Defining the American Nationality
Nobody loves answering the question "what is an American?" more than I do.
One of the most important political projects of the next few decades will be providing an answer to the question “what is an American?”
There are many reasons for this that are difficult to articulate, but I think Andrew Callaghan from Channel 5 News puts it best - there is a deep spiritual sickness in our country resulting from a loss of connection to our national collective identity.
Most people would agree that one of the foundational aspects of the American Nationality is some notion of multiculturalism (i.e. the melting pot, a nation of immigrants). No matter what race you are, you can be an American.
But this assumption seems to be taking fire.
The Dissident Right has been forcing this issue for some time, but now it appears that even some on the Progressive Left like Trevor Noah are converging on the belief that American multiculturalism might be more problematic then we realize.
And in the spirit of radical centrism, when I see both ends of the political spectrum agreeing on the same point, it means that point must be contended with directly.
Let me say this from the outset
This is a very complex and controversial topic and I am 100% going to be missing some things and getting other things wrong. I am writing this Substack in order to A) formulate my current thoughts and B) hear what others have to say so I can improve upon them.
With that being said…
The role of ethnicity and race in American Nationality
There are two competing ideas for what constitutes American nationality. One view is that American nationality is entirely ideological, and the only thing that makes an American is a commitment to a set of principles. The other is that American nationality means being a part of a particular people-group with common customs, traditions, and mythology. Most nationalities fall into the second category.
Unlike other nationalities like the English or the Japanese, the American Nationality is not explicitly tied to a single genetic/racial lineage. And as an American, it’s very amusing to watch English people pretend as if there is no such thing as an “English” ethnicity out of fear of appearing racist or something.
But at the same time, I am left feeling somewhat confused as a white American, because my national identity isn’t quite as easy to define. And to make matters worse, there so many freaks like Jared Taylor or Thomas Rosseau who claim to speak on “behalf of white people” when it comes to the issue.
For the record, I have the same opinion as Tucker Carlson on white identitarianism.
But putting aside the freakishness, there is a productive conversation to be had around white racial identity in America, and the broader American Nationality in general.
Like most white Americans, my European heritage is not particularly relevant to my identity as an American, so the notion of hanging a Polish or Irish flag outside my house seems absurd. I fly an American flag, because I am an American national.
But since America is a multiracial and multiethnic society, it seems to be the case that my identity as an American National is predicated on customs and traditions of other nationalities.
Chinatown, Little Italy, or your local Historical Black College are unique and vibrant cultural enclaves that exist across the United States, and many Americans rightly feel a personal connection to these cultural institutions.
But as a white American with no real connection to my European heritage, it doesn’t really feel right to say that these are my cultural institutions, even if I ignore the hollow and meaningless accusations of potential “cultural appropriation.”
It is interesting to note that black Americans are actually in a relatively similar position as white Americans, in that many have a very limited personal connection to their original African or European heritage. In that sense, I think there is something to be said about black and white Americans being uniquely culturally intertwined in a vaguely similar way that the English and Scottish are uniquely intertwined.
That’s why I feel like black American icons like Dave Chapelle, Jimi Hendrix, and Walter Peyton are just as integral parts of the American Nationality as white American figures like Shane Gillis, Anthony Kiedis, and Tom Brady. This is largely because no other nationality has a greater claim on these figures than us Americans.
Albert Einstein, Paul McCartney, and Ichiro Suzuki are all titanic contributors to American culture and therefore the American Nationality, but they are clearly the products of their home nations (Germany, England, and Japan) more so than the American nation.
I truly believe the American Nationality is great in part because we have such a commitment to see beyond race and to welcome other cultures in our country. But if the only defining characteristic of our nationality is tolerance and inclusion of other nationalities, we have a serious problem.
We can’t just define American nationality as a commitment to certain ideas around freedom of speech and limited government - these just define what type of things we are free from. We have to ground our identity in something in something else - something affirmative.
Defining our national identity requires the exclusion of others
If we are to define the American Nationality as something other than liberal tolerance and inclusion, we must acknowledge that this will necessarily involve the exclusion of other peoples and beliefs.
As an obvious example, there is no world where an American Nationality exists under the rule of Islamic Sharia Law. It is an oppressive and authoritarian ideology that contradicts our most foundational beliefs.
I would also posit that an American National is someone who can speak and understand basic English, since the ability to communicate with your fellow citizens seems to be a prerequisite for a functional society.
This insightful comment was left on one of my videos I did on this topic, and I think it succinctly captures the key point at hand here.
The question that emerges from all this is what are the affirmative characteristics of the American Nationality?
This is the hardest question to answer, and one that I am most curious to hear other people’s thoughts on. I will attempt to outline my thoughts on this below.
The features of the American Nationality
There are of course many subcultures within and permutations of American Nationality, but the following are my proposed key characteristics of every American National.
Loyalty to the American Nation-state over all other nation-states
Commitment to free speech as a sacred principle
Knowledge of the foundational parts of the American mythology and it’s key figures (the founding fathers, MLK, etc.)
Rejection of ethnocentrism (the belief that your genetics is the fundamental determining factor in how “American” one is)
Belief in the right of the people to exert democratic control over their elected officials
Participation in (or at least the appreciation of) key National cultural events and customs like Christmas, Thanksgiving, the 4th of July, the Superbowl, etc.
Explicit or implicit recognition of secular and/or Christian morality as the basis of the American moral and legal systems (i.e. “All men are created equal endowed by their creator with inalienable rights”)
Obviously, some people will take issue with some or all of these. I am not positing these features because I think they will convince people - I am positing these features because they are what I believe as of right now. Convincing you of these will have to come later once I’ve gotten feedback on these ideas.
As I mentioned, another key point to recognize is the existence of sub-nationalities within the broader American Nationality.
For example, “black culture” is a uniquely American phenomenon that (by definition) is a product of a particular racial lineage. This in no way shape or form prevents non-black Americans from including black culture as part of their American national identity (given we are a multiracial country), but it still has a grounding in a particular race.
So, does this imply the existence of a “white American culture” that includes things like playing baseball in the suburbs, blasting country music & classic rock, and saying “fair enough” too much?
I don’t know. Obviously, you could point out that not all white Americans abide by these cultural aspects and therefore there is no such thing as “white American culture.” But you could say the same thing about black culture, and I don’t think it’s practical to pretend that there isn’t such a thing as black culture.
“E Pluribus Unum”
In order to address the spiritual sickness of being part of a “nation with no ancestors,” we need to have an idea of what an American National identity actually is.
And as a white American, I am particularly interested in the prospect of identifying a white American sub nationality, in part so the only people beating the drums on the issue aren’t a bunch of less-than-impressive whites like Nick Fuentes or Jared Taylor.
Ooh this is a tricky subject - extremely interesting though.
1) I highly recommend "The war in the west" and "the strange death of Europe" by Douglas Murray - he talks about many of those same "identity" based issues in those books (albeit from a conservative British perspective)
2) controversial opinion: I suspect "black American" culture was a way to reclaim a distinct "non-white" ethnic identity in the wake of the abolition of slavery, however that was by definition a rejection of a culture rather than being founded upon a set of positive principles. Conservative black Americans such as Thomas Sowell, Glenn Lowery and Larry Elder reject this premise entirely, hence why people such as FD Signifier claim they are "not black".
3) there's a very interesting essay somewhere on substack about "American" being a "post-national" idea rather than fitting neatly into the worldview of "nationalism". (On a side note the Israel-Palestine conflict can be described as being a pre-national / pre-enlightenment conflict i.e. a tribal blood feud)
4) the youtuber Greg Owen has asked on behalf of his adopted (black) daughter "what is "blackness"?" He hasn't yet made a video on the subject but as he seems a very emotionally intelligent man I'm looking forward to his take on the subject. He's also made a video with a Nigerian YouTuber about how poorly Hollywood tends to portray non-American cultures - which leads to:
5) (continuation of 3+4) is America a nation, or is each state a nation with America being a "meta-nation"? If that's so, why do Americans misunderstand other cultures so badly? Also, it makes the existence of the 51st and 52nd states seem a lot more plausible if you look at it that way (regardless of whether you think that should be a thing or not)
That's all I can think of for now, shame we can't edit comments here on Substack, if I think of anything more I'll have to comment some more!
Overall I like it. A few loose thoughts:
- American identity is largely a collection of subcultures. As a midwesterner, gumbo and barbecue are not in any way part of “my”culture. Those are southern things. I eat walleye and cheese curds. Yet I love me some good American southern cooking, especially when traveling, and am proud that those other cuisines exist inside of my larger American identity.
- America is such a global power that the commonalities across its subcultures are exported across the entire globe. This makes them hard to identify. Blue jeans, Hollywood movies, and pop music aren’t always recognized as “American” because they’re everywhere.
-Americanizations of other cultures is part of the American identity. Panda Express is not Chinese food, it’s American. And while there’s always some guy that’s like “um actually pizza is Italian” if you take any Italian to Chicago they’ll be like “wtf is this how dare you call it pizza it’s clearly a different food”.
-The difficulties in defining culture call back to the nominalism vs realism debate. How do you define an object? Neuroscience and the statistics used in the field can actually help answer this. Objects are clusters of similar experiences. As humans, we use our sensory organs to sample observations (subjective) of the physical properties (objective) of the world around us. We then group similar readings into clusters. A dog is something we interact with in the unique ways dogs do, a cat is a cat in the same way, and they are both part of larger categories like “animal” and “pet”. The identity of the specific object is fundamentally infinitely unique, but its categorization based on proximity to the center of the cluster is self-evident. The existence of the cluster is not “made-up” because it is a deterministic grouping that results from objective properties of the object in question. The cluster itself is real regardless of what you name it. This also allows for outliers to be identified accordingly. Take an albino black bear. The color of a bear’s fur seems to be part of its objective identity as a black bear, yet a black bear can still have white fur due to albinism and still objectively be a black bear due to sharing all other properties that black bears have. Just because you’re a little unique does not mean you don’t still end up in the same larger cluster, and larger clusters can be further subdivided into smaller clusters so that we can identify “albino black bears” as their own unique subgroup.
When applying this to culture, you don’t need to follow an exhaustive checklist of “these things make you American”. Instead you identify a grouping in n-dimensional space where “Americanness” hangs out. To be American is the extent to which you are proximal to the other Americans in the infinite number of cultural measurements you can apply.
Hopefully that last point made any sense at all.