Time for America to create a New Origin Story

If you follow business, you know that part of the lure of every company is its founding story or myth. How the founders came together, overcame objections, and persevered to build their insanely great products. 

Over time the myth takes on a life of its own, as it comes to define the company and its products. In a similar way it’s true of nations, including the United States. 

We were a nation forged from disparate regions. The Northeast, the South, the West, Midwest. Each with different cultures, different philosophies and demographics. And yet we have bought into the myth of one nation, one United States. The proverbial “shining city on the hill.” 

It seems that every few decades the patina wears off. The myth and the differences come to the surface and we struggle to hold it all together. We are living through that now. 

To explain why we need listen to Colin Woodward, author of Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood.

My conversation with Colin Woodard

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Liberty vs. The Common Good

The debate that raged between Apple and the Federal Government was on the surface about security, privacy and encryption. However, in a larger sense it’s about the balance between our liberty and right to privacy vs. what some perceive as the greater good of the nation.

When we put up with the indignities of the TSA, we are agreeing that the greater good of security, check makes certain individual liberties. When we pass laws about personal vices, about speed limits or about guns or fundamental civil rights, the framework is the same.

In fact, when we look at the history of America, right on through our present day polarization, we see this struggle between individual liberty and the common good as a fundamental debate that links us directly with our founders.

This is the tension that Colin Woodard writes about in American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good.

My conversation with Colin Woodard: