic, they are inherently self-defining. But the person in the example can't ever reach a point of status quo. They can't ever "become" a self-motivated person. As soon as they see themself as having reached that point and say "Okay, I've reached the Promised Land," although they don't see it, they have given up. This process has to be done repetitively, every day. Every day you have to wake up and say "Who am I going to be?" and get yourself there. This is all based on the assumption that you're being as honest with yourself as is humanly possible. And this is how we define ourselves, though--for most of us--it's a subconscious process. Let's be existential, people. Let's be conscious about how we define ourselves and take control of who we are.
Another side note: this goes right along with the Mormon philosophy of "eternal progression." Although there are some Mormons, even apostles and prophets who disagree with me, I can't help but believe God is doing this same process--although perfected and without the human error element--to make sure that He stays being God and doesn't fall like Lucifer did.
This idea of a five-faced persona is true for any single person or relationship or group or even an entire nation. That's where the question comes in: "What defines America?" All people in the debates want to talk about is track record and policy. Sure, track record is important. But it's not as important as what a candidate is now and debating track record just ends up being a whole lot of pointing fingers and "yes, you did" and "no, I didn't." And of course policy is paramount to the purpose of government and ought to be debated. But more important to the populace ought to be the purpose of the policy which is a question about what the candidate wishes to accomplish which is a question about what the candidate wants America to be which then leads to questions about what America is and how the candidate or party sees how America is...Basically it's all questions about how America can be defined, or "What defines America?"
Now that the intro is over, I can get into what I want to say.
This essay--if you haven't guessed already--is about how I define America: how I see America, what I believe America is, how I want my grandchildren to see America and what America will be.
Of course, in the discussion of definition you have to define the term of what you're defining. By "America," do I mean the American government? Do I mean the real estate we call "The United States"? Do I mean the intricate web of the relations between the various people that inhabit it? This could be an entire dissertation, just talking about the definition of definition. But for the sake of time, cyber-space and argument, when I refer to "America," I mean the people of the United States of America, including all the normal people, the abnormal people, the people in politics, the people who love being American, the people who hate it, everybody.
To get a perspective of what others think of America, you'd have to ask someone that isn't American. Check out the BBC. It's great. But again, what others think of us--while important when considering foreign policy--is not as important as what we really are and how we see ourselves. If we're a country worth liking, then we have a better shot at being liked, so our focus should be introspective.
What I believe America really is is a nation of many different people and peoples, a microcosm for the rest of the world. "American History" tends to be taught under the assumption that we're all one people with god-given rights that were given us by the Bill of Rights--and most people can't really define what a god-given right is (I'm sorry, no matter how you stretch it, owning a gun does not fall under that category) and the Bill didn't give rights, it defined them--and "World History" tends to really mean "European History." Although I hope I don't get executed for it, here's where I'm going to apply Socrates approach: why? Some might say it's because Europe's history had a more direct relationship with our own. So again: why do you say that? The person then might say something about how England was the "mother-country" and so our history is their history. So I agree that our history is their history which I'll get to in a second. But, why do you say they're the "mother-country"?
Here's where in the conversation they sort of stutter and spew some gobbledegook about the Revolution and the Declaration of Independence. Or at least that's how I imagine the conversation would go. I've never actually had it.
If England is the "mother-country" because a significant amount of the population is of English descent, then India is also the "mother-country." And so is Mexico. And Spain. And Vietnam. And Libya. And Norway. And every other nation around the world. America is the people that live here. The "mother-country" is every country that America came from. Ought we not then when we study "World History" to study the real world history? It is true that Northern Europe had a closer tie to the formation of our government than any other arbitrary group of landmasses on the planet, but America is not her government. And don't talk to me about studying English history because of our common language. First, we're multilingual. We have always been, we will always be. Second, that was a coincidence. We could easily have been a French-speaking country if France had won the Seven-Years' War. Third, that is a downright stupid reason to study history.
For the sake of argument, how I view America is really not any different from what I believe America is. However, the general view of America--or 'Murica--is very different from what I believe America is. In explaining what I think the general view of America is, I'll try really hard to be fair and not sound sarcastic. The typically American viewpoint of America--and this is not necessarily a partisan issue, though the liberal-conservative line can be quite distinct--is this: English-speaking, capitalist, Christian and Defender of Democracy and can have no fault. If you disagree with this statement, please respond with both citation and why you think Americans view America differently from how I'm portraying them viewing themselves. From now on, I will refer to that as the "Nationalist" viewpoint.
There are two main drawbacks to this kind of thinking. The first is that it's inherently close-minded. You cannot be open about other points of view and ignore the basic history and contemporaney--I just made up a word--of the place where you live and you also can't admit your own faults if think you can't have faults. The second is based on the first. Those who think this way often--not always--will try to destroy anything that they feel threatens their perspective.
First, English may be the lingua franca of both trade and government. I have no issue with that. But--as I've already stated--we've always been multilingual and--as long as everyone holds to their roots which I sincerely hope they would and will--we will always be multilingual. For the government or any organization to claim otherwise is discrimination and Anglo-centric. If you disagree, please respond and say why. Even while we were England's colonies, there were significant populations of Dutch, German, Algonquin and various African-speaking populations. Some people then claim that the English were here first. I slap my forehead. The English were relatively late. Including all land and inhabitants that are now part of the geographic States--which we need to do if we're going to have this argument--even Chinese was here before the English and Spanish--since for some reason this language gets picked on a lot--was permeated here before any other European language. So no, not English-speaking.
Second, "Capitalism" has never been pure in America. Even the first English settlers practiced forms of government that have become hated and feared in contemporary America. The first "City on a Hill" speech that Reagan alluded to was given as a basis for a Socialist Theocracy. The Constitution was written--even some of the Framers were downright "socialist"--because pure capitalism was obviously failing. The government was too weak and so couldn't regulate trade. But this could become very tangential and make this rant very long. So to be short: no, we're not a "capitalist" nation. Yeah, we have capitalist tendencies. But we also have socialist tendencies and hardly anyone--there are exceptions--in America doesn't have them, even if they don't realize it or wouldn't ever admit it.
Third, America admittedly is predominantly Christian. But we are not a "Christian nation" just like we're not English. There are Agnostics in America, there are Hindus, there are Atheists, there are Wiccans, there are--heaven forbid--Mormons and even Muslims here and all of them are included in what makes up America. To claim America is Christian is to exclude them and we can't claim to be the land of religious tolerance--not that we've ever exactly been that--and exclude a religion from being part of our definition. Don't bring up that all Muslims are anti-America. It's not true.
Fourth, American Nationalism is not the Defender of Democracy. Let's play a game. I describe a country and the reader guesses what it is. This country began as group of colonies who sought for home-rule and her revolutionaries fought for democracy. Once the fighting had cleared, they set up a republic--not a democracy--ruled by a few elite that denied even the basic right of voting to the vast majority of the population. Skip a few generations and now this country has colonies of its own but now it calls them "territories" and denies the people of those colonies citizenship which is less than they were allowed when they were colonists themselves. Skip a few more generations and now its fighting wars on the side of dictators as the other side fights for democratic communism. This mystery country at this point has multiple puppet dictators around the world making the people of those countries very angry with it. Skip a few more and of those other countries a few have made it to democracy despite the efforts of the mystery country, but a few still have dictatorial regimes, this time with a vengeance for America. Shoot, I let it slip.
Basically, I'm Anti-Nationalist in the typical American form of Nationalism.
What I want America to be and what I want my grandchildren to see in America is the same thing: a land where it truly is the land of opportunity. The people are diverse and tolerant of differences language, culture and religion. The government lets the good happen and takes the bad and tries to transform it--as opposed to treating it like or covering it with--something good. No assumptions are made of you because of your race, language, religion, height, sexuality or anything else. You are accepted and tolerated because of who you are, not in spite of it. The environment is healthy and the people care about their own well-being as well as the well being of the rest of everybody else. The government--while being judicious about criminal behavior--allows immigration from anywhere and has no beef with any other country for any other reason. The country and people have good relations with every other country and people. War is not any option unless invasion truly is imminent and then diplomacy is sought first.
America is wonderful, and I firmly believe that it can be the greatest nation on earth--and in that sense I'm very Nationalist--but we need to keep reevaluating ourselves and keep getting better. To do that, we need a synergetic solution where everyone works to make the world a better place and hopefully we can meet somewhere in the middle and the world actually will be a better place. That means that Democrats need to keep being Democrats, Republicans need to keep being Republicans and all the people need to not succumb to indifference or hate, the two evils most pervasive in our and every society. Exclusion will never produce any solution.
So what would happen if in a presidential debate the candidates were asked questions like "What is the definition of America?" instead of "What is your view on immigration?" We would actually start having debate that would mean something, for one. People would be forced to start thinking that question of themselves for another. We'd all be better informed about the character of the candidates and their actual intentions, not the intentions FOX puts on liberals nor the intentions CNN puts on conservatives. People would start listening to each other more and have more open discussion. America would actually start to realize what she is.
I said near the beginning that the idea of the five-faced persona applies to any person, relationship, group or nation and I challenge everyone to try it. But what if we applied it to an entire continent, an entire hemisphere or even an entire globe?
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