Saturday, June 6, 2020

Reflections on recent disturbances

Not without trepidation, I'm going to try to write something about current events that will be true to myself without being too incendiary. I doubt that ideologues of either the Left or the Americanist Right will much like what I have to say, but perhaps someone will.

The United States of America was founded on a falsehood: the idea that a "Nation" could be fabricated from scratch out of Enlightenment ideology which was mistakenly believed to be universal. That many of the founders were hypocrites who whined about their own "Liberty" while denying it to others was a fatal flaw, perhaps _the_ fatal flaw, that is proving insurmountable. For a long time, buoyed by the inheritance of European Christian patrimony despite the founding ideology being essentially at odds with that patrimony, it seemed to work--for many. But it never worked for everyone, as we're hearing loud and clear recently. For many years the USA appeared to function as a de facto "nation," mostly for Christians (especially Protestants) of European descent who accepted (as I vocally do not) the Americanist republican civic religion. But at the same time, its promises rang hollow for others. 

While I deplore and condemn the violence and vandalism, and am troubled by the obvious inconsistency between the protests and the social distancing we've all been urged to observe, I cannot in conscience be unsympathetic to those in this country who feel estranged when for very different (and--this is important--far less physically threatening) reasons I have felt estranged from it for years. One of the many things I love about Monarchism is the natural, unforced, unaffected, genuine diversity we enjoy in our community. My circle of monarchist friends and allies includes a wide variety of races, religions, and all other kinds of identities and I wouldn't have it any other way. I think it's helpful at this time to focus on what we may have in common with those who appear to differ from us.

It's distressing now to see essentially American grievances and ideologies being imported to other countries, like the United Kingdom, but that was perhaps inevitable given the monumental (and in my view negative) influence the American idea has had on the world. What we're witnessing now may be the beginning of the end of something that never should have been created, but that doesn't mean it won't be painful to live through. I have lots of thoughts about the past, but no answers for the future.

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