America is a land of mythologies.
Every country has its myths, of course. The legendary stories of how a nation came to be are often shrouded in exaggerations, half-truths and outright lies to help build a narrative of strength, union, resolve and power.
The Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence, the founding of the United States of America… so much of what we “know” of these events are pure myth, handed down as fact. The perpetuation of these myths often serves to further a narrative about what America’s values really are. If we look to the Pilgrims or Thomas Jefferson or John Dickinson, we get a very particular version of America, and that’s something that we can package up and sell.
For instance, there’s this notion of “what the Founding Fathers wanted.” As if they agreed even amongst themselves, as if a group of white, slave-owning men in the 18th century could even conceive of the country we’ve become, as if their ideas were somehow more sacred than the people they set this whole thing up for in the first place. But gleaning their intentions remains a field of political study, despite the fact that our country operates from living political documents that necessarily must be interpreted through the lens of a world with electricity, at least.
But if we focus on what people who probably didn’t wash their asses thought about issues, it’s easy to say, “See?! There IS a definitive right answer!” As if the fact that the document in question is worded vaguely wasn’t an intentional choice, as if critical thinking should be forgotten.
That’s the danger of a myth. It offers a simple, tidy, comforting explanation for something that’s large, complex and confusing. And it can be easy to take that answer as truth and never question it.
Imagine if a child asked you, “Why is the sky blue?” And you said, “It’s the color of God’s eye!” or “Because it reflects the oceans!” Kids being kids, they’d probably take that answer and run with it. You’d expect they’d find out the real answer later, but maybe they miss school that day or it’s too confusing or just kinda sounds dumb to them. They don’t go looking for any other answer. And the wild, eye-opening possibilities of space, light, refraction and the solar system are just lost on this kid. Your kid.
“Well, that’s an unlikely example,” you huff. Of course it is. But what about a myth like, "the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves,” or “Black people were allowed to vote in 1870?”
America’s history is a complicated one. Our laws and provisions are tricky, mired in exceptions and court rulings. And our ability to think critically about them is often hindered by what we “know.” Because we stop being curious about other possibilities, we stop being curious about our reality, we stop being curious about why we might be clinging so tightly to an easy, comforting lie.
Happy Independence Day, my fellow Americans.
I really love it when people say “what the Founding Fathers wanted" because then I get to tell them "It doesn't matter what they wanted. They gave us the tools to change and re-interpret what they wanted. It's what WE want that matters."