"Being an American"

"I want to be an American!"

For me, the most interesting thing about the recent "progress" of Donald Trump has been his demolition of political correctness, especially the notion of tolerance. The present-day concept of tolerance has its origins in the late 17th century with the rise of the Enlightenment in Europe. Like most parts of the earth then (and still so today), tolerance for the manners and mores of other peoples does not come naturally to humans. Indeed, the various European peoples had little tolerance for one another, as can be seen in the vicious wars they have waged against one another, up into the Second World War.

That Europeans are now more "open" toward one another has to do with the fact that, outwardly anyway, there is not much difference between Germans and French and Italians and so on anymore. I mean, of course, different in their material way of life. Remember when Germans used to look like Germans, and French like French, and so on? In the new millennium, we all dress and drive alike, all drink good wine, and all have the same "values."

Who wants to disturb such a good thing? The downside of having "progressed" beyond all the intolerance with which we once greeted the stranger in our midst is that many of us imagine that everyone would like to be like us. Indeed, I do believe (with George W. Bush) that most people in the world would prefer to live in freedom and enjoy our standard of living. Yet, as in the U.S., there are people who are perpetually dissatisfied with the state of the world. There are legions out there that feel this way.

Would anyone thirty or forty years ago have believed that the woman pictured above wanted to be like us? That she wished to be "an American"? If so, as a first step, she would not have been trailing that bearded man behind her. Even as a Muslim, she would not have had to wear that oppressive garment. Everything about her appearance suggests that she did not aspire to be like us. Yet, such is the power of the ideology of tolerance that we seek to deny what our eyes tell us.

Which brings me back to Donald Trump. He has ripped away the "veil of tolerance," so to speak, and asks us to make judgments about what our eyes see. It is going to be interesting to see how things proceed.