Are I-Deals the New American Ideal?

When my daughter was a nineteen-year old sophomore at the University of Chicago she brought her boyfriend home to meet me. Aytek was a brilliant Turkish economics major with soulful eyes and Marxist leanings. I was a former high school history teacher. Of course we got to talking about politics. Aytek was appalled by American imperialism and our invasion of Iraq. I too had opposed the war. I lamented the invasion as contrary to the Enlightenment ideals on which our country was founded. Aytek couldn't contain his derision. "You actually believe the American Revolution was fought to defend beliefs?" he challenged. "It was a movement by an upper class elite whose purses were being drained by the British. Those enlightenment ideals were just rationalization for their greed."

Aytek's response was like a slap in the face, the kind that should have been a wake-up call but wasn't. I simply clammed up, unable to refute him but unwilling to accept that the United States was as devoid of principle as every other nation on earth. I felt like a naive child, one who isn't ready to give up her belief in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. I didn't want to consider the possibility that the United States of America was devoid of a moral compass. With Martin Luther King, I wanted to believe that "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it always bends toward justice."

For more than a quarter-century I'd taught that our history revolves around our relationship to six powerful (and sometimes conflicting) ideals: freedom, individualism, equality, democracy, pragmatism and optimism. Yes, we've disagreed mightily over how to balance them and we've fallen woefully short in achieving them. We've had to confront slavery and Jim Crow, the Know-Nothings and McCarthy, imperialist wars and blind isolationism But whenever we've veered too far off course, the vision of our beliefs has always drawn us back.

Maybe that's why this election has taken such a deep and painful toll on my soul and psyche. It brings back Aytek's slap in the face. American ideals? Even writing the words, I sigh. Misogyny, racism, and xenophobia? Neo-Nazis in the White House? Cabinet Secretaries committed to dismantling our environmental protections and public schools? A press secretary who spouts alternative facts? This is our reality and the group proclaiming themselves to be a "moral majority" now defends all this as the new normal. I can no longer pretend that our nation is governed by anything more than expediency and a desire for profit and power.

Herbert Hoover notoriously claimed that "The business of American is business." Donald Trump goes one step further. In his inauguration speech, our new president made it painfully clear that the governing principle for our nation is now "America First." Never mind that this slogan has its origins in American Nazis who opposed our going to war against Hitler. Never mind that it ignores the realities of a globalized world. Never mind that it extols the essential value behind every conquering nation. The slogan "American First" proclaims a disturbing identity. We are no longer dedicated to a New Deal or a Fair Deal but to an I-Deal.

"So what's the problem?" I hear my conservative friends ask. "What's wrong with defending our own interests?" One answer is, of course, "Nothing." Maybe Adam Smith was right when he claimed that when we all act on our own self-interest, the common good is elevated by an Invisible Hand. Maybe the rise of unbridled capitalism and nationalism will create a new order of world peace and prosperity.

I know there are people who think that could happen, but I'm not one of them. One reason why lies in my somewhat unorthodox but deeply Christian faith comes in. I simply don't believe that Jesus Christ came here to make I-Deals. Nor did Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman or Oscar Romero. The people I most admire have recognized that the arc of justice demands allegiance to something higher than the "I."

It has taken me a lifetime to accept that it may be naive to expect my president or my nation to uphold an allegiance to anything greater than themselves. And a part of me still wants to hold fast to the belief in a United States of America guided by Enlightenment ideals. But at the Woman's March on Saturday, I recognized that even if those ideals no longer shape our national government, they are powerfully branded into the souls of its people. And it is up to us to carry them forward.

Linda Carleton graduated from Yale Divinity School, was ordained in the United Church of Christ, and formerly worked as a national activist in refugee resettlement. She now lives in Portland, Maine, where she teaches, writes, and offers workshops on mandala journaling and spiritual growth. Linda strives to integrate her own Christian faith with the world's diverse spiritual teachings and to help the world heal from its history of religious abuse. Linda is the author of the soon to be released "Elmina's Fire" and writes a biweekly blog at http://www.lindacarleton.com


 By Linda Carleton

Article Source: Are I-Deals the New American Ideal?