Every society and every nation functions around a set of more-or-less well curated and often enough coherent, carefully fashioned main narratives and narrative sub-sets, or sub-texts, which together constitute what could be called the narratological plot of the historicity of a nation. Keeping it short, “historicity" here refers to the transformations experienced by nations through changes occurring in its society, which correspond to or reflect potentialities already present in the history of a nation from its early beginning. “Freedom,” “liberty,” “rights,” for instance, are three terms that encapsulate potentialities present in the earlier beginnings of the nation that came to be known as the US of A, and which have allowed for unpredictable or unforeseeable transformations of its society, down to its present.
That set of interrelated narratives, at the center of which there exists something like an organizing principle or arch-narrative, is composed of the streams of discourses on what a given nation believes it is or tells itself it is, which it also expects the world to accept at face-value. That is what in more current terms is referred to as a national self-consciousness; it sits at the center of national life. In a nation like the US of A, for example, the arch-narrative that has yielded its national consciousness is that it beliefs in universal equality, as formulated in the statements proclaiming that "all men were equally created"; that it is a nation founded toward the “pursuit of happiness” by everybody; and that it is "the land of the free and the home of the brave." The egalitarian logic enmeshed in these set of statements or proclamations are assumed or presupposed to be present in all its national endeavors vis-a-vis all entities foreign or domestic and in every circumstance, and ideally, are also presupposed to be embodied in every one of its citizens, who are predicated to uphold the set of beliefs their nation stands for.
The above and suchlike statements, which first set in motion the history of the US of A, are constitutive— are the kernel of the arch-narrative around which the nation structured itself as a society. We experience this arch-narrative as historicity in all the transformations the society has undergone and is still undergoing since its independence was proclaimed. Presumably, it is directly or indirectly present, implied or explicitly, and in a more-or-lees "concentrated" or diluted version of the original in the public discourses of its representatives, and ideally, in the actions and attitudes, and in the relations among all the members of the polite. Other nations and societies, if not them all, also have their "statements of intent and purposes," or founding principles, equivalent to those of the US of A's (just look at the "liberté, égalité, and fraternité" of the French).
They pretty much work as intended as long as the acts and actions of government neatly reflect them in its domestic and foreign endeavors regardless the transformations its society might experience, and whatever the character of its allies, friends, or foes. However, whenever that ceases to happen and such not happening goes on and on without rectification, it indicates that the nation or society in question has moved away from and has abandoned or rather betrayed its own set of beliefs and principles. Then, crisis ensues; then one crisis cycle leads to the next, and then to another. When large conflicts emerge between segments of the population with opposed interests and social and political aspirations, or between large and diverse segments of society and the government, the public discourses in circulation at a given time begin to sound hollow and to make less and less sense whenever such conflicts cannot be equitably resolved, or if resolving them entails skewing, shortcutting, negating, or renegading in any parts the fundaments of the arch-narrative, the self-consciousness of the nation. (And the same holds when disparities or overt conflicts break up with foreign powers. But I will not dwell on this point in this writing).
In a not-hypothetical scenario, the continued and often unexpected developments a society may go through will at some point enter into contradiction with the core beliefs and the philosophical principles on which the nation was founded. That is, a nation founded on abstract, faith-inspired principles, as in the formulaic "We believe that all men are equally created," or on the proclaims of "equal rights" for the equal and the unequal alike; a nation that places as the highest aim its citizens should aspire to the belief in the right to "pursue" happiness— sets itself up from its very foundation for its own demise in the fullness of time. For transformations will inevitably take place in the reality of the social that will put it at odd with abstractions as the ones above. Ever more demands for rights on different but also diverging rationales will periodically and cyclically but steadily arise; new social, political, cultural, and sex and gender-based groups will be formed; to the old demands of the traditional races, new racial sub-groups will emerge and be added, and in short, ever new claims to identities individually and collectively will appear in society, none of which were present, and therefore were not contemplated at the moment the foundational set of abstract principles and beliefs were adopted as the national arch-narrative.
All this has been continuously taking place in the US of A. The dynamic produced by the accumulation in society of the relations, interactions, oppositions, frictions, and confrontations of this diverse array of often opposed interests, demands, and claims to be arbitrated by the government and states with a view to satisfying all of them within the legal and juridical frame derived from religious and philosophical abstractions, is an important dimension of what I above called a "historicity." Thus, the ongoing historicity of the US of A is characterized by the ostensible impossibility of satisfying the cumulus of demands and claims for rights and for recognition of all the whole gamut of diverse and opposed interests within the original religious-philosophical meaning and intention of the American arch-narrative. Try to satisfy them all equally, and the result is the tearing and renting of the such arch-narrative.
That means to say: had the founders of the nation been able to foresee the bewildering, unpredictable social transformations the US of A has been experiencing since its foundation, statements like "We hold it to be true that all men are equally created" or any other statements to the right to the pursuit of happiness would have not been issued without further stipulations to qualify and specify their meaning and to set interpretative limits to their semantic. For an example of a qualification: "equally created" would have referred to men and women born in freedom who had not political ties to the British nobility. (It was before the British nobility and against the British nobility that the Founders struggled to assert themselves and theirs). Therefore, "equally created," while it could have been comprehensive of the Native populations, would have not of necessity been comprehensive of the African slave population, which anyway was not contemplated as to be forming part of the society.
For another example: as it would have not even bee conceivable then that the sex and gender of an American citizen could be changed at will or otherwise, no claim could have legally been raised to "self-identity" on the basis of “sex or gender-change,” for that could not have been constituted into a condition for attaining "Happiness." And, further, since at the historical moment the Declaration of Independence was being drawn the fundamental belief shared by all those sitting at the table was unquestionable that a marriage was and could not be or take any other form but that between a man and a woman, same-sex marriage would have had to be considered an un-American thing to do, and would not on this rationale constitute a legal ground for a right to be granted on an appeal to "equality."
So, one can see from this discussion the degree to which philosophical (political) rationality has been absent from the rationales on which government recognition and rights are currently being granted on. Legal recognition in the form of exclusive rights for the categories above can only been granted through stretching, skewing, and watering down the logic of the meaning of the arch-narrative of the US of A. For only that way can claims for equality on the basis above be made to fit into the established founding principles of the US of A.
Through all the transformations the society of the US of A has experienced at to the present times, which from the historical distance of the founding of the nation many thereof would have been as unpredictable as inconceivable, the US of A has progressed away from the logic of the meaning of the arch-narrative posited by and contained in the Declaration.
Whereas traditionally the political establishment of the US of A has been proceeding on the assumption or the expedient of fulfilling the spirit that gave origin to the American Republic, it has as a matter of fact been turning away from its principles. Far-removed from the philosophical rationality that lends logical meaning to its principles, the US of A has managed to produce a social reality in which nonsensicality, absurdity, contradictoriness, and of course, illogicality and irrationality preponderate in practically all areas of life, be it public, private, or personal. That is what has been leading to the erosion of the belief on the "American experiment," to the disregard, disrespect, and dishonor of the national symbols and emblems (the American flag and anthem, for instance), to the American physical territory itself (massive waves of illegal immigration), and to the mistrust of the authorities.
But also, that has been translating into the dysfunction of institutions at all levels, nationally and locally, and to the division and hyper-fragmentation of society, something not just limited to political affiliation. What defines the ongoing historicity of today's US of A is the apparent irreconcilable division and hyper-fragmentation of the races, gender, sexualities, sexual preferences and inclinations. Not for nothing have been appearing in the map of the US of A half a dozen racial and sex-colored flags that compete with the American one for the fealty and the allegiance of the future generations of Americans. Those flags are already winning.
Ancient Greece and Rome, and the Hispanic and British would have taught the US of A the lesson they themselves never got to learn: as the society goes, so goes the Empire.
Stand up to wave farewell to the US of A.
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