In the spirit of July Fourth, I figure I, as a foreigner in the U.S. who has benefited much from the graceful host, should put down a few thoughts in celebration of America — for the first time, that is. Different from the natives, of course, I do not celebrate the Independence of a country that once brought upon my own nation twenty years of deaths and war. Rather, I would like to embrace and cherish the idea of America, which surely richly deserves appreciation and admiration.
What is the idea of America? Some would say Democracy; others Freedom. For me, it is the Acceptance of Evolution.
In Biology — and I do not pretend to be an expert here, — evolution is the gradual change of inherited characteristics of living organisms. That is to say, some species may begin in one form, but over the course of many generations, slowly alter their own biological structures, for better or worse, to survive the ever-changing environments around them. Those who cannot do so shall wither away.
In our social/political/economic environment, things are a little different. The dated systems sometimes crawl back into existence under extreme societal distress, or sometimes would not even go away at all under rhetorical and obstinate leadership. By their power of persuasion and military forces, more of the latter than the former, many people in many countries in many different periods of history manage to resist and reverse the natural selection process, which is critical for the betterment, or maybe just the merriment, of mankind.
This is where America comes in and so I applaud it. Again, I applaud it not because of Democracy, Freedom or any other clichés one might throw at it. I do indeed because of the natural birth of America, of its natural development and of its natural ability, as well as its natural relentlessness, in evolving through whichever stages necessary. America has come a long way from the original thirteen colonies, through Civil War and the ban of Slavery, through African-Americans’ and women’s suffrage, through two World Wars and the Cold War, to reach the present day of having a non-Caucasian president. The changes never come in the form of revolution; they come in term of incremental adaptation.
When I ponder over American history, I truly see the magnificent nature at work. If a country is in gestation, for instance, and a godlike leader comes along, the country will become a kingdom. If an outstanding and intellectual leader comes along, the country will be communist; and if a group of equally intelligent leaders sit together to decide the future, the country inevitably becomes a republic. In case of the New World, the game of chance — or as the biologist would say, the mutation process at play — rolled the third case for the people. Of course, the more magnificent aspect is that this very same group was able to lay down a set of “rules”, better known as the Constitution, to allow Nature to continue its work.
Someone might argue against the previous point – sure! – but America is here, rich and powerful. It has changed and will continue to change at whatever level necessary for it to survive and thrive. The changes, as we all have seen, include the “rules” of the game as much as the “players” in it.
So where is America headed? “I don’t know, but I’ve been told…”
June 16, 2011 was the 100th birthday of International Business Machines, or IBM. As a leading corporation in the world, in terms of both profits and size, IBM received greetings from all sorts of different people and organizations, congratulating it on the success it has accomplished and wishing it to flourish for at least another 100 years. IBM’s birthday was also a perfect occasion to review its history and to find out just why it is among the very few that survive that long. The Economist, I think, drew the best conclusion: IBM was founded around an idea, not any particular product, and therefore able to evolve and survive.
(For those who are not familiar with IBM, it produced card punchers and time recorders when it was first established. Now, IBM produces the world’s best supercomputers, servers and artificial intelligence programs. Its aspiration has always been to provide computing solutions for businesses; so as businesses change, IBM’s solutions change as well.)
America in my eyes is much the same as IBM, albeit larger, more influential and drastically more significant. In the Declaration of Independence, before one gets to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” an objective was set forth by the Founding Fathers — that is, “to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…” From that sentence on, everything else, including the rest of the document, the Constitution and laws, the country’s development and history, unanimously respects the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. The leaders and citizens of America themselves might not be too eager to concur (each prefers to think he or she can create differences); yet the overall story of the United States of America is nothing else but a chunky chapter in the book of Evolution. Naturally, the place that America is going is the place that Evolution is taking them to.
Where – one might ask – exactly is this place? I certainly do not know for sure, but one very intellectual guy I have long admired did once offer an answer: Communism. That’s right — it is the damned C-word that Americans were hyper-paranoid about following the end of World War II. Some remain so today, especially among hardcore Republicans.
Ironically, Republicans will be the ones that bring Communism to America. It is because, as Karl Marx has laid out in his theory of history, all the first three stages of the development of materialism, namely Primitive Communism, Slavery and Feudalism were reached in Europe; and because Capitalism has been more or less perfected in America. There is only one small step left for the Democrats to implement Socialism (with Social Security, Unemployment Benefits and now, Universal Healthcare and more) before the Republicans, with their genetic aversion to the presence of the government and their constant advocacy of reducing it, put the final nail in the coffin, nay, in the most marvelous awe-inspiring societal construction of humanity.
The capitalists of America have lucratively established the wealth of the nation and — so according to Marx — served their great and utterly essential purpose. (To differentiate it from some claim-to-be Marxian societies that simply decided to bypass the bloodsucking capitalism and ended up where they were/are.) Henceforth, by Nature’s greatest product, i.e. Evolution, America will become, in time, what it is meant to become. And when the time cometh, thou shalt embrace the second coming of our dear Karl.
All in all, America is a great country while history is like a “Made in China” product: you pay for quality but you only get what you get, and nothing you can do about it. Tough luck! I like living in America because it has been a tremendously generous host, although I might not like it so much to make it a second home. I would love to, nonetheless, live long enough (!) to see what America ultimately becomes. After all, many and many great regimes in the past lasted a lot longer than America has so far; and they all eventually collapsed.
-nxh
* The idea for this essay is largely based on a discussion with a friend, Brian Allen, although it is not a representation of his view. Furthermore, Brian noted that (and I agree) Evolution in Biology took millions or even billions of years to arrive at the current stage; and hence it might take America the same amount of time. By then, none of these matters anymore.
