Addressing Andy Bryan

I would like to address two points that Andy Bryan made in our recent discussion on immigration policy.

Of the value of wealth, Andy said:

Myth - Prosperity is inherently good. Truth - In addition to a lot of good, prosperity leads also to greed, envy, ulcers, and a mile-a-minute pace of life that is not conducive good health.

If you think that wealth is stressful, you ought to try poverty! I'm sure that watching the continuous ticker on your HSBC stock can lead a bit of worry, but I cannot seriously believe that it would be more stressful than wondering where your next meal will come from, or whether or not your children will die of measles because your country cannot afford to vaccinate the population.

It would further appear that the Mexicans pouring across our border do not think that prosperity will be hazardous to their health. They've tried the whole 'dirt poor' thing and, after much philosophical hand-wringing, decided that 'wealth' might be nice. For a change of pace and scene. Granted, they did not go to graduate school or seminary, so they might not be aware of enormous stress that they will take on themselves by having regular meals and electricity, but perhaps our public assistance programs for them can correct this misunderstanding.

It's like the old economics joke: two economists were walking by a Ford dealership. One looked at a Mustang and said, "Man, I'd love to have one of those!" The other responded, "Obviously not." The point is that our preferences are not what we say they are, but what we do. Andy, if you think that prosperity is stressful, then by all means rid yourself of that stress. Give up your salary and go live in a refrigerator box. Lilies of the field and all that. Certainly, you will have less to worry about.

Next point. Does America have a culture? 'Nay!', saith Andy:

Myth - there is an American culture. Truth - America is now and always has been vibrantly diverse.

It's easy to get lost in perspective. To one degree or another, all people divide the world into two spheres: 'self' and 'other'. It's hard to define the self because it's the default 'normal'. What we do and how we live may not seem like cultural choices or influences -- they're just the normal way to live. What 'other' people do is cultural because it's different from the normal. So they have cultures, but we don't because we're normal and they're different.

That's why it's necessary to mentally step back and view one's own activities and the activities of one's group from different perspectives in order to learn what we do and why we do it. Are we being purely rational or are we acting out of cultural perspective? It's a lot like learning a foreign language. I never understood English grammar until I studied French and Latin. Why do I use particular words in particular combinations in order to express an idea? I could explain why I made those decisions when speaking French or Latin. But I couldn't when speaking English because those philological decisions were just normal. Tense, case, syntax -- these concepts were meaningless in English unless I reflected the English text or speech in the mirrors of French and Latin grammar.

In the same manner, we can learn what it is to be American by looking at how we are different from other cultures. Our arts, faiths, values, leisures, community styles -- almost everything that we do and every facet of how we live is influenced by cultural factors.

America is a unique place, just as every other nation or community on earth is unique in many ways. But are we to believe that somehow the US, because it is 'normal' according to our own norms, has no culture -- alone among all of the nations of the earth?

Now, onto part 2: are we a diverse culture?

Sure, of course we are. All nations are diverse in many ways. Mexico, for example, is far more diverse than Speedy Gonzalez stereotypes allow for. It's a vast country with different ethnicities, communities, dialects, and economies. Are they more homogeneous then we are? Is America somehow a massive salad bowl, whereas other nations churn out their identical mass-produced citizens in factories with the same size-10 sombreros?

Of course not. All nations are complex entities, the US included. All nations have cultures, the US included. We may be 'normal' in our own eyes, but we're always an 'other' to someone else.