The Four American Narratives

In a remarkably insightful op-ed, David Brooks (NYT, The Four American Narratives) discusses four current ideologies for America, all of which he rejects as inadequate for modern America.

Brooks begins with the ideal of America, a Judeo-Christian story, new promised land, that Brooks asserts no longer holds today.  "But that civic mythology no longer unifies."  Brooks apparently believes this civic mythology was once real in America.  If so, it was only true for a rich, white, male elite, for WASPs.  And at the expense of Native Americans, African Americans, women and the poor.

The Judeo-Christian mythology was riddled with white ethnocentrism and white oppression.  Whites, WASPs have never repented, restituted of this monstrous social evil.

The four rival and inadequate narratives are: the libertarian narrative, globalized America, multicultural America, and the America First narrative.

Then Brooks mentions two more narratives suggested by Michael Lind: the mercantilist model---"the one major power in competition with rival powers."  The second narrative is "the talented community" which includes the poor.

A final paragraph by Brooks:

"The mercantilist model sees America as a new Rome, a mighty fortress in a dangerous world.  The talented community sees America as a new Athens, a creative crossroads leading an open and fundamentally harmonious world.  It is an Exodus story for an information age."

Athens is better than Rome, but we need a Jerusalem story.  The kingdom of God narrative goes beyond the Exodus story.  It fulfills the Law and the Prophets---love and justice; it is a justice that releases the oppressed.