Unlearning the American Myth (Part 7)

The previous post in this series can be found here, the first article here.

Life Beyond the Myth

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. —William Faulkner

This is the final installment in this series on Unlearning the American myth. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed researching and writing it and what I’ve gleaned from it personally helps me make sense of what’s happening in our country right now. As the layers of the myth loosen up and fall away I can see reality more clearly and hold a bigger picture. I can see light at the end of the tunnel. I hope the series has supported you as well.

Violence and racism, oppression and inequity have been at the core of the American experiment from the beginning. Honest accountings of history show us that these aspects are not exceptions but consistent themes. Anyone who wants to understand what’s happening now and how we got here would do well to understand that history and its underpinning myth and mindset. As Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address: “We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”

Lincoln’s speech was delivered in the context of the division and violence that was already (in 1863) an integral part of the American story. It’s more entrenched now than ever, but it’s hard to see that until we disenthrall ourselves and stop drinking the kool-aid.

I’ve offered this series as support for broadening perspective on both the crisis and the opportunity. One the one hand, the unfolding chaos and the rise of fascism right here at home. And on the other, the life-affirming solidarity, resistance, and love. A key premise has been that the internalization of the American myth hinders a big picture perspective, thus the need to engage a process of unlearning.

I offer a final nod of appreciation to The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America by Greg Grandin which inspired this series, and to all the historians who speak truth to power and help us learn from history so we are not doomed to repeat it.

So what is the American Myth?

As I wrote earlier, Joseph Campbell defined a myth as a “dreamlike symbol that evokes and directs psychological energy.” It’s that energy, in turn, that animates human activity—that builds societies and creates cultures.

As covered in the first couple of posts, the frontier was the dreamlike symbol that began to shape what we can think of as the American mind and national character. It all could have gone very differently but for the white supremacy that was already present.

Those vast western spaces were the ground for what Alexander Hamilton called, America’s “growing greatness.” And if there is one word that best characterizes the American myth it might be greatness. And be it the 1790s of Hamilton, or today’s MAGA movement, the belief in greatness leaves no room for contradiction. Genocide, imperialism, and racism must remain in the shadows. And so history is sanitized, we might say, white washed.

The myth conveys the sense of forward movement and progress where negative consequences are overshadowed by the benefits and greater good. After all, American expansion and exceptionalism were assumed to be divinely ordained and no amount of racism and violence could tarnish the ideals and innocence of the nation. The moral, civilizing mission of the United States went largely unquestioned here at home.

The myth has provided common ground for mainstream politicians on both sides of the aisle, and every administration has played its role in perpetuating the myth and its frontier underpinnings. For Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush it was a hemisphere-wide free trade zone, and it was Bill Clinton who oversaw the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Clinton himself said that “this new global economy is our new frontier.” It was deja vu all over again: extend the sphere and you’ll extend peace and prosperity (1).

In the search for understanding, let us remember that trauma’s legacy looms large. In uprooting themselves and emigrating, many of our Old World ancestors were fleeing traumatic experiences of poverty, starvation, overcrowding, plague, religious fanaticism, and all of the violent aspects of British colonialism. It’s not surprising then that the mindset of domination and violence was carried over to the so-called New World (2).

Underneath the entitlement and supremacy (the greatness) so central to the myth is a deep level of woundedness—of fear and insecurity, of psycho-spiritual immaturity, and the illusion of separateness (3). And rather than look inward for healing and wholeness we looked outward and acted out the pain.

The End of the Myth

Attempts to keep the American myth alive are still very much in play. It’s there for all to see in the rise of fascist authoritarianism, which holds up as the present ideal a contrived vision of a glorious past (4). It’s alive in the white supremacy and racism inherent in the attacks on people of color. It’s alive in foreign policy characterized by the same old imperialist ambitions of division and domination.

But the American myth is dead. The southern border is where it went to die. The walls and the whole of the border security complex—which is no longer limited to the borderlands—reveals a nation stifled by fear and weakness, a country isolated and on the defensive, a country without a moral center.

Frontier mentality brought us a refusal of limits. Now the frontier is closed and globalization never delivered on its promises. Instead of peace and freedom we have endless war and freedom is under attack like never before. The hypocrisy that’s always been there underneath the rhetoric is now in the open.

We now have power without pretense (the pretense of spreading freedom and democracy). Where as before there were no boundaries to the vision, now the southern border—weaponized and dehumanized, a place to focus cruelty and lies—betrays any sense of vision and the myth of greatness is no longer believable. The age of consequences has arrived.

The American myth is also dead because it has always gone against life. In a reality characterized by relationships and reciprocity, mindsets rooted in isolation and supremacy are doomed from the start. It’s passing is nothing to bemoan but represents a vast opportunity to wake up and join in the work of co-creating life-affirming ways of being.

Conclusion

I started this series with a quote from the Canadian poet Ann Carson: To live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing.

We are living that peril now. It’s there in the polarization and there are many ways to characterized the divides. One way is to invoke those (of us) who want to perpetuate the myth and its exclusive benefits, and those (of us) who are willing to embrace the challenge of unlearning the myth in order to see reality more clearly.

While the series has been part book report I wanted to go deeper into the psychology and my own understanding of my own mind. In the process I’ve come to appreciate that while I’ve known fragments of the history, and fragments of the psychology, I haven’t had a resource that really aimed to put it all together. It’s in that sense—Grandin’s book plus my own research—that I’ve found this project humbling, enlightening, and empowering.

With Active Peace I’ve always sought to explore the root causes of violence, and this series has been a part of that exploration. Unlearning the myth helps me bear witness to what I call the Big Unravelling (5). It’s the unravelling of a system and way of life that was never sustainable, rooted as it is in the illusion of separateness. And right in the midst of that unravelling we can weave something much more healthy and whole as inspiration is fired up and space opens up for the creation of a new paradigm.

We need a new story now, a new myth to direct psychological and physical energy in life-affirming ways. Unlearning and dropping the old story is a place to start. Let’s see who else, what else, we can become at this time when our own responses (our own response-ability) is crucial to our own sanity and our collective future.

In the end, the point of consciously unlearning the myth is not a way to divide but to unite in personal and collective healing. I hope this series has supported you in your big pig picture view, your empowerment and healing, and your compassion for self and others.

Endnotes

1. Greg Grandin, The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America, 2019.

2. As noted in Part 2, by linking Old World trauma and violence with American trauma, violence, and racism, Resmaa Menakem’s book My Grandmother’s Hands contributed a lot to my understanding of the origins of American racism.

3. G. Scott Brown, The Life Defining Polarity: Separateness and Interbeing.

4. G. Scott Brown, The Shadow King Enthroned.

5. G. Scott Brown, Love and the Big Unravelling.

.