Initially posted at Correspondence Theory
When the Media inflames and polarizes popular opinion along the Left/Right divide over one event after another - i.e. the Oval Office confrontation between Zelinsky & Trump, Trump's address to congress, DOGE - to give the impression that the views of the entire nation can be boiled down to either "What happened to my country!" or "This is what I voted for!", you should understand that by mingling a little agreement in with a lot of misunderstanding, we end up knowing less about those events and each other, than we knew before.
How? Your nodding along with either position, enables a great deal of meaning which you don't agree with to further spread into 'your group', without your being aware of it. What meanings those might be, can be partially exposed by asking just two questions of anyone aligning with either response:
You might be tempted to write it off as 'it's just politics!', but you should really ask and answer those questions first, because there are meaningful and exceedingly consequential differences in how people might answer them. If there's no understanding of what they (you?) think of themselves, or what our nation is and should be, then neither of you can understand what each other's positions on those or any other issues are, and the "agreement in name only" politics that results from that, is sure to result in the kind of political chaos that produces the kinds of crisis that some will absolutely not allow to go to waste.
- Who are you?
- What do you understand your nation to be?
Of course, if you ask the questions, many will try to give a shortcut answer (which you shouldn't accept), such as:
"I am an American!"Granted, once upon a time that could've been reliably taken as a straightforward statement. But to assume that you understand what someone means by that statement today, means overlooking the fact that for more than a century our public (and most private) schools have taught lessons about "I" and "am" and "an" and "American", that are radically different from what those terms were once commonly understood to mean.
And we don't even need to get into what you or they mean by "American", to see how many different ways that such a common term can be meant, can be made apparent simply by starting with what they think of "I" as meaning.
For instance, do they think as I do, that I:
- ... understand "I" to mean an individual who attempts to make choices that limits their own actions based upon what they understand to be right and wrong, which follows from their knowledge of what is real and true,
- ... think "I" is someone who should simply do "whatever I feel like doing because "I" feel like it"?
- ... presume "I" to refer to a "a biological meat sack computer" that has no Free Will, and is capable only of deterministically responding to its environment?
- ... think that any one or more of those are equally 'valid' choices for any "I" to make (?!).
- ... think of their "I" as being oppressed by your "I"?
- ... believe that "I" is a product of national 'heritage' which justifies the use of power to preserve that 'heritage' for their "I", at the expense of all the other "I"'s?
, or do they:
See what I mean? If you're unaware that what they mean by "I", is nothing like what you mean by "I", then the positions that you assume you are agreeing (or disagreeing) on, will be misleading and deceiving both of you, and whether you attempt to unify under your group's positions of "What happened to my country!" or "This is what I voted for!", it will soon result in the kind of chaotic crisis that those seeking after power are eager to not let go to waste.
The issue is no better with the "am" and the "an" portion of that statement. And because those are metaphysical placeholders for what an "I" exists as, it's even easier to see why that's the case, in that what if:
Whichever one of those positions they presume - each of which modernity supports & affirms and which the "I"'s of #2 - #6 depend upon - our political 'conversations' become filled with fuzzy terms and misunderstood (at best) buzzwords, and any actual meaning that might've been shared, soon becomes lost in each other's assumptions. It is by means such as these that propaganda is injected into society, and how the regard for what is real and true is removed from it. In the end the only thing anyone can be certain of, is that everyone's assumptions are being used to manipulate all who take part in their popular narratives.
- ...that person doesn't think existence is knowable?
- ...they think that what reality exists as, is but a 'social construct'?
- ...they think there are no individual Americans, only instances of an 'American' collective?
This is especially the case for the more philosophically and culturally loaded terms such as "American".
While we've watched decades of late-night comics yucking it up over (horrifying) 'man on the street interviews' that have shown us how most people's education has left them ignorant of our history, we are somehow surprised over the radically conflicting positions we have over what America is, what its government's purpose is, and why its powers should be limited (I recently had one online friend tell me that having fond feelings for small and limited government is anti-American). And now as a sizable number of certifiably 'educated people' today can't even agree upon when America was founded (1776 or 1619?) or what the significance of either date is, yet will nevertheless loudly express strong opinions about America that range the full spectrum from love, to hate, to utter indifference - what wouldn't such a people as that be willing to imagine that an "American" 'is' or means? And for what purposes?
If you know little more than a person's name and occupation, and nothing of their answers to questions of 'Who are you?', and 'what do you understand your country to be', then the ambiguous nature of the terms that each person's using, means that the same terms mean different things, to different people, which puts everyone into some degree of peril by what they don't understand the other person to mean by them.
If you don't ask such questions of those you don't already know well enough to know, what kind of fool are you to assUme that you know what they mean by the position that they've just echoed to you? Are you really going to assUme that you know what you don't? Or assUme that I'll assUme that we, out of the many 'popular' assumptions about what "I", "am", "an", "American", could mean, will somehow both happen to hold the very same opinion? If you don't ask the questions, you won't actually know anything about what is being said about themselves or yourself, or anything certain about anything that's real and true.
What we need to become aware of is that such opposing positions as "What happened to my country!" or "This is what I voted for!" are steadily advancing ends that no one in either one group is fully aware of, which, once again, creates conditions that are likely to ignite one crisis or another, which those in pursuit of power will absolutely not allow to be wasted.
The only certainty to be had from such positions as these, is that they are necessarily meaningless, and that by generating an enthusiastic response to them - for or against - you enter into the Platonic Nightmare in which your own thoughts are actively separating you from reality. Someone may benefit when you assUme you know what such positions as "What happened to my country!" or "This is what I voted for!" mean, but it's not you, and I suspect they also benefit from what such enthusiasm aids in concealing from us all.
Yep, those who are determined to not allow a crisis to go to waste.
For my own answers to the questions of who I am and what I understand our nation is, my understanding of what I mean by "I" is, is as #1 above, that it means an individual who attempts to make choices that limit their own actions based upon what they understand to be right and wrong, which follows from their knowledge of what is real and true. And as "am" and "an" reflect my understanding that reality exists, and that our ability to know about what it exists as, is dependent upon our recognizing that we are able to make errors in our understanding of that, my understanding of what America is and means, reflects the historical development of the Greco/Roman-Judeo/Christian West, whose philosophy culminated in enabling the revolutionary cultural and political events that were summarized in the Declaration of Independence, and in the debates for, and ratification of, the Constitution of the United States of America, and the Bill of Rights that were amended to it, which I as an American, have a deep regard for, and appreciation of.
What I understand that to entail, is a form of representative government that is responsive to, and answerable to, the voter, while also having its few and limited powers bound down by constitutional laws that are dedicated to upholding & defending individual rights.
Is that what you expect? If so, then you are among the few, and not of the many options listed above.
Answering who you are and what your nation is, should also entail an understanding of the How's & Why's that governs the nature and responsibilities that you do and do not have with your fellow citizens under your laws, and what your government's relation to that is.
Sadly, however, simply saying that it's governed by the "Rule of Law", is every bit as ambiguous a statement today, as "I am an American!" is. Before you can meaningfully make or accept that statement, you first must understand what you mean by "Law".
Do you presume "Law" to mean:
orNatural Law - where a government's powers are subordinated to a Rule of Law that respects and upholds the individual rights that are self-evidently inherent to the nature of man.
Only the #1 answer above is compatible with the first of these, and all the others result from the second of these, and they are entirely incompatible with each other.Positivist Law - where government is expected to use whatever powers it can to ensure collective obedience to 'the greater good'.
Laws that follow from Natural Law, are not optional and arbitrary rules of 'democratic agreement', they are dependent upon the recognition of what is real and true, and that begins with recognizing that man is a creature that lives by reasoning (not simply by logic, but by reasoning, which logic is discovered by), that man is fallible, and that disputes or confrontations are inherently instances of reasoning objectively about actions and events, and that the Law operates to 'hear the other side' as a means of 'reason absent emotion', which is a necessity of civilized human life and the fruits of Liberty.
The reality today is that those who haven't considered these questions, tend to make up the 'normal' folk who paid attention in school and got decent to good grades, scored well on their tests, and perhaps went on to get a college degree or two in something or other. They tend to be 'the many' who believe that there's something about you - who you are, what you have, or what you believe - which justifies society's 'right' to penalize or confiscate any or all that you have, based upon what 'others' are perceived (by them) to lack (more than a few 'capitalists' believe that too, by framing the abuse of 'some' people's 'rights' (you) as beneficial to the market/economy).
These economically minded 'normies' tend knowingly or not to favor the ideal of Positivist Law, and whether they see themselves as Pro-Regressive (Left & Right)/Communist/Socialist/Fascist, they think of America in terms of an Administrative State that's full of bureaucratic agencies that are nominally 'overseen by' elected officials, but run by 'civil servants' who "have to" intrude into our lives as needed in order to 'take care' of our education, manage the stock market, see to it that our steaks are FDA Grade 'A' approved, to travel 'safely' under the eye of TSA, their water kept 'clean' by the EPA, their workings regulated by a Dept of Labor, their income divvied up by the IRS, etc., which they excuse as being necessary to serve the 'Common Good'.
Because they've never learned to ask these questions about themselves, they've never considered the possibility that a 'Common Good' that targets & harms some for the benefit of others, is neither common nor good.
When these two outlooks are combined under ill-fitting positions such as "What happened to my country!" or "This is what I voted for!", the better amongst them being made to serve the worse and all to ultimately combust into a crisis that won't be allowed to go to waste.
If you don't ask these questions of yourself and your fellows before you're both sucked into the positions of "What happened to my country!" or "This is what I voted for!" that result from not asking them, then neither you nor they will have a common understanding of who has the rightful authority to acquire & use Power within your governments (local, state, federal), what its limits should be, and what position either of you occupy within that chain of power, then you won't have a chance of pushing back, and you'll all be eaten up by the power hungry beast of modernity which exists to ensure that no crisis will be allowed to go to waste.
If you scoff at that, you've already told me a great deal about how you'd answer, 'who you are' (if you could), and what you too seek to 'transform the United States of America' into, and I'm going to do my very best to thwart you & your fellows on both counts.
Ask the questions of yourself and give some consideration to your own answers. Then ask your neighbor. Who knows, you might even find that you have neighbors that are worth having.
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