Reply #13: American stuff [View All]

[Liberal Christian]

Good stuff:
This is still a place where it is possible to move out of the circumstances of your birth -- positively, negatively, or neutrally -- and achieve something that preceding generations of your family might never have dreamed of. I think that's ingrained in the American psyche.

A small-town (population about 450) 4th of July celebration where all the carnival games for the kids were made by their grandfathers and uncles, the pie and ice cream social was put on by the Congregational Church, the fish fry was put on by the Catholic church, and everyone went to both. Everyone in town is in the parade, except the grandparents, who are watching and cheering. It's a spirit different from what I've found in many travels to other countries.

There's an easy freedom in the stride and posture of Americans that you can spot from far away when you see your compatriots in a foreign land.

There's a belief that America actually can contribute to making the world a better place to live, more free from hunger and poverty. The fact that there are differences in attitude and policy about how this might be carried out doesn't take away the core belief.

We know that we live in a land of incredible beauty and variety with some of the most amazing big open spaces in the world. Landscape influences personality and the way of being in the world.

Negative stuff:
We can be arrogant, obnoxious, insistent on our own way, rude, belligerent, ignorant, idiotic, triumphalistic, and every other negative personality trait you can imagine. So can people from everywhere else.

We can be too isolationist and unilateral because we have been so powerful.

The "easy freedom" can take up too much space on a narrow sidewalk without even knowing it's doing so. Translate that from one person on one sidewalk to one nation on the world stage, and you've got a problem.

We overindulge in everything.

We tend to want to conquer things -- nature, people, ideas, other countries. We're better at conquering than stewarding.

***

Anyway, that's what came out of my fingers this morning.

Jeanny

(edited to correct typo)