Myth of American Progress

The myth of American progress is not foreign. Rather, it is expressed repeatedly in works of literature, art, and entertainment. It can be either argued that the myth derives from the truth or from cynicism. However, even as a fairly cynical person, I must admit America has made progress--despite how little progress it may be. Others find American progress as a complete myth, as there still exists racism, homophobia, shootings, police brutality, nuclear warfare, needing to hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to college, etc. The issues as to why America has not progressed could be an endless list, for every type of person out there. Those issues are those that come immediately to myself, personally, when asked about the “myth of American progress.”

Despite the saliency of issues, undeniably there has been progress since the birth of America. However, I am a firm believer in fighting for what I love rather than just adhering to the romantic statement: “I’m a lover not a fighter.” I believe that whatever progress America has made was worked for, thus further progress will require withstanding efforts. Retrospectively, I find the choices I made were never simply hinged on any disillusionment that everything would work out just because. That being said, what may regard as my fear against the actual progress America makes is the lack of consciousness towards progress. Many Americans are ignorant towards the progress, thus refusing to being part of progress, or ignorant towards the lack of progress, thus inhibiting any further progress.

Though slavery has been abolished since Frederick Douglass’ narrative, racism against African Americans is a prominent issue that has led to the very controversial and salient issue of police brutality. I must recognize the progress America has made with abolition. There remain people that are ignorant to the issue of de facto discrimination. Writer, Ta-Nehisi Coates, writes a heart-wrenching book about living in America as a black male, in the form of a letter to his young son. In this book, Between the World and Me, Coates ultimately alludes to Douglass to relate the lack of progress in America, “Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage. Enslavement was not merely the antiseptic borrowing of labor—it is not so easy to get a human being to commit their body against its own elemental interest. And so enslavement must be casual wrath and random manglings, the gashing of heads and brains blown out over the river as the body seeks to escape.” Personally and unfortunately, I find full progress to be too far into the future of America to imagine without feeling delusional or ignorant. There are far too many people who remain in ignorance or denial about the reality of the residual discrimination.

I hate to call myself pessimistic because I do ultimately have faith in human capability. But I would feel delusional to purely rely on faith and fortune to change history. I believe in working for and fighting for progress--even though I strongly disagree with the use of violence. Using the wrong methods to justify the right causes, as Walzer’s just war theory states, would do no good. There must be a balance, rather than an acceptance of living day by day without conflict. Americans must continue to work on progression, otherwise history would be tragically repeated.