Week One: The Four Americas
“People in the United States no longer agree on the nation’s purpose, values, history, or meaning. Is reconciliation possible?”
Our second summer 2021 series will focus on the challenges and opportunities facing those who are seeking to reunite our deeply divided nation. We begin, however, with a new work that seeks to explain the nature of our division. In a recent conversation with NPR’s Meghna Chakrabarti, George Packer—a staff writer for The Atlantic, drew on his new book, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal (2021) to consider how the people of our nation came to be so profoundly divided.
Packer focuses on the stories we tell about America because, “Nations, like individuals, tell stories in order to understand what they are, where they come from, and what they want to be. National narratives, like personal ones, are prone to sentimentality, grievance, pride, shame, self-blindness. There is never just one—they compete and constantly change. The most durable narratives are not the ones that stand up best to fact-checking. They’re the ones that address our deepest needs and desires.”
For Packer, four competing, but also overlapping, narratives define America today:
“Free America” rooted in the libertarian ideas and market capitalism that rose to the fore in the “Reagan Revolution” of the early 1980s.
“Smart America” defined by the cosmopolitan outlook of those comfortable in an American economy and society that is increasingly technological and global.
“Real America” that asserts the authentic heart of democracy beats hardest in the common people and rural areas.
“Just America” that sees citizens as members of identity groups that inflict or suffer oppression.
The audio recording from NPR’s “On Point” at the link below runs 47:23.