We the People

It's the Fourth of July and raining like the dickens. I don't know how all the city-sponsored festivities fared today, but most of them must have been rained out. The weather, to me at least, seems to match the mood of the country. Our spirits are a bit dampened by all the news about spying, IRS scandals, budget woes, etc.

It's disheartening to hear a constant litany of accusations, counter-accusations, and denials. The government tells us it has done us a world of good by invading our privacy but hasn't told us exactly how. People are continuing to lose their jobs. Things have become rather Orwellian, and you wonder which of our elected leaders are truly there to serve the country. That's what government's for, right? To serve the people?

The United States has certain guiding myths that we hold dear, although we've often failed to live up to them. I say "myths" in the sense of the foundational stories we tell about ourselves, the ones that tell us who we are. The portraits of the Founding Fathers reflect the seriousness with which the young country viewed its odyssey from wilderness to emerging nation, a land of freedom and opportunity based on principles of equality. There's a mythic grandeur in those faces and in the scenes of courage and struggle they participated in.

Despite the many ways in which these men failed to extend their ideals -- to women, slaves, and Native Americans -- the principles themselves were sound. The fact that they were applied so imperfectly is disappointing but not surprising. Over 235 years later, we still haven't got it right.

America is growing more diverse and is projected to attain a "majority-minority" status by 2043, meaning no single group will represent a majority of the population. It's uncertain whether this will also mean a re-distribution of opportunities and resources or whether those with advantages will try to hang on to them. The future isn't clear.

All the competing subcultures and groups that make up the United States represent the possibility of friction but also an opportunity to benefit from multiple points of view. There's no longer a predominant religious or cultural background, and as the country continues to grow, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves will also change. One thing that doesn't have to change is the story of freedom and equality we told ourselves at the beginning, an idea that I think most of us still like.

I'm hoping the feeling I sometimes have that we're getting farther away from our story is just an illusion, that in reality we're moving closer to it all the time. Maybe it was such a big story that we just had to grow into it, and are still growing into it now.