![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsThe worst thing about the "American frontier story" is the way it teaches people that they don't have to be part of the social contract that is the "America" in which currently they live, but that in the very act of refusing to participate they are somehow joining a noble vision of what it means to be "an American."
In every other country in the world, opposition to the general social contract is understood to be exactly that: opposition. Brexiters want to destroy the UK as it currently is. The Nationalist Democratic Party of Germany views itself as being in opposition to the German social democratic system that empowers workers. The Vox in Spain openly admit to wanting to tear down the Spanish government and replace it with something more fascist. In all these cases, the actors don't believe the nation they were born into is the one they want, and they want it changed.
In the United States, you can be opposed to both "the government" and "the culture," that is, everything else in the United States that isn't your little patch, and still believe you are a part of the nation into which you were born and the one you want. The libertarian notion that vaccination is good but mandated vaccinations are "unAmerican" is just one example of this disease. You can completely opt out of the social contract call "America" and still be "a genuine American."
In every other country in the world, opposition to the general social contract is understood to be exactly that: opposition. Brexiters want to destroy the UK as it currently is. The Nationalist Democratic Party of Germany views itself as being in opposition to the German social democratic system that empowers workers. The Vox in Spain openly admit to wanting to tear down the Spanish government and replace it with something more fascist. In all these cases, the actors don't believe the nation they were born into is the one they want, and they want it changed.
In the United States, you can be opposed to both "the government" and "the culture," that is, everything else in the United States that isn't your little patch, and still believe you are a part of the nation into which you were born and the one you want. The libertarian notion that vaccination is good but mandated vaccinations are "unAmerican" is just one example of this disease. You can completely opt out of the social contract call "America" and still be "a genuine American."
