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Being American (Politics of Identity – XI1)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Preston King
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Abstract

‘Being American’ is a two-sided identity called ‘citizenship’. This involves a set (the state) and its members (citizens). The citizen (say Whitman) may be ‘fully’ American, just as some particular nation (say Native American, African, British, Jewish) may be so. But no one citizen (the patriot), or subset of citizens (perhaps the ethnic group), nor even the set of all citizens (past and present) reflects or symbolizes the whole of what ‘being American’ might mean. Nor can we reduce America's multitudes, and multitudinous practices, to one thickset/hotfoot Creed producing the sexy ‘American’/‘Un-American’ binary. Being American hangs upon a paramount constitutionalism that coolly reconciles, without melting, underlying identities. ‘Constitutionalism’ is informed by some abstract notion of justice, is grounded in mutual regard and equal liberty, and mere possession of ‘a constitution’ does not suffice to deliver it.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , 2007 , pp. 593 - 625
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 2007

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Footnotes

1

‘The Politics of Identity’ is an on-going series edited by Richard Bellamy.

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