The More You Know

Nationalism to Pluralism in Identity

Written in response to Jim Troisi’s following question:

How have the interrelated shifts which Scholte describes from capitalism to hypercapitalism in production, from statism to polycentrism in governance, from nationalism to pluralism in identity, and from rationalism to reflexive rationalism–all of these contributing to and being impacted by the growth of transplanetary connectivity and increasingly supraterritorial relations–impacted your personal life? Is your existence different from that of earlier generations because of these relatively recent changes? In what ways?

As I sit contemplating my life and all the wonderful questions asked by Professor Troisi, I come to the simple conclusion that I must tell the truth. The questions were made personal, so I must respond in a personal way. I’m sure that if I responded in any other fashion, it would come off artificial and forced. Rather than consuming more time with a worse answer I provide this stream of thought constructed somewhere between the hours of one and three ante meridiem on nationalism to pluralism.

When I consider all the things I hear on the radio, see on the television, and read in the news paper I wonder if I am a bad person. Not bad because I hurt people, steal, or commit any crime whatsoever. I wonder this because I could care less if I was American while everyone else seems so fanatical about being a true American. In fact, when I list all the things I think and believe I am, being American is not on the first page, the second, or the third. It is not even listed. Is this to say that I am treasonous? I think some would say that I indeed am. Some would even venture to say that I do not deserve America let alone to be American. I say that I deserve it just as much as the man who touts himself the “American Man”, complete with flags hung in his truck, on his house, and pegged in the front yard. We both did the exact same thing to be American. We were born.
I do not feel nationalistic tendencies. I define myself via a series of pluralisms, things that anyone in any governmental apparatus could be. For starters I am a life learner, engineer, programmer, hacker, gamer, yuppie (young urban professional), and a punk to some degree. I spend my time reading ModBlog.com, and Ign.com, reading and responding to technical and social forums, traveling the world to meet up with people I have only talked to/read about/heard about, and spending my free time working on various writings and programming projects.

I understand that people of different states, geographically defined or not, have different beliefs. They were indoctrinated or stimulated into existence by their parents, communities, and governments. I talk to and meet these people and forge personal connections with them. Each member of theses states largely believes that they are right. I say, how can so many different ideas of being right all be right?

Through travel, mass media, telecommunications, and other forces behind globalization I have learned that there are millions of people who all think they are right. Their beliefs are based on faith, their justification on faith, and their driving motivations on faith. How can I, with my limited ability to experience the world, sit down and decide that what I think is universally right. How can I say the American dream is the best dream and that the US Government is the best government when there are so many other ways of life I have not and will not experience?

If I am not going to blindly believe I am American and that I must live the American dream, then what and who am I? Through the economic, political, social, and environmental aspects of globalization I learn of other people who put their trust not in beliefs, but in morals. Through transplanetary connectivity, I have learned that it does not matter if I am American; it matters only if I can live morally and treat others with respect so they can live morally and happily. I am not defined by nationalism, I am defined by pluralism. I see, hear, and talk to people all over the world who say things that I feel personal attunement with. Without the recent increase of east for supraterritorial relations, I would be a different person. I would not have been able forge connections with so many different people of the world. Indeed my entire generation has access to this wider view, whether they chose to inspect it or not.

Earlier generations had successively less global exposure. In fact, I dare to believe it was easier generations ago to be American. Not because of the conditions, but because of the view. If we were all fish and living in a pond, we would never see all the things that live outside of the pond. We would be believe there was only so far up, down, left, and right. Never knowing there was an entire world missing. let alone other ponds. In short, we define ourselves and our world by what we are exposed to. We can only chose to believe what we are exposed to. In our world today, especially in America, we gain more and more ways to peer into every land and every pond.