Defining America

Addressing a mostly European audience at the Munich Security Conference this past February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: “We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations should share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.”  An elegant sentence which nonetheless came under fierce criticism because of its reference to bonds defined in terms of a specific faith and a blood connection.  To defenders of the multicultural, multi-faith, and multi-ethnic composition of the American polity, this was utterly controversial and divisive. 

I would also add, utterly ahistorical.  However, Rubio’s attempt to define the essence of America is not unprecedented.  What is at the core of America as a nation has always been defined according to competing religious and ideological interests and interpretations of its origin story.  What has been contested has always been the sharing of political and cultural influence.  From a racial standpoint, America started as a polity of white men, whose rights were later extended to Black Americans and much later to women.  The same way, America started with a predominantly North-Western European population to expand over time to today’s mosaic of ethnic groups that call themselves Americans.  The American republic still is an unfolding and ongoing experiment in democracy carried out by a very diverse political body. 

Claiming a religious identity has been the most controversial part of America’s identity.  Over its 250-year history, America’s religious identity has been associated with the Protestant ethic, later an all-Christian creed, and finally the values of the Judeo-Christian tradition.  However, all the attempts to pin down America as a nation or system of government that favors a specific religion or dogma run against three historical facts.  The first is the stance of the Founders of the country vis a vis organized religion and the state.  They were all Christian, but they had the wisdom to draft a constitution based on secular ideas.  To them mixing state power and religious dogma was a recipe for inevitable conflicts that would destroy the new country just as religious wars had destroyed European countries after the Reformation.  The Declaration of Independence mentions a Creator not of any specific faith, and the constitution has no reference to God, Christianity, or any divine inspiration.   The legitimacy of the government comes from the people and is exercised by the people and for the people.

The second fact that speaks to the secular underpinnings in the founding of the country is that most of the Founders sought guidance and inspiration in the lives and thoughts of politicians and intellectuals from the classical world of Greece and Rome and from the Enlightenment.  In his book “First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country, historian Thomas Ricks gives a thorough account regarding the political and philosophical sources that inspired the major Founders of the Republic and the political and military figures that served as their role models.  Washington’s role models were three Romans.  Cato, a Roman senator in the final years of the Roman republic, for his “upright, honest, patriotic, self-sacrificing character;” Fabius, a Roman general from whom Washington learned how to win by avoiding unnecessary battles; and, finally, Cincinnatus, “the commander who relinquished power and returned to his farm.”  For John Adams inspiration came from Cicero, the great Roman orator who stood up to Julius Ceasar.  Madison’s political thought was shaped by Scottish Enlightenment thinkers – especially Montesquieu – and through them by the study of Greek and Roman history, philosophy and government systems.  Benjamin Franklin was a friend of David Hume and a student of the Scottish Enlightenment.  Finally, Jefferson, was a student of Greek and Roman classical philosophy and of Enlightenment thinkers, especially John Locke.  Ricks notes that Jefferson’s partiality for Greek philosophy is most notably reflected in his drafting of the Declaration of Independence, where his unalienable three rights include the Epicurean aspiration of “the pursuit of happiness” instead of Locke’s choice in favor of property rights or the Christian value of austerity.

The third historical fact that should shape our understanding of what America is, or better what it aspires to be, can be found in the Declaration of Independence.  Walter Isaacson, the distinguished biographer of Benjamin Franklin and other notable people, has written a brief but precious book titled The Greatest Sentence Ever Written.  Of course, this is the sentence that reads “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. These truths, Issacson writes, “became the creed that bound a diverse group of pilgrims and immigrants into one nation.”

Of course, we know that “equal” as far as citizens’ rights are concerned did not include the Black slaves nor did it include women.  But in the word equal many early American abolitionists and suffragists saw an aspirational message.  That’s what guided Lincoln, galvanized women activists, and became the call to America in the “I Have a Dream” speech of Martin Luther King.  As in the word Creator the Declaration of Independence avoided any association with the deity of a particular faith, the same applies to the word equal with respect to faith, race or ethnicity.  If all of humankind is created equal, how can we then discriminate among Americans and immigrants by their race, faith or ethnicity?  That goes against one of the fundamental rights the Founders of America found worthy fighting for against the British Empire.  

Rubio’s speech did not just summon people of a particular ancestry and faith to defend a common cause.  That cause itself was none other than the defense of Western civilization.   The NYT columnist Bret Stephens came to Rubio’s defense in his column titled The Only Civilization Worth Defending, meaning, of course, the Western civilization.  Stephens does not shy away from listing the dark side and episodes in the history of Western civilization, but he seems to exonerate it in light of its multifaceted contributions to humanity.  This, however, can leave a lot of Americans uncomfortable or feeling excluded.  This country is populated by Native Americans, Blacks, Latinos, Africans, and Asians whose ancestors suffered in the hands of those who went out to conquer and enslave other fellow humans in the name of a self-serving racial and cultural superiority and the misguided goal of civilizing the world.  Today’s America is a syncretic outcome of different religions and cultures not a uniform manifestation of Western culture.  So, when an American official extends a call to defend Western civilization in the name of a common ancestry and faith it is natural to raise criticism. 

If we are to speak for Western civilization we need to do so under the banner of its values that can have universal appeal.  These are: the tradition to raise questions that challenge the understanding of the day about the secrets of nature, the human condition, and the role of faith and political rights; and its tolerance for criticism and open and free dialogue based on reason, not superstition.  Once, however, we understand Western civilization this way, that is, as a method to seek and find knowledge for the purpose to organize human societies, then we realize it is open to all humankind irrespective of ancestry or faith.  Moreover, the openness and liberalism of Western thinking compel us to respect other civilizations.

It is true that both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution left us with language that limited the original American sense of the ‘’We” within the North-European Protestant white men and women of that time.  But the Declaration of Independence, in particular, also bequeathed us with a language that compel us to expand that original “We” to other races, faiths, and ethnicities.  Generations of Americans undertook this project and by expanding the inclusivity of “We” they made this country a stronger and more fair society.   

The language of the Declaration of Independence for those who can read it in its aspirational message is one of hope and optimism for all people.  Any other interpretation or claim of exclusivity fails to understand the kind of historical torch the Founding Fathers passed on to future generations of Americans.