The “idea” of America

The “idea” of America

by digby

I think this is a nice video( from Matthew Modine, whose heart is in the right place. The “idea” of America is an egalitarian, multi-cultural, democratic society where everyone is free to pursue their happiness — at least for many people.  Let’s not forget that there are also Americans who believe this is an explicitly Christian country or those who think that our culture is being polluted by immigrants. Among other things.) We are a varied people, to be sure, but it’s not all a bed of roses.

But the real problem here is that to an awful lot of people in the middle east America is this:

And this:

I’m not suggesting that the idea Modine expresses isn’t real.  It is.  It’s real to me. But you can’t ignore the reality that for all of our highminded “ideas” about what we are, we are most definitely  are also a globally dominant military empire, something which is bound to provoke hostility among at least some people on this planet.  And that would happen even if we were a completely benevolent and perfect empire, which we clearly are not. (Can empires even be perfect?)

I’m all for the “idea” of The New Colossus being the one that Emma Lazarus intended:

  But I’m afraid that much of the rest of the world we look like the old one:

.