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What Does It Mean to Be an "American"? Author(S): MICHAEL WALZER Reviewed Work(S): Source: Social Research, Vol

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What Does It Mean to Be an What Does It Mean to Be an "American"? Author(s): MICHAEL WALZER Reviewed work(s): Source: Social Research, Vol. 57, No. 3 (FALL 1990), pp. 591-614 Published by: The New School Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40970605 . Accessed: 26/08/2012 18:49 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The New School is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Research. http://www.jstor.org WhatDoes ItMean to Be an / "American"?*Xby MICHAEL WALZER / 1 here is no countrycalled America.We live in the United States of America,and we have appropriatedthe adjective "American"even thoughwe can claimno exclusivetitle to it. Canadians and Mexicansare also Americans,but theyhave adjectivesmore obviously their own, and we have none. Words like"unitarian" and "unionist"won't do; our senseof ourselves is not captured by the mere fact of our union, however importantthat is. Nor will"statist," even "unitedstatist," serve our purposes;a good manyof thecitizens of the UnitedStates are antistatist.Other countries, wrote the "American"political theoristHorace Kallen,get theirnames fromthe people, or fromone of the peoples, who inhabitthem. "The United States,on the otherhand, has a peculiaranonymity."1 It is a name that doesn't even pretend to tell us who lives here. Anybodycan live here,and just about everybodydoes- men and women from all the world's peoples. (The Harvard Encyclopediaof American Ethnic Groups begins withAcadians and Afghansand ends withZoroastrians.2) It is peculiarlyeasy to become an American. The adjective provides no reliable informationabout the origins, histories,connections, or culturesof thosewhom it designates.What does it say,then, about theirpolitical allegiance? 1 Horace M. Kallen, Cultureand Democracyin the UnitedStates (New York: Boni & Liveright,1924), p. 51. " Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, ed. Stephan Thernstrom (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1980). SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Fall 1990) 592 SOCIAL RESEARCH Patriotismand Pluralism Americanpoliticians engage periodicallyin a fiercecompe- tition to demonstratetheir patriotism.This is an odd competition,surely, for in most countriesthe patriotismof politiciansis not an issue. There are other issues, and this question of politicalidentification and commitmentrarely comesup; loyaltyto thepatrie, the fatherland (or motherland), is simplyassumed. Perhaps it isn'tassumed here because the United Statesisn't a patrie.Americans have neverspoken of theircountry as a fatherland(or a motherland).The kind of natural or organic loyaltythat we (rightlyor wrongly) recognizein familiesdoesn't seem to be a featureof our politics.When Americanpoliticians invoke the metaphorof familythey are usuallymaking an argumentabout our mutual responsibilitiesand welfaristobligations, and among Ameri- cans, that is a controversialargument.3 One can be an Americanpatriot without believing in the mutualresponsibili- ties of American citizens-indeed, for some Americans disbeliefis a measureof one's patriotism. Similarly,the United States isn't a "homeland"(where a nationalfamily might dwell), not, at least,as othercountries are, in casual conversationand unreflectivefeeling. It is a countryof immigrantswho, however grateful they are forthis new place, stillremember the old places. And theirchildren know,if only intermittently,that they have rootselsewhere. They,no doubt,are nativegrown, but some awkwardsense of newnesshere, or of distantoldness, keeps the tongue from callingthis land "home."The older politicaluses of the word "home,"common in GreatBritain, have nevertaken root here: homecounties, home station,Home Office,home rule.To be "at home" in Americais a personalmatter: Americans have homesteadsand homefolksand hometowns,and each of these 3 Mario Cuomo's speech at the 1984 Democratic partyconvention provides a nice example of this sort of argument. TO BE AN AMERICAN 593 is an endlesslyinteresting topic of conversation.But theydon't have much to say about a common or communal home. Nor is there a common patrie,but rather many different ones- a multitude of fatherlands(and motherlands). For the children, even the grandchildren, of the immigrantgenera- tion, one's patrie, the "native land of one's ancestors," is somewhere else. The term "Native Americans" designates the veryfirst immigrants, who got here centuriesbefore any of the others. At what point do the rest of us, native grown, become natives?The question has not been decided; for the moment, however, the language of nativism is mostly missing (it has never been dominant in American public life), even when the political realityis plain to see. Alternatively,nativist language can be used against the politicsof nativism,as in these lines of Horace Kallen, the theoristof an anonymous America: Behind [the individual]in time and tremendouslyin him in qualityare his ancestors;around him in space are his relatives and kin,carrying in commonwith him the inherited organic set froma remotercommon ancestry.In all these he lives and movesand has his being.They constitutehis, literally, natio, the inwardnessof his nativity.4 But since there are so many "organic sets" (language is deceptive here: Kallen's antinativistnativism is cultural, not biological), none of them can rightlybe called "American." Americans have no inwardnessof theirown; theylook inward only by looking backward. According to Kallen, the United States is less importantlya union of statesthan it is a union of ethnic,racial, and religious groups- a union of otherwiseunrelated "natives."What is the nature of this union? The Great Seal of the United States carries the motto E pluribusunum, "From many, one," which seems to suggest that manyness must be left behind for the sake of oneness. Once there were many, now the many have 4 Kallen, Cultureand Democracy,p. 94. 594 SOCIAL RESEARCH merged or, in Israel Zangwell'sclassic image, been melted downinto one. But the GreatSeal presentsa differentimage: the"American" eagle holdsa sheafof arrows.Here thereis no mergeror fusionbut only a fastening,a puttingtogether: many-in-one.Perhaps the adjective"American" describes this kindof oneness.We mightsay, tentatively, that it pointsto the citizenship,not the nativityor nationality,of the men and womenit designates.It is a politicaladjective, and itspolitics is liberalin thestrict sense: generous,tolerant, ample, accommo- dating-it allowsfor the survival,even the enhancementand flourishing,of manyness. On this view, appropriatelycalled "pluralist,"the word "from"on the Great Seal is a false preposition.There is no movementfrom many to one, but rathera simultaneity,a coexistence-once again, many-in-one.But I don't mean to suggesta mysteryhere, as in theChristian conception of a God who is three-in-one.The languageof pluralismis sometimesa bit mysterious-thus Kallen's descriptionof America as a "nationof nationalities"or JohnRawls's account of the liberal stateas a "socialunion of socialunions"- but itlends itself to a rationalunpacking.5 A sheaf of arrows is not, after all, a mysteriousentity. We can findanalogues in the earliestforms of social organization:tribes composed of manyclans, clans composed of many families.The conflictsof loyaltyand obligation,inevitable products of pluralism,must arise in these cases too. And yet, they are not exact analogues of the Americancase, fortribes and clanslack Kallen's"anonymity." Americanpluralism is, as we shall see, a peculiarlymodern phenomenon-not mysteriousbut highlycomplex. In fact,the UnitedStates is nota "nationof nationalities"or a "socialunion of socialunions." At least,the singular nation or unionis notconstituted by, it is nota combinationor fastening togetherof, the plural nationalities or unions.In somesense, it 5 Ibid., p. 122 (cf. 116); John Rawls, A Theoryof Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1971), p. 527. TO BE AN AMERICAN 595 includesthem; it providesa frameworkfor their coexistence; but theyare not itsparts. Nor are the individualstates, in any significantsense, the parts that make up the United States. The partsare individualmen and women.The UnitedStates is an associationof citizens.Its "anonymity"consists in the fact thatthese citizensdon't transfertheir collective name to the association.It neverhappened thata group of people called Americanscame togetherto form a politicalsociety called America.The people are Americansonly by virtueof having come together.And whatever identitythey had before becomingAmericans, they retain (or, better,they are freeto retain) afterward.There is, to be sure, another view of Americanization,which holds thatthe processrequires for its success the mental erasure of all previous identities- forgetfulnessor even, as one enthusiastwrote in 1918, "absoluteforgetfulness."6 But on thepluralist view, Americans are allowedto rememberwho theywere and to insist,also, on what else theyare. They are not,however, bound to theremembrance or to the insistence.Just as theirancestors escaped the old country,so they can if they choose escape their old identities,the "inwardness"of theirnativity.
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