This shit is so insecure. Insisting the US is ultimately Good & Moral, no matter how nuanced & handwringing one may be about “mistakes,” is so transparently political & about soothing egos it’s weird we have to act like this has anything to do w/ fidelity to historical precision
https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1460374958530568195
Let’s all just admit it’s about political utility & social cohesion & ameliorating the cognitive dissonance inherent in running a liberal empire that supposedly promotes human rights & democracy while bombing & propping up dictators and not, at all, about proper historiography
Again, there are dozens of countries on earth who don’t tell themselves exceptionalist fairy tales and their citizens get along his just fine! The sun doesn’t have to rise and set in our ass, truly
The need to settle, no matter how scathing the critique may be along the way, ultimately on a City on Hill Narrative is apologetics for our civic religion of global empire maintenance. It’s the obvious social function. Feel like I’m losing it
When I was 9 yrs old in Sunday school the first skeptical thought I had was “wait, what are the odds that our religion just happens to be the correct one?” a basic principle that applies to any discussion around patriotic education, no matter how high minded it may attempt to be
People keep saying corny patriotic education that ultimately confirms our axiomatic good is popular, yeah no shit, people like to view their own country as the Good Guys, just as people want to view the religion they were born into as the Correct One. Obviously! So what!
Political commentators playing partisan advice-giver is a deviation from our nominal role as tellers of reality. Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s a good or moral idea, if only because there has to be something to be said for the truth
and why would truth care about this dopey national solipsism? What are the odds out of all religions. Surely we should be more than a nation of babies and babysitters. Surely a third role is needed here
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