DaKardii wrote: ↑Sat May 15, 2021 3:48 pm
Okay, then. Tell me.
Do you believe that America a unique nation, to where it cannot be just another part of Britain? If so, what do you believe makes America unique?
Interesting. My first instinct to point out a difference was the Revolution. There was a rejection of kings and colonial imperialism on the part of the Americans. That doesn’t hold up very well. What America rejected was being on the receiving end of colonial imperialism. They wanted to be a center of manufacturing with a trading capability that was not limited to the mother country. The kings in Britain lost their central position when Victoria lost her husband. Both countries built empires of sorts. Britain’s was famously international while the United States just went into a west they perceived of as open, even if others were already there. The United State oppressed the Native Americans, Blacks, and Latinos, lording over the culture, taking land at whim. Britain did much the same thing without having a specific focus and direction.
Which was how things were in the Industrial Age. Tribal Thinking. It was what Hitler tried with his supposedly superior Aryan supermen and contempt for Jews, Slavs, the French and most anyone else. Use force to oppress other ethnic groups. The Fascists were obvious about it, but tribal thinking was the norm.
The difference? The US saw itself in a position to compete and win, to have a golden time. World War II bombed out a lot of other powers. It was a win to forgive lend lease if the then mother countries opened their ports. That essentially ended the British and many other efforts at colonial imperialism. With open ports, in many places the former colonies became free to trade anywhere. The former colony’s cheaper labor and more profitable if less effective environmental protections eventually allowed them to become manufacturing powers.
I’m not sure it was a difference in nature or tactics. Britain would have done it too had they enough advantage in intact manufacturing, if they saw the chance for a couple of golden decades. As is, they lost their empire while the US kept much of North America. The problem is in thinking the advantage might be permanent, that the golden age of the US would continue after the rest of the world had rebuilt. It was a big win for Truman and Ike which faded thereafter.
To some degree it was also a propaganda thing in World War II. If China was our ally, should we avoid prohibitive immigration policies for the Chinese? How are we different from the Axis powers? What are we fighting for if not to end tribal thinking? Can we adjust our policies so the tribal thinking is less obvious, the oppression of ethnic groups other than Hitler’s supposed Aryan supermen? Would this lead to the current crisis, where the Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans are looking to end a long prejudice, to pursue the old theory of equality, democracy and human rights that once only applied to male Aryan supermen?
So I am not so sure we are so unique. We still have a remnant of the old white supremacy and suppression of minorities existing in our culture. The current crisis is focused among other things in putting a severe dent in it.