The US Is Not "One Nation" — And it Never Was

Mises Institute ^ | 07/06/2017 | Ryan McMaken

[aquila48]

Patrick Buchanan is an informative and interesting writer. On foreign policy, especially, he's long been one of the most reasonable voices among high-level American pundits.

When it comes to cultural matters, however, Buchanan has long held to a peculiar and empirically questionable version of American history in which the United States was once a mono-culture in which everyone was once happily united by "a common religion," a "common language," and a "common culture."

Now, he's at it again with his most recent column in which he correctly points out that the United States is culturally fractured, and speculates as to whether or not Thomas Jefferson's call to "dissolve political bands" in the Declaration of Independence might be sound advice today.

Buchanan is correct in noting that the US is culturally divided today.

But, he appears to have a selective view of history when he contends there was a time when this was not so. If there ever was such a period, it's unclear as to when exactly it was.

Buchanan can't be referring to the mid-19th century when Northern states and Southern states were becoming increasingly hostile toward each other. Many of these differences flared up over slavery, but larger cultural differences were there too, exemplified by a divide between agrarian and industrialized culture, and the hierarchical South versus the more populist North. The result was a civil war that killed more than 2 percent of the population. It was a literal bloodbath.

Was that version of the United States culturally united?

Nor can Buchanan possibly be referring to the US of the so-called Gilded Age. After all, during this period, the US was flooded with immigrants from a wide variety of backgrounds,

[discostu]

Wrong again. Culture is built in response to circumstances. Basic beliefs about self and others come from the situation you get to build them in. That’s why the oldest child and youngest child tend to be so vastly different while in the same family, their version of the world is vastly different, and so they wind up vastly different. Rural people cannot develop the same culture as urban people, they live in different versions of the world. And food is a part of that. If you grow up in a part of the world where BBQ is vinegar based then for you BBQ will ALWAYS be vinegar, no matter how long you live in Texas.

Trump won the right combination of states. He won the cultures. There is no monolith. I’m sorry you can’t be bothered to understand the basic reality you live in, but the facts are in. And the fact is this country has never been a monolith, chant it all you want, you are quite simply wrong.

[reasonisfaith]

You mean culture is how people respond to circumstances?

Based on their worldview?

And the American response to 24 years of the Clinton/Bush/Obama cabal was a united victory (through means of the electoral college which is a legal, not a cultural, structure) of traditional American culture over empty, pretentious elitism?

[discostu]

Circumstances build the worldview. Just look at how penny pinching Depression survivors all turned out.

Trump didn’t get 50%, not exactly a united victory of anything. And certainly not over pretentious elitism if you’ve ever bothered to look at his homes.

[WVMnteer]

Very very late to this party, but the only times I’ve ever seen “monoculture” referred to in regards to the US is in terms of entertainment.

If there ever were institutions that bound Americans, it was the three television networks and the major movie studios.

Otherwise, I don’t know what else there is. I grew up in a town of 3,000 people. There was a creek that ran through the center of town. On one side were Catholics. On the other were Protestants. And until the mid 70s, you needed a very good reason to cross that line. If an all-white small town can have that type of division, a multi-racial, multi-ethnic nation of several hundred million has no chance of being united in any meaningful way.

[discostu]

Event television probably is the closest we ever came to a monoculture. People are innately tribal, and we don’t understand big numbers well, so we like our tribes small, so we slice up the world around us to form our groups. That’s why we make clubs. Heck it’s why we have political parties. Your small town probably even had a nice part and a not so nice part (well probably 2, 1 each on both sides of the creek), slice it up.