Why America is Still Worth Fighting For
As of writing, Ukraine is currently embroiled in a corruption scandal. That in and of itself is noteworthy. The corruption in Ukraine was acknowledged as a scandal, that is, opposed to just a fact of life.
An investigation led by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau accused ministers of President Volodymyr Zelensky of taking kickbacks to the tune of $100 million. The accused ministers have resigned in disgrace, with Zelensky’s chief of staff joining suit. While President Zelensky has not been accused himself, he has nonetheless been politically damaged by the scandal. His approval ratings have taken a significant fall, further threatening his already embattled government.
In the wake of the scandal, opponents of Western support for Ukraine jumped on it as a reason to discredit the Ukrainian cause. How can we claim Ukraine is superior to Russia when Ukraine has graft and evil?
However, despite its imperfections, Ukraine is still worth fighting for. In Russia, corruption is simply a fact of life. The price you have to, oftentimes literally, live. Ukraine has the guts and the self-awareness to prosecute and punish corruption. In short, it acknowledges its imperfection and has acted to make itself better. The same can not be said about Russia.
What is happening right now with Ukraine is not unique. In the last twenty years, the great institutions of the West have been brought to their knees by millions of people disheartened by their imperfections. As a result, scores of people have endeavored to tear down traditional institutions and replace them with something else.
More broadly, religion, patriotism, liberalism, capitalism, the rule of law, secularism, and traditionalism have been disgraced in recent years by bombastic demagogues, supported by millions fed up with the “West’s imperfection.”
But I would be naive not to understand where all of these people are coming from. In our new age of digital wonders, the old traditions of the West appear outdated and antiquated. Our world is fast-moving—and that’s undoubtedly a good thing. But it’s also creating new problems for us.
Our Problems
A lot of people today are reckoning with issues brought about by the discarding of traditional values and practices. We have tried to fix these issues with solutions for our new digital world.
A way I like to think of this phenomenon is like this: Today, we are laboring to create God.
Take the example of AI. What problem are we trying to solve with AI? Well, Gemini, Microsoft, and OpenAI all pick a variation of one word to describe the service AI provides: companionship. That word is significant. I can press a button on my new sleek Lenovo computer, and a “co-pilot” AI program ready to walk me through my breakup or anxiety, often with an almost eerie human-like voice, will be at my service.
Young people sharply turning against liberalism has given rise to far-right despots from Donald Trump to Viktor Orbán. A new political movement of post-liberalism has become vogue amongst America’s younger generations, and it’s wreaking havoc across the world.
Our information system is tearing at our sense of a shared reality. No longer is everyone watching Walter Cronkite—we’re now horribly scattered amongst podcasters and pundits alike, with large tech companies giving them a platform to divide us, all for cynical profit incentives.
The digital world is trying to solve problems brought on by the digital world with another product of the digital world. A new century is making new solutions for itself.
But these are inadequate solutions. The idea that we can solve our problems with the very things that caused them in the first place borders on lunacy. Millions of the hungry and hopeless yearn for something; what they are being provided by our 21st century world is deeply harmful.
During the Enlightenment, liberalism adopted the idea of “progress.” The idea that humanity, with the advance of technology and material standards, was moving faster towards a future of unmitigated liberal prosperity took hold at many points in history post the Enlightenment, only for it to be shattered.
The optimism of the post-Napoleonic Peace was shattered by WW1, the optimism of the roaring 20s was shattered by the depression and WW2, and indeed, today our optimism of post-WW2 liberalism is being shattered right in front of us.
The Baptist theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, warned of an “American arrogance” post the end of World War II. The idea he expressed was that America, having won the war, would simply rest on its laurels, sit content with technological progress, while failing to confront its own societal injustice.
I think that prediction has come true. America today is profoundly arrogant. We have taken it for granted that our liberal, secular, prosperous, and technological world will simply continue on forever, without the support of traditional culture and moral institutions that are required to keep it going.
We are laboring to create God, but instead we have created the Devil. Lonely men are bingeing on Nick Fuentes, hopeless adolescents are feeding a dark world, and our politics have been consumed by the emotions we once banished to the corners of our public discourse.
Should We Return?
But if a “return to the past” was simply the golden solution to all of our problems, then it begs the question: why are we not embracing it?
America’s traditional institutions, the ones that have kept us going since the post-war era, have also carried with them deep faults. Why is Gen Z not going to church? Perhaps it’s because the Catholic Church still refuses to acknowledge LGBTQIA+ people as equal, in the eyes of god, to our straight brothers and sisters.
Why are people turning away from liberalism? Perhaps it’s because young people can’t afford the dream of owning a house anymore.
Why are people looking to AI/tech? Perhaps it’s because our traditional ideas of schooling are failing to energize a new generation.
All of these are faults. They alone are not reasons, as I said before, to turn on the West. But I would be naive if I said that they don’t provide convincing arguments. Arguments that need addressing.
If America’s traditions want to continue to fulfill their much-needed role in today’s society, they need to modernize and adapt.
Take Grace Cathedral in my home of San Francisco. The Gothic Cathedral regularly fills up pews weakly, with people coming there for all sorts of reasons. Many people scorned by tradition feel at home in Grace, due to its acceptance of LGBTQIA+ people.
And that’s good for Grace, and good for SF. People are going back to Church, and thus regaining a shared sense of reality and community. And this has all been enabled by Grace taking a look at how things stand and adapting for a new 21st century.
So to America’s traditional institutions, I say this: You are facing a reckoning. We need you now, more than ever before. But to be able to open your hands to us, you need to tear down some of the stone walls holding so many out.
As Teddy Roosevelt said: “We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.” You must fight. Fight for what makes us great. But that fight needs to be done side by side.
To make a rendition of Hubert Humphrey’s famous 1948 DNC convention speech, I urge those at the helm of America’s traditional institutions to “get out of the shadow of 20th century oppression, and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of 21st century equality.”
To the millions of Americans disenchanted by traditional institutions, I say this: Don’t give up. They will change. And they are needed.
Today, roughly 70 percent of Americans say they don’t believe in the American dream. That is a ticking time bomb that’s been exploding its way through the last twenty years. So many people are losing sight of a dream that’s been the core of what this country has fought for, for so long.
All of that, all of that blood, sweat, and tears, it pains me to say, looks like it’s going up in a dumpster fire. If we lose the American Dream, we lose America as we know it.
So I say this: raise the flag. Love this country. Love the Dream. Love everyone who has fought to make it a reality.
Remember that America is not the total of its worst moments. Rather, we are a huddled mass of people fighting to make it better.
We are getting knocked down. But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Fight for America.
Always fight. I’m counting on it.