Beware the End of America!
On pseudo-existential threats and the need to work-through
Now that birthright citizenship has been settled by the Supreme Court, a number of high profile voices in the conservative and conservative evangelical world have been announcing that this means the end of America, that we will have no way of protecting our identity, population, and elections. Despite the fact that this means just keeping the status quo, people are now arguing that since the courts didn’t decide against birthright citizenship, we must take actions like “sterilizing” foreign visitors to protect our national sovereignty. In other words, this ruling is an existential threat to our nation. We will lose our very way of life because children born here will receive citizenship, as they have for the last 158 years. If all of this seems hyperbolic, that’s because it is. Hyperbole is a traditional language of politics. But it’s also destructive to healthy political discourse because it prevents different groups from meeting and “working through” differences. But there is a reality beneath this hyperbole.
The reality beneath is that America lacks a strong sense of identity as a nation. Even some individual states seem to lack a strong identity and culture (although they may have great branding). Or the culture we do share is a vapid one: consumerism, radical individualism, and the shrinking remnants of Christianity. Mass immigration (in its various forms) contributes to this identity crisis by infusing the nation with various differing cultures and ideologies. I’m not saying it makes our country “impure,” but it does make it harder for us to have shared values. That’s just a reality of society. Rather than a country committed to what James Davison Hunter described as the “Hybrid-Enlightenment”—a combination of rationalism and Protestant Christianity—we largely have a country committed to whatever seems right in each person’s eyes. That value-vacuum creates a powerful sense of anxiety, dread, and nihilism (as Hunter argues) in people who naturally desire a positive identity for the country. The question becomes, What does it look like to move forward? How does a nihilistic country, a country of people caught up in existential crises manage to “work through” (Hunter’s language) their differences to develop a shared positive identity?
Pseudo-existential threats are a staple of American politics, and they are not politically partisan. While some on the right may see foreigners as an existential threats to the “purity” of our country, some on the left see Trump voters as fascist existential threats to the purity and safety of our country. I’m not arguing that there is exact parity here—there isn’t. But I believe both are examples of pseudo-existential threats. Despite my criticisms of unchecked illegal immigration and the Trump administration and my acknowledgements of the real harms both have caused, and despite warnings about a looming civil war from some people, America has continued to exist. That’s a testament to the dedication of many men and women who sacrificed their lives to build a lasting institution! Praise God for that.
But being thankful that things haven’t entirely fallen apart isn’t enough. The center isn’t really holding. That much is evident to anyone paying attention. As I said earlier, we don’t have much of a shared national identity except for consumerism, radical individualism, and the shrinking remnants of Christianity. You can’t build a nation on those values. Reason, faith, and the liberty constrained by proper limits are necessary. And where are we to gain those values? Do we expect our AI overlords to build it into their systems? Do we expect our social media overlords to build it into their algorithms? Do we expect corporations to start advocating for limits against their own profits? Do we expect influencers and news personalities to rely on reason against their own interest in stirring division through irrationalism? Do we expect Christian political leaders to save us through political power even as our own homes sit divided and uncatechized? Where do we turn?
Central to James Davison Hunter’s latest book, Democracy and Solidarity is the argument that through our nation’s history we have “worked through” our differences in various ways, sometimes through violence (see: the Civil War and the response to the Civil Rights Movement), but we worked through our differences because we shared a basic belief in the “Hybrid-Enlightenment” values. Now, however, we have largely abandoned those beliefs and are nihilistic about “working through” anything with the “other side.” “They” are unworkable. They must be eliminated, not conversed with.
I don’t have a plan to return us to the “Hybrid-Enlightenment” values, however, I do think we can begin the process of “working through” and maybe move toward reason and faith by committing to mediating institutions and acting locally.
Currently, the modern State and its subsidiaries, the massive tech companies (which I call collectively the Worldly Powers), have atomized us down to radical individuals so that we all stand naked before these awesome powers with little between us and them. This is part of the reason we have no real meaningful shared values anymore, because the Worldly Powers dictate the values, and the only values they insist upon are consumerism and radical individualism—the very things that keep the powers running. What remains of Christianity exists as a vestigial value.
In other words, few of us belong to mediating institutions which shape our values in ways that align us nationally: families, churches, schools, clubs, or social organizations. But it is precisely these institutions that can stand between the individual and the Worldly Powers on a local level and remind us of what we were made for and how we ought to treat our neighbor and live together.
The great danger of mediating institutions in this regard is that they become silos for partisan thinking and action rather than collective thinking and action for the common good, a space for “working through” our problems together. You see this danger unfold all the time. In researching my next book, Shoring Up the Ruins (tentative title), which is all about institutions, I came across a fascinating article from a national organization about how the State and tech companies are working together in disturbing ways. The problem was that because the institution was aligned with a particular political side, they only gave examples of biases against them. Any reasonable reader would know that other examples of State-tech collusion exist, but this article chose to be blind to them for their partisan purposes. Healthy institutions will avoid this pitfall by devoting themselves to truth and to desiring to work with their neighbors for the flourishing of the city in justice.
It is my claim that we all need to be more involved in mediating institutions that form us on a local level to cultivate our affections toward the good. Rather than being formed by algorithms and AI and influencers and talk radio, by conflict entrepreneurs who want us to panic about everything, we need to be committed and active where we are with the people around us. Will this “save America”? I don’t know. I don’t know how to do that. I do know is that here is where we are and here is where we are called to be faithful.