WILFRED M. MCCLAY

A taboo in America against judging other cultures began to seem ridiculous in the context of grotesque violations of human rights and such practices as clitoridectomy and sutee in some parts of the non-Western world.

Would a serious country so completely lose perspective on its own past that it would entertain the idea that the nation was founded on slavery, rather than on the ideals that have made it a beacon to the rest of the world? And would a serious country think it appropriate to teach its children that the nation’s past is best understood as a parade of horrors, to which the most appropriate response is not pride but lacerating shame? … Nobody wants an account of the American past that is sanitized. We are all too aware of our many faults, and most of us understand the importance of owning up to them. But what we have wanted and needed instead is an account that places those faults in proper perspective—that understands them in much the same way that we understand every flawed but admirable person we have ever known and loved. We need to become a serious country again. And to do that, we need to believe in ourselves again, believe in the reason we have been placed here, as a land of hope for a world that needs hope more than ever. We need to understand that a world without America will be immeasurably diminished, both in material and spiritual terms, and that we have no choice but to live up to the responsibilities that come with our many blessings. Our history can be an enormous resource in that endeavor. The work will not be easy. … But it will be much harder to live with ourselves, and with the rebuke of the future, should we shrink from the challenge. And once we understand what is at stake, we may feel a certain exhilaration that comes of knowing what is being demanded of us.

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so a culture will find some kind of grand narrative of itself to feed upon, even a poisonous one.

From the start, the nation’s history has been weighted with a sense of great destiny and huge meaning, of visions not found on the fringes of the story but at its very core, actively shaping the minds of those who make history and those who write about it.

History is only very rarely the story of inevitabilities,” he says, “and it almost never appears in that form to its participants.

The notion that America is a nation chosen by God, a New Israel destined for a providential mission of world redemption, has been a near constant of the national experience.

Conflict is part of the human condition and can never be eliminated. Neither can the desire for power and the tendency to abuse it.

A taboo in America against judging other cultures began to seem ridiculous in the context of grotesque violations of human rights and such practices as clitoridectomy and sutee in some parts of the non-Western world.

From the start, the nation’s history has been weighted with a sense of great destiny and huge meaning, of visions not found on the fringes of the story but at its very core, actively shaping the minds of those who make history and those who write about it.

The notion that America is a nation chosen by God, a New Israel destined for a providential mission of world redemption, has been a near constant of the national experience.

Just as nature abhors a vacuum, so a culture will find some kind of grand narrative of itself to feed upon, even a poisonous one.

History is only very rarely the story of inevitabilities,” he says, “and it almost never appears in that form to its participants.

Conflict is part of the human condition and can never be eliminated. Neither can the desire for power and the tendency to abuse it.

Would a serious country so completely lose perspective on its own past that it would entertain the idea that the nation was founded on slavery, rather than on the ideals that have made it a beacon to the rest of the world? And would a serious country think it appropriate to teach its children that the nation’s past is best understood as a parade of horrors, to which the most appropriate response is not pride but lacerating shame? … Nobody wants an account of the American past that is sanitized. We are all too aware of our many faults, and most of us understand the importance of owning up to them. But what we have wanted and needed instead is an account that places those faults in proper perspective—that understands them in much the same way that we understand every flawed but admirable person we have ever known and loved. We need to become a serious country again. And to do that, we need to believe in ourselves again, believe in the reason we have been placed here, as a land of hope for a world that needs hope more than ever. We need to understand that a world without America will be immeasurably diminished, both in material and spiritual terms, and that we have no choice but to live up to the responsibilities that come with our many blessings. Our history can be an enormous resource in that endeavor. The work will not be easy. … But it will be much harder to live with ourselves, and with the rebuke of the future, should we shrink from the challenge. And once we understand what is at stake, we may feel a certain exhilaration that comes of knowing what is being demanded of us.