Stories of America is not a paean.
Many of the writers who agreed to contribute to our project love America. Most of them, I think. Some love it very dearly and all very differently. They may love what it could be - or was - more than what it is. America may not mean the same thing to them, but no author and no story was excluded from this project because they were too critical or plainspoken about our flaws.
Stories of America is not a polemic.
There are stories here which grieve. They mourn the loss of some remembered thing, or else they hide the last and tenuous thread of an almost-forgotten promise in some secret place. They writhe with anger and disappointment, or else they seethe at the error of the paths we have chosen as a people. Yet no author and no story was excluded from this project because they were too earnest or patriotic.
Instead, ours is an unashamed celebration of America as a propositional nation - as an idea. It is not a naïve celebration which pretends that to be an idea alone is enough! For a nation which is a proposition must also be a people which is committed to that proposition. It must keep institutions which sustain that proposition.
Both of these indispensable qualities of a propositional nation are under threat.
There are those among us who tell us that our stories are bad ones, stories that have been corrupted by misuse or by actions which betrayed them. For this they would have us abandon our old stories in favor of those which suppose that America is just another nation among hundreds. Some of those new stories rhyme with our own, the ones that whisper that we are all brothers and equals with workers or the poor or all of humanity. In doing so they tell us a true story but also the great lie that it is the only true story.
There are others among us who tell us that our stories are all well and good but that they cannot make a nation, that the commitment to any proposition is only realistic if the nation is built on shared ethnic and religious identity. They reject some of our stories as fanciful while they embrace others as being utterly dependent on common knowledge about God, race, origin, and how long our families have been connected to this land.
We reject both of their ideas. We reject them utterly.
Yet even as they threaten America the propositional nation, they show us that our old stories need new voices. They need people who will shout them and embrace the power that they have to inspire and change and hold us accountable to one another.
Stories of America is a commitment – a recommitment – to tell these old stories again.
But to tell the old stories, we need to know what they are. We also need to know what state they’re in. That is why, beyond commissioning essays and stories and poetry both now and over the next year for America’s 250th birthday, today we are launching eight storyboards tracking the rise and fall of our eight oldest stories in real-time.
Land of the free: The old story that Americans are free not just in practical or legally protected ways, but in ways which acknowledge that these rights are inalienable from all men. That true Americans use and protect that freedom with jealousy and fervor.
Home of the brave: The old story that before they were almost anything else, Americans were those who left a world behind to scrape out an existence in a wild frontier. That there is still a wildness in us that the old world can never understand.
E pluribus unum: The old story that in America we believe it is possible to truly transform the many into one, that diversity, while not universally and unconditionally optimal, can be harnessed to create a more robust, creative, industrious, and resilient society.
America the beautiful: The old story that our America is a place of unsurpassed natural beauty in our world and we are its stewards, that the American spirit powers the creation of the music, film, and writing that tells our stories across the planet.
We can do it!: The old story that the American cannot be bowed, will not be outworked, and will not lose for lack of trying, that every one of us will step up to be the man in the arena when called upon.
A republic, if you can keep it: The old story that America’s commitment to its constitution, to its institutions, to the rule of law, and to the rejection of tyrants and bullies is without equal in the world.
A city on a hill: The old story that America would be an example to other countries, a land that wears its heart on its sleeve, a light to inspire the oppressed and the enslaved to throw off their shackles and rulers to earn the consent of the governed.
Land of opportunity: The old story that America is a place where anybody can make it, no matter their background, their birth, their skin color, their family, or the money in their pockets, so long as they're willing to work hard and bet it all on themselves.
We must be clear-eyed. Some of these old stories are alive and well while others are on life support. For the next year and beyond here at Panoptica, we will measure and show the evolution of all manner of the ways that Americans are telling these stories, not telling these stories, and telling the story of their demise.
But we will also be telling those old stories in new ways. We hope you enjoy the first round of contributions to the Stories of America project. And if you have something to add to this powerful play, and we hope that you will contribute a verse.
