Americans are generally optimistic people. Embarkation on a hostile uncharted continent requires a positive outlook on the world. This optimism has roots among Americans far beyond the frontier and can be found in American music, literature, and theater. Foreigners, friend and foe alike, have long noted this characteristic. British comedian Stephen Fry once said, “If there was such a thing as the feeling of the American people, I would call it optimism.”
But since the 1960s, and more so in the last 15 years, a creeping fear has entered the national psyche. This trend is also visible in media, art, and political thought. Neither side is optimistic. ABC News reported Almost three-quarters of Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction.
Although the emperor has no clothes, he still has the power to punish his opponents.
Part of this pessimism has to do with the normal decline of empires. No one country can remain on top forever. Eventually it will return to the average value. But I believe there is another source of despair that is suffocating this country. That is, our civil religion is built on lies and our elites cannot solve the problems they promise.
Every country has a civil religion. In some states, this is done overtly, such as in the deification of the Roman emperor. Some countries, like our American empire, have more nuanced civil religions. Our previous civil religion was his Religion of 1776. The religion has saints like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. This faith sanctifies the Constitution as scripture. There are also statements of faith.
This is the central belief that justifies the existence and domination of the elite. One way he sums up the old civil religion is, “Elites rule because we have created the best, freest, most powerful state the world has ever known. “It may be something like ” The virtues of this civil religion are independence, competence, and positivity. Broadly speaking, Christian ethics.
However, this old faith was replaced by another.
The 1960s served as America’s cultural revolution. Aspects of life that were once fixed and apolitical became subject to debate. More than half a century later, a new civil religion has emerged: the religion of the woke left. Modern civil faith is based on the following political formula: “We, the elite, saved you from a past of racism, sexism, and homophobia. We will give you social status and lead you to a future based on equity and inclusion.” .”
While this formula worked well at the ballot box, it has major flaws. That’s not true.
In the nearly 60 years since that promise was made, nearly every aspect of American civic life has deteriorated. Women are miserable and race relations are terrible. Just 20 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, Thomas Sowell drew attention to this fact. in “Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality??,” the black intellectual pointed out, pointing out that equality is at best a “funny goal.”
But when other conservative figures pointed this out, they were met with fierce resistance. John Derbyshire, who wrote for National Review until 2012, was fired for these very opinions. The idea that equality is impossible goes to the heart of the liberal project.
John Derbyshire, gawker interviewspoke about how this lie is affecting the national psyche.
One [factor], I’ve written many times, but I think it’s just hopelessness in America. I’m a certain age now, but it was about 50 years ago. I was reading the newspaper and following world events and was reminded of the civil rights movement. I was in England and followed it. I remember it, I remember what we felt about it, and I remember what people wrote about it. It was full of hope. The idea that everyone had in their minds was that if we abolished these unjust laws and outlawed all this discrimination, we would be whole. Then America will be perfect. After an interim period of a few years, with affirmative action, etc., and maybe even 20 years, black Americans will blend into the general population and everything will disappear. That’s what everyone believed. Everyone thought so. And it didn’t happen.
Fifty years later, there are still large disparities in crime rates and educational attainment. And while they still say the platitudes, I think Americans feel a kind of cold despair about it in their hearts. They feel that Thomas Jefferson was probably right and that we cannot live together in harmony. I think that’s why we’re seeing this slow ethnic divide. We currently have a very segregated school system. There is a school within 10 miles of where I sit that is 98 percent minority. The same is true for apartment complexes. So I think there’s a cold, dark despair lurking in the hearts of the American people about this whole thing.
What paleo-conservative writers were trying to portray was the failure of woke civil religion. The elites who came to power in the 1960s promised the people they would heal the long-standing divisions in American culture. For many people, this was seen as a hopeful time full of opportunity. If we allow new elites to change things and change the way society is organized, we can recover as a nation.
But this was an impossible promise. Equality is a false god. And that false promise was doomed to failure.
This is always the case, but as time passes and elites spend more and more time in power, their initial promises sound increasingly hollow. Indeed, perhaps in 1972 he could have blamed the group’s differences on Klansmen and Redlining. But in 1992? 2002? 2022? The claim that our nation’s elites, who have been in power for generations, are still weaklings fighting an oppressive system is patently ridiculous. Attempts to shift blame onto racist “others” are becoming less and less plausible.
This is where the despair comes from. Our country has been campaigning against difference for 60 years. Not only was the crusade a failure, but its consequences were clear and dangerous. Although the emperor has no clothes, he still has the power to punish his opponents.
Derbyshire continued:
But for moralistic and optimistic people like Americans, this despair is unbearable. It’s been relegated to a place where we don’t have to think about it. When someone makes us think about it, we react with rage.that little boy [Hans Christian] The story of Andersen’s Emperor’s New Clothes? The outcome would have been more realistic if he had been lynched by a mob of enraged citizens.
I’m not naive. I think our ruling class knew their promises were false. Even the most dedicated progressives know deep down that a lie is a lie. lie. But is it easier to admit that a citizen’s religion is a lie or to punish the person who points it out?
Without honesty, the American people’s innate optimism is turning to despair.
