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Comment by jacobush | Hacker News Reader

I don’t understand what you are advocating.

I don't think there's a specific call to action / advocacy, more philosophizing about the challenge.

tldr; Human beings are flawed. All our heroes have some amount of blood on their hands. If we start toppling statues we won't have any more statues. Maybe it's good that we stop putting people on pedestals, but without those pedestals what makes our creates Americans' shared identity / how do we work as a team?

I guess I simply disagree. Some leaders have blood on their hands as a side-effect, and some have it intentionally. I'm a southerner. Southern revisionist history tries to attach pride to the crimes of our forefathers. Knock those boys down.

For some heroes, I agree we need to be open to nuance instead of canceling the world. "This person helped with X, but we can't forget she also hurt Y".

Maybe we should put our heroes ideologies ahead of their identities. Maybe the heroes should be the workers who built the systems, who we can more easily forgive for their flaws. Maybe our shared history and stories can be more about activities than the people that did them. Maybe our heroes are the identities rather than the individual, e.g. "The Pirate Roberts".

But definitely, when a hero isn't supported by a significant part of its local populace, time to find better heroes.

Not advocating anything here. Just pointing out that every nation has heroic myths that the government nurtures, and those national myths make many (good!) things possible that wouldn't otherwise be.

Do national myths need to be heroic? When we started virus measures (lasting two months), the government didn't invoke William Tell, instead leaning on the spirit of "Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno."

Two american songs that resonate most with my head-canon of the "American Dream" are:

"Coat of Many Colors" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYAdKXzGtcY

"This Land" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRnHx3yVuf4

neither of which are particularly statue-wise heroic. But it's been a long time since I've been in the States. What are some current national mythos songs there?

I don't think you'll get an answer that. Everyone in the US who's sophisticated knows it's a mark of said sophistication to show aloof disdain towards 'the US'.

That is a ridiculous take. It is also possible people with education can see the flaws in the US myth too. I love a lot about this country but we have all manner of fractures and do a poor job trying to impose a single vision on to lots of different experiences.

They see the flaws in the myth, and thus move to deconstruct the myth. As they go, people become less connected, have less in common, as the shattering of the dream spreads down from the academies through social leylines, leaving behind atomisation as it goes.

You could describe the same process as 'late-stage capitalism'. Cynical detachment not unlike the death of god. The problem is, the flawed lie was at the base of what people had in common, and quickly-constructed replacements don't have staying memetic power.

As to quickly-constructed, I'd thought my suggestions too old and too outdated ("Coat of..." being 50 years old, and "This Land" nearly 75).

I'd look for older national myth songs, but I'd rather hear from someone who is committed to, not merely interested in, the future of the US.

Anyone? Bueller?

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