For the last few years I’ve had a crazy question bouncing around in my head. The basic idea is this: globalization is going to transform our ideas about citizenship as geographic boundaries become less meaningful.
First, a tangent on how this idea came to be. It started with our family genealogical research and learning just how very American I am.
The Goble family came to America in 1634 as Puritan immigrants from England. My forefathers were among the first white settlers of New England, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the Ohio Valley, Texas, and the Oklahoma Territory. My family has been involved in every defining American era, from a brutal winter during the Revolutionary War to a presence in Silicon Valley during the technology revolution.
So in the last few years I’ve come to realize just how American I really am. It’s been a wonderful research project and has made me (mostly) proud of my heritage.
But as I reflected on this, and as I continued to travel internationally, I began to wonder … what is an American?
In an age of globalization, does it simply mean the geographical location where I’m born? Geographical boundaries, from mountains to rivers to oceans and vast deserts, really mattered at one point.
But today? Not such much. Facebook alone gives me contacts in dozens of countries, and I don’t need to get into all the other changes in technology, transportation, and communications that has brought the global walls down.
Defining ourselves by our geographic setting seems so … well … old fashioned.
During the 2008 elections I saw an interview with a slum dweller in Mumbai who didn’t understand why he could not vote in the American election. He said something like, “But the President leads the whole world. If America truly is a democracy, don’t I get a voice in that? Why am I left out of a decision that will impact me and my family for decades?”
Now you might chuckle at that idea, and I agree it is kind of absurd, but it struck me. We are citizens of a country that is central to the world. Perhaps our influence is waning, but the centrality of American power is going to be around a long, long time.
Yet fewer than 5% of the world’s population can vote and call themselves an American.
The immigration debate weaves into this question. If a person is not born within certain geographic boundaries we call him or her a foreigner. But if that foreigner crosses those boundaries to find work, and then works hard within those boundaries for 20 years, and the whole time adopts the values of America, is he or she an American? Unless he or she is fortunate enough to weave through the bureaucratic red tape of naturalization, the answer is no.
By contrast, you can be foolish, lazy, a bad neighbor, a criminal, an anarchist … but if you are born within certain geographic boundaries, you are forever an American.
My point isn’t to enter into a debate on immigration. It’s to point out how central geography is to the question, “Who is an American?”
Again, in an age of globalization, doesn’t that seem just a bit archaic?
We often think of an American in terms of a unique cultural identity. Originally it was white and Christian. But of course that has changed. There certainly is a cultural identity for an American, but it is largely a collection of broader global identities brought into one expression, and it morphs constantly.
Then there is our perception (our national myth, as some might say) of Americans as freedom loving, democratic, hard working, fair minded, generous, and independent. We still see these as central to our identity as Americans.
And that’s what strikes me about our dependence on geographic boundaries as the litmus test for defining an American. Isn’t it true that values — the freedom loving, democratic, fair minded hard working individual — are a better definition of an American than a mere geographic boundary can be? Aren’t we tied together by a common bond that transcends a legal border?
Chrystia Freeland wrote an article for The Atlantic that touches on this topic. The article is about the rise of a new global elite and is focused on economic inequalities. But there are a few lines worth quoting that apply to my question:
“…the rich of today are also different from the rich of yesterday…they are becoming a transglobal community of peers who have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home. Whether they maintain primary residences in New York or Hong Kong, Moscow or Mumbai, today’s super-rich are increasingly a nation unto themselves.”
Later she writes:
“…they are forming a global community, and their ties to one another are increasingly closer than their ties to hoi polloi back home. As Glenn Hutchins, co-founder of the private-equity firm Silver Lake, puts it, “A person in Africa who runs a big African bank and went to Harvard might have more in common with me than he does with his neighbors, and I could well share more overlapping concerns and experiences with him than with my neighbors.” The circles we move in, Hutchins explains, are defined by “interests” and “activities” rather than “geography”: “Beijing has a lot in common with New York, London, or Mumbai. You see the same people, you eat in the same restaurants, you stay in the same hotels. But most important, we are engaged as global citizens in crosscutting commercial, political, and social matters of common concern. We are much less place-based than we used to be.”
Exactly.
Now you and I may not be part of this new global elite, but I would argue that this concept holds true for a far greater number than just the super rich. I saw this same phenomena in Thailand at a party of ex-pats who gathered at an art gallery, I’ve experienced it over dinner with a Belizean environmental activist, I’ve had the same experience with businesspeople in dozens of countries, and of course followers of Jesus have practiced this since the time of the Apostle Paul (one of the first global citizens).
In each instance, we gathered together in part because — despite the differences in our passports — we had more in common with each other than with people in our home country.
So though we aren’t part of the global elite, the concept remains the same when we look at our own lives. We are tied together less by geographic setting than by interests, activities, commonalities, and values.
You might not agree with the idea that the definition of an American is changing. Even if you do agree, it might make you uncomfortable because it rattles the simple geographic definitions that have shaped our perspectives. But it doesn’t really matter what you think or like: the world is changing, the boundaries are coming down, and our identity is going to be shaped by that change.
I have no idea where this will lead in the future, but I suspect it is going to be a slow transformation of our understanding of national identity. You might as well get ready for it.
So … I’ve shared my thoughts … what do you think it means to be an American?