Or Who Am I?
WHO ARE WE ANYWAY?
Or Should I say, who am I?
Horrified by the divisions in the country I was born in, I began looking into my own family origins, and its place in the history of the United States. When did they get here, and from where? Whenever I asked my parents about our forebears, all I got from my dad was, “Probably just a bunch of horse thieves!” Or, more positively, that his grandfather “loved to follow the hounds”, which I assumed to mean fox-hunting, an activity presumably originating in England, but carried with them to Scotland and Ireland. That’s about all I got out of him, besides the assertion that on his side we were Scots-Irish.
Indeed, my own DNA turns out to be about 80% British Isles: Mostly English and Scots with a sliver of Wales thrown in, and the rest Germanic Europe. There seem to be many Americans who cite their heritage as Scots-Irish, or Scotch Irish, although in this country we are clearly that “melting pot”, a term adopted from a play first staged in 1908, according to Wikipedia.
Jim Webb, author of a book entitled “BORN FIGHTING- How the Scots-Irish Shaped America” published in 2004, says the hardy eponymous souls go back centuries with a tradition of individualism, independence, self-sufficiency, and love of freedom, and fought whoever tried to limit them throughout the centuries. Webb says they were a bottom-up culture, loyal to a strong leader, while resisting a hierarchical authority such as monarchy. Think Braveheart, leading an under-equipped, under-manned army to repel the English from their shores. His followers, inspired by his strength and courage, would follow him to the death, theirs and his. These Scots eventually emigrated to Northern Ireland with their Protestant religion, and from the late 16th century on, to the New World.
These are indeed qualities deeply embedded in the American psyche, values heralded by school principals, presidents, and evangelical preachers in stirring speeches. I saw them embodied in my own family, in those of my friends and acquaintances, and in myself. They are sturdy stools to stand on, and I value them today.
And yet. Here we are, a couple thousand years later, living in a country still in its early childhood, boisterous, demanding our own way, wanting instant gratification, not wanting to share our toys, and ruptured by a values-driven divide that threatens to tear it all apart, angry at the adults striving to help us grow into people who know how to play with others.
So what happens to those who don’t belong to the clan, to the culture as we have known it? What happens if inclusion is not part of the ethos? So many have the sense that if others have equal rights they will lose some of theirs, apparently believing that giving the same opportunities and freedoms to a new batch of immigrants or people of color, and to women, will diminish their own?
When and why did those values, so useful at the birth of a new nation, lead us into the schism we find ourselves in today, where so many are willing to follow a noisy, crass, lawless, failed human being like Trump, who doesn’t even have their interests at heart, but only his own. He seems to offer the security of a strong leader but is clearly empty of the very values they hold. He will betray them whenever it is in his own interest to do so, though he pretends to offer the security of a Big Daddy who will tell them what to think without the messy gray areas. He speaks as if he is on their side, and if they follow him he will take care of them. But he is no Braveheart. It is tempting for those who feel in some way betrayed by changing demographics, burgeoning population, and the frightening concept of climate change to give someone else the power to fix it. And denial and anger are more comforting.
I also know the standard pejorative terms we have so glibly used to describe the populations who seem to be remnants of the early migration from Ireland and Scotland, some to settle eventually in Appalachia and beyond – “hillbillies”, “rednecks”, “white supremacists”, have not been helpful epithets. The disdain we coastal, educated elites apply to those unlike “us”, has further marginalized them, and helped to put us where we are today.
I was born in Missouri, where my paternal great-grandfather settled in the mid-1800s. But when I was three my family moved to California, so I became not only coastal, but Califorian. The coolest of the cool!! I lost my Missouri twang and adopted the condescending attitudes of we enlightened ones toward my mid-western cousins left behind in the sticks, like so many who kept moving west.
But the conspiracy theorists, election deniers, and downright scoundrels give those we choose to disdain a bad name. They are genuine threats to this democracy I hoped would continue for many centuries to come. It isn’t the values that are at fault. It is the notion of patriarchy.
So what happens to those who don’t belong to the clan, to the culture as we have known it? What happens if inclusion is not part of the ethos? So many have the sense that if others have equal rights they will lose some of theirs, apparently believing that giving the same opportunities and freedoms to a new batch of immigrants or people of color will diminish their own?
It seems we are as tribal as any population anywhere, the indigenouse people we displaced, the Africans we enslaved, and even Europe. Italy, for example, has only been a unified country since 1871!! Is there any hope for human beings to live up to their ideals?
However, I continue to believe that things may have to almost break apart before the old patriarchy surrenders to the necessity of a new way of thinking, being, and governing that recognizes humanity in all its manifestations.