The true greatness of the U.S.A.

By • on July 8, 2009
Long Walk Home
Image by zedzap via Flickr
By Dr. Brian Russell

On this Independence Day, I’d like to get back to basics – as basic as it gets actually: the reason why we’re here, and how this country serves that purpose better than any other in the history of the world. Personally, I believe there’s a God, and I believe there’s a plan in which we humans are all participants. To presume to understand the divine purpose and plan for our existence, the “grand scheme of things,” with human intellect is something akin to an infant on his/her first trip to the beach trying to comprehend the vastness and contents of the ocean, but like that infant, I try to make what sense of it I can. What makes sense to me is that everything in the universe emanates from a single creative force. Whatever you call Him, it’s what existed before the point at which we think we can or ever will be able to comprehend, in physical and biological terms, what happened thereafter. Astrophysicists sometimes call it the “singularity” – I call it God, but whatever you call it, in my human understanding of time, it once was alone. It makes sense to me that a force that was benevolent and alone with the power to create anything and everything would want to create something that could relate to it, understand it on some rudimentary level, and appreciate it. It makes sense to me that human beings are one and perhaps the only such creation, brought about through a process initiated eons ago in our time, an instant ago relative to eternity, with a “big bang” perhaps, by which a suitable habitat was created, followed by another process, an “evolution” perhaps, through which a suitable “vessel” was created and ultimately imbued with a quality, I believe a divine quality, that set the human apart from the rest of creation – an intellect, the ability to reason, the ability to contemplate and ultimately to relate to, on a rudimentary level, its Creator. It makes sense to me that our purpose then is to do two things: to create, and to love, because in doing so, we’re able to get a glimpse, a rudimentary understanding, of what our Creator is, what it’s like to be God. We’re not forced to do them – if we were, we’d be no different from plants, and our actions would be meaningless – rather, we’re given the choice, the “free will” to do them or not, and it’s in choosing to do them that our actions gain meaning.

To create, I believe, means that we’re supposed to take stock of the skills, abilities, talents, “gifts,” that we’ve been given and to develop those to the fullness of their potentials. In so doing, I believe that we gain a rudimentary understanding of one aspect of our benevolent Creator (the creative aspect). I believe it gives us a sense of purpose to drive our lives (whether we can articulate that purpose or not), and simultaneously, supplies humankind with the goods and services that it needs. You’ll note that none of the above is rooted in any religion – its foundations are purely intellectual – but even if you don’t buy any of it, even if you believe that we exist simply to “be happy,” there’s plenty of psychological research, from Maslow’s concept of “self-actualization” as the pinnacle of his “hierarchy of needs” to Seligman’s findings on “authentic happiness” to corroborate the assertion that human beings are happiest when they feel that they’ve reached the fullness of their potentials by identifying and effectuating their abilities to contribute something unique to the human condition.

To love, I believe, means giving of ourselves to help others to reach the fullness of their potentials. In so doing, I believe that we gain a rudimentary understanding of a second aspect of our benevolent Creator (the benevolent aspect). I believe that when we help others to achieve the fullness of their potentials, we simultaneously move closer to achieving the fullness of our own potentials as human beings. In romantic relationships, it’s the idea, cheesy as Jerry Maguire made it sound, of two people “completing” one another, each becoming something more and making the other something more than they were before. There’s then perhaps no better opportunity in the human condition to relate to our Creator than when the two become parents – they first create new people and new potentials, and then, by loving those new people, help them move toward the fullness of their potentials. Marriage and parenting are, of course, just two of many ways in which we’re able to love and aid in the development of others’ potentials – teachers, clergy people, soldiers, cops and firefighters, doctors and nurses, people who make products that we need, friends, even (gasp) politicians, and many others do it, in their own ways.

On this Independence Day, I submit to you that the United States of America has afforded its citizens the best environment in the history of humankind in which to create and to love and thereby to achieve the fullness of their human potentials. For each citizen to do that requires a high degree of personal and economic freedom, and the U.S.A. provides both, through a democratic government with strong protections for individuals, and through capitalism, which promotes competition between individuals and rewards the development of unique potential. If you think about it, any nation in human history that achieved power comparable to that of the U.S.A. in today’s world – a lone “superpower” – used that power to take freedom away from people, to conquer, and thereby to stifle the development of unique human potential. For most of human history in fact, most human beings have lived in what I call “Braveheart” conditions, wherein whoever was physically stronger (individually or collectively) largely determined how much of their potentials physically-weaker humans could develop. The U.S.A. has altered the course of human history, in a positive way, far more than would be expected considering the relatively short period of human history during which it has existed (it hasn’t had a perfect record, but at least it has literally torn itself apart and put itself back together again trying to right its own wrongs). The post-Civil War U.S.A. has used its power to secure more freedom for more people than ever in the history of the world, making it possible for them to pursue and achieve the fullness of their human potentials, to relate to their Creator, to fulfill the purpose of their lives, and thereby to pursue and achieve that elusive state we call “happiness.” Therefore, on this Independence Day, my hope is that we all realize the fundamental, transcendental greatness of this country and the responsibility to continue to protect and defend the principles that made it great from all enemies foreign and domestic.

Dr. Brian Russell is a licensed psychologist, attorney at law and familiar national television pundit on psychological, legal and cultural issues.

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