“Views from the Edge” is not partisan. We couldn’t care less who owns the ideas. It’s the ideas themselves we care about. Our intent is to unpack the deeper philosophical and religious convictions embedded, like Pavlov’s bell, in our speech and public policy.
Whenever we salivate at the mere hint of the conviction of national superiority or privilege, Socrates is whispering from off-stage. “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
“Truthout” granted permission to re-publish “The Measure of a Nation” Challenges Illusions of American Superiority (Sunday, 07 October 2012).“Book Review: Author Howard Steven Friedman compared the US with 13 competing countries on health, education, infant mortality, life expectancy and other critical social and economic indicators. He found only one in which America excels: producing billionaires.
“In his book, ‘No Apology: The Case for American Greatness,’ Mitt Romney laid his cards on the table: ‘I’m one of those who believe America is destined to remain as it has been since the birth of the Republic – the brightest hope of the world.’
“Obama’s reluctance to acknowledge America’s manifest moral and economic superiority is for Romney a telltale of his essential foreignness. ‘American prosperity is fully dependent upon having an opportunity society – I don’t think President Obama understands that,’ he told the Republican Jewish Coalition last Pearl Harbor Day. ‘I don’t think he understands why our economy is the most successful in the world. I don’t think he understands America.’
Click HERE for the entire piece.
The idea of “the Chosen,” otherwise described on “Views from the Edge” as “Exceptionalism,” is perhaps the deepest, least examined conviction of the long history of the United States of America. The misapplication of the biblical call to Abraham is pernicious.It leads to mischief and war. Every citizen of whatever country is responsible to love that country and to engage it in a lover’s quarrel. The notion of national superiority is not love. It’s an illusion.
Views from the Edge 
There are far too many people who know only the first half of the famous Carl Schurz quote: “My country right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right. People instead have added “~My country right or wrong~ is still my country.” They then somehow argue from that, that it is unpatriotic to try to set wrong right. I don’t kow how Pavlov would explain that, but whistleblowers have a hard time, so a combination of fear, laziness, fallacious thinking (there is a fancy philosophical word for it, but I haven’t read Dorothy Sayers recently enough to remember it) might account for most of it.
LikeLike
Hi again, CA, maybe today will be the day when inspiration strikes again. So many thoughts, so many feelings. Hard to telescope them into words that would be worth publishing. There is only one kind of patriotism. The kind that engages the lover’s quarrel with one’s own country. Anything else is nation-worship and servitude.
LikeLike
Best ever illustration of conditioning. I could have used it in my intro Psych courses. Even more, thanks for reference to the article. I just posted the link on my facebook page.
LikeLike
Thanks, Mona. I’m sure you students would have found the illustration useful, too 🙂
LikeLike