There is a concensus that China is the emerging superpower, and in the future, may be the only superpower, eclipsing even the United States, my home country. No one seems to talk about what a future will look like for Americans when Mandarin eclipses English as the international language of commerce and politics. The American collective psyche is in for a rude awakening when our dominance is no longer a given. What would an American culture look like that was not an America that was able to dominate other parts of the world? Except for the very few surviving people born in the 1890s, when the U.S. became a world power by winning the Spanish-American war, there is no one on earth who can remember a time the the United States was not a world power.
Borders, Language and Culture:
Pat Buchanan, Michael Savidge and a few others on the right consistently argue that the core values of Anglo-American are under seige and also decaying from within. Buchanan cites the decline in Christianity, along with the dimunition of English as a common tongue as reasons for concern. I believe they are correct about some things, but they also miss some key strengths in the soul of the U.S.
One Secret to American Success:
Of all the formerly British settler colonies, the US is by far the most powerful. The U.S. is also the only one that broke off violently from Mother England, and the one whose speech still sounds the most distinctly un-British. I've even met Jamaicans who believe in their superiority over Americans because they still speak the "King's English."
Compared to Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the US also has the largest non-white population, both as a percentage and in absolute numbers. In the US, the presence of the Negro population, created a need for "white" solidarity, which galvanized the various European immigrants into an "American majority." In fact the Germans are still the largest ancestral pool for current US citizens, but you wouldn't know it because the Germans, too, have helped create the American mainstream.
This tension between the would-be white and would-be black, though often violent, generates power like the positive and negative poles of a battery. Other tensions, between right and left, religious and secular, church and state, all provide energy and creativity to the American people. It is the American genius to keep these tensions bottled up in a single battery that never explodes, much to the amazement of outsiders, who wonder why we can fight each other so fiercely in elections that never degenerates into civil war.
The Most Materialistic Nation and the Most Spiritual Nation:
We've been called the most materialistic nation and the most spiritual nation. This can sometimes occur in the same individual or church, as in the prosperity gospel congregations. The "spiritual" and "material" aspects of man are often contrasted as barely compatible, yet the U.S. confounds that notion. How do we do this? Partly, because we are willing to work at it. We work longer hours than the Europeans, and expect to be rewarded for it. The U.S. has higher rates of home ownership than any nation in Europe.
We will even work harder for spiritual matters. U.S-style protestantism often demands that each beleiver read the scriptures for herself, and even evangelize the masses. The entrepeneural spirit of much Calvinist-descended protestantism has not only
encouraged thrift and business among its followers but has also spawned new entrepeneural religions such as Mormonism and the Baptists, two denominations notably lacking in heirarchical structures but demanding in the personal participation of their followers.
The religous autonomy of the Native Americans opened the colonists's eyes to new possibilities in religous expression.
What Native Americans Taught European Colonists:
By the time Anglo colonists landed in Virginia and Massachusetts, Native Americans had already survived a series of demographic disasters that had already depopulated the cities of Cahokia, the kingdom of Coosa, and numerous other mound-builder population centers. Tightly-packed populations helped epidemics spread quickly. Analysis of skeletons from Cahokia sacrificial mounds reveal bones much less healthy than people living in the countryside. This Native urban life had been stressful, with a less-balanced diet, and the added pressure of serving the priestly class, to the point of killing one's own children in service of their religion.
After the Mound-Builder civilizaion collapsed, the survivors dispersed into smaller groups, each living minimally as farmers and hunters, valuing individual freedom and community autonomy. The Spanish in the 1500s were unable to conquer these dispersed "primitive" Indians on the East coasts of the Carolinas and Virginia, unlike the centralized and highly "cilivlized" empires of the Incas and the Aztecs, which the Spanish defeated in less than a year. Only Canada has a more de-centralized government than us, owing partly to its diverse and tightly-knit Indian communties.
Notice that the English-speakers conquered North America only by skillful adoption of Native farming, fighting, political manueverings and love of freedom that was (and still is) unknown in Europe. The English-speakers also relied on actual Indian soldiers for their most decisive victories. The British needed the Mohawks to seize Quebec and make it part of Canada. George Washington needed the Stockbridge Indians under David Nimham and the Rhode Island Colored (African and Indian) troops to rout the red coats out of New York. Andrew Jackson employed Choctaw and Creole-Native troops to take New Orleans back from the British during the War of 1812, the military used Native-speaking code talkers to transmit wartime secrets in two world wars.
Though the fascination, and even romanticization of Indians waxes and wanes in U.S. life, one fact remains. The United States as we know it would not have been possible without continued Native American participation.
Federal Law Still Values Indian Culture:
U.S. federal law still places a high value on the cultures of Native Americans. The Native American Languages Act of 1990, reads "Congress finds that cultures and languages of Native Americans are unique" further requiring the U.S. and Native Americans to "act together to ensure the survival of these unique cultures and languages." Also, "special status is accorded Native Americans, including to right to continue separate identities." This is not just empty talk as both Republican and Democratic presidents have funded Native language programs though the ANA, or Administration for Native Americans (which can be seen in detail on the Internet.)
I think something else is at work here. Because English has become a world language, and US-bred art forms like Hip Hop and Hollywood movies have become global art forms, and with US-based evangelical faiths winning converts in Africa and Asia, what is left that is unique to the United States? Perhaps one of those few unique qualities is Indian people, who fascinate the world so much that there is still an illegal traffic in Indian skeletal remains. Despite all the denial, Indian people still intrigue, horrify, and haunt the imagination of Western civilization.
What Native American Culture Can Teach the Rest of American Culture:
In the face of increasing Chinese influence, here is a list of strategies for the continued survival of Anglo-American culture.
1. Value family and community over money alone.
2. Value your own culture and history simply because its yours, not because you have the power to impose it on others.
3. Letting others be free frees you from the need to control others.
4. Cultural and spiritual solidarity can weather storms of cultural invasion. Notice how Indian cultures are still here 500 years after Columbus.
5. Don't trade in your local autonomy for the (false) security of a too-centralized system, despite the odds.
