Amurican Rambling

I was reading over a high school English project that intended to use the year’s literature to arrive at conclusions about America, its founding, and its development and it has given some perspective that might be useful in conjunction with my experience abroad. I’ve been having trouble dealing with my global attitudes and being American lately. Having hosted a foreign exchange student in high school and having family from abroad with an immigrant parent has given me one fuzzy side of the issue, while my ever exploding ego, family history in the military, and frontiersman roots have given me a different side. I resolve these by coming to a basic conclusion that America at its heart has to be just an idea and nothing more. Whatever you can say of the population, historical development, and influences of so many other factors like geography, all of which have merit, America really is just an idea. It should be, and in a way is borderless, and open to everyone, the opposite of exceptionalist, etc. And though it’s clear that America was founded with many exceptionalist ideals, I think this whole idea of providence, or whatever makes America an exception, is our ideals. Regardless of who “we” are, if we are Americans in spirit, we should support our ideals to the best of our ability.

The popular point of reflection, frustration, etc is how or why this country is atrophying. But the talk is all two sided, and each side has its own double talk. This is of course forgivable, but really we all need to just chill and know that we are fallible, that there is at least something in what another says, and that even those who cannot be reached by logic or whatever you might depend on to reach your conclusions deserve your respect and their ideas deserve your deeper consideration.

Debate taught me a few things. One, to truly and deeply analyze an idea, sometimes the round must be long and focused, but most likely, you will need many focused rounds, each in front of a new audience, with new consideration put into your own arguments, and even more focus put into creativity that will guide your opponent in a new direction. You simply cannot keep hammering an idea into others and expect real progress. You may persuade more to your point, but this must only be a secondary objective of the sharing of ideas and opinions. You should work to build a consensus amongst those who think about things most. And you should be persistent about it.

The Panama Canal was built by America, and it was by no means built in a perfect way, but it is a significant achievement in history and it was built by persistent men, some of whom ran out of steam. But because the idea was important enough, others were there to pick up the torch, knowing they may fade, because the idea was so promising.