Status Updates From The American Spirit: Who We...

“…history is philosophy taught with examples.” (P.57)

Foreign intervention is not a favored policy in America, and has led to all kinds of disasters, especially since this speech. Perhaps it reveals an overconfidence in the wake of the Cold War. Another revealing thing is that the author looks to Mandela, not any 20th century American statesman, as exemplary of heroic political action. But the end of the speech is a salutary call for civic virtue and sacrifice.

Humans, especially those in a body politic, need to feel a part of something larger. What will that be for us? Americans are not generally given to idealism and don't have a history of uniform political doctrines. We are a practical people; we try things and try to understand why they don't work. What's odd is that McCullough then agrees with Wilson that America has responsibilities to the rest of the world.

The address to Union college highlights an American vision that values openness, reflected in the architecture and layout, as well as a non-sectarian spirit with practical additions to the curriculum (engineering). Given in 1994, it also highlights an uncertainty about the identity and the future of America after the Cold War. Truman had confidence in the triumph of free men over tyranny, but what happens next?

The Jeffersonian spirit of the country is an important strand of the American heritage. Jefferson wasn't trying to produce new principles, but to restate them in a fresh way, which is something characteristically American. What was distinct was the strong principle of self-government, a transcendent ideal of our nation that we have desired for others to share in as well.

In America we have an optimism (or had, at least) in the university and its potential to better our lives. There's also a sense of the importance of subsidiarity here: the university should focus some of its efforts on addressing the specific problems of its community. Though a university necessarily must consider things in greater scope and even higher things, it should not be divorced from its circumstances.