Out of mortal threat, an opportunity: the present situation will force Americans to define themselves.(American identity)

THIS is one of those moments in our history when we are asking ourselves, with fresh intensity, who we are, as a nation and a people. We are not the only ones in the world asking themselves such questions. The current national elections in France, for example, have brought to the surface a growing unease in the land over the fraying condition of French national identity, an unease that candidates are having to address. Europe itself, along with the countries composing it, suffers from a serious crisis of self-definition, as entrenched dogmas of transnationality and multicultural inclusiveness begin to look like signposts on the road to cultural suicide. But such questions pose themselves with particular force for Americans, whose sense of themselves as a people has always been strongly tied to their shared acceptance of certain conscious ideals.

There are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic. Our shared sense of what is central to our national character has become confused and eroded, as our knowledge of our distinctive history has waned, and as the meaning of citizenship itself has been diluted and diminished. Yet there also are reasons to believe that a considerable reservoir of American patriotic sentiment exists to be drawn upon, even if it is not always very visible or very eager to declare itself. There is still, in short, a continuing sense of the American national character, even if it is not always easy to define, and even if it shows its nature most clearly--in much the same way that individual character does--only on those occasions when necessity evokes it.

It should not detract from the urgency of our present concerns to note that they all have a familiar ring to them. We have been here before. Not exactly the same place, of course. History never repeats itself in that way, and many of the particulars we now face are quite unprecedented. But the general shape of the concerns is not. We Americans have always puzzled over the precise shape of our national identity, and worried about the state of our culture. We have always asked such questions about ourselves. Our readiness to ask such questions itself offers an insight into the kind of people we are.

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