The following is excerpted and adapted from a broader work on the informative role of historical narrative in the development cultural identity.
Broadly speaking, the study of history inspires exploration of societal identity of those within the national, geographic, or ethnic borders of a past people. However, while national historical character often serves as a source of patriotic unity, as it does most notably in America, given the flawed ethical record of human conduct, collective association with a nation’s history often includes association with a previous generation’s moral shortcomings. Thus, is it beneficial for people of today to identify with the successes of their ancestors? Does such identification carry any tangible influence on the identity of a people today?
Although these types of studies are often statistically incomplete and occasionally inaccurate, analyses of the world’s most patriotic countries- that is, nations whose citizens feel pride in their nationality- consistently place the United States at or near the top of the list. Upon further questioning, most United States citizens cite as the source of this pride the nation’s historical triumphs (Revolutionary War, WWI, WWII, etc.). While one can argue that the ideological foundation of the revolutionary period, the cultural triumphs of 1918 and 1945, and all in between may grant modern Americans a feeling of patriotic identification, many contend that the events experienced by dead men of our past have no bearing on the affairs of modern citizens. Worse, some assert that any association of modern Americans with our nation’s past must be abandoned as means of rejecting the horrors committed against native peoples and other ethnic minorities, under African chattel slavery and Jim Crow. As for the latter, although the argument that the harmful legacy of race relations and past ethical disgraces disqualifies legitimate cultural identification with previous American generations is convincing, it is precisely these horrors that have shaped the American experience—the same nation that participated in the enslavement of Africans lost 360,000 to free them, a progression that shapes and will continue to shape the shared identity of the country.
Obviously, we are all individuals, each of us responsible only for our own decisions and actions; no whites in America who have never owned slaves are responsible for the affairs of 19th century slave-owners to whom they have no moral or even hereditary connection, in the same way that living Germans uninvolved with the Holocaust bear no collective guilt for the Third Reich’s treatment of Jews. Yet, as esteemed twentieth-century economist Thomas Sowell insists, “culture matters.” We, as individuals and as a broader society, are the product of generations of cultural trial and error, the culmination of centuries of experiences unique to a particular people. In pluralistic societies like the United States, second- and third-generation immigrants of a particular ethnicity consistently economically outperform their native-born counterparts, for the notable reason that the mindsets and experiences of those who immigrate here have cultivated unique cultural legacies favorable to fostering academic and entrepreneurial success. In America as a whole, immigrants and natives alike have been shaped by the history of our country; we are a people molded by the experiences of previous generations, a populace united by the distinct nature of our past. So yes, we are who we were, and the cultural heritage that dictates our identity today will, in conjunction with the societal character we choose to craft, continue to influence who we are tomorrow.