Jerry Hendrix
The citizens of the United States are unique in that their sense of national identity is derived from ideas rather than an ethnic or language base. To the extent that there is an American “culture,” it is tied to this sense, which can be briefly described, as Tocqueville did, as American individualism. This idea separates each person from their past and empowers them to pursue happiness as they see fit so long as their actions do not impinge upon the liberty and lives of their fellow citizens.
Rather than limiting itself to the domestic sphere, however, this public philosophy has foreign policy implications, or even complications. Within the international arena, Americans lack a deep sense of cultural history. They believe that they can make the world anew, and what’s more, they believe that they have been called to create an “empire of liberty,” a Jeffersonian concept that summons Americans to spread their sense of individual liberty and national self-determination across the world.
Lord Palmerston said that any nation’s interests are “eternal and perpetual,” but the philosophic edge to those of the United States means hers are often at odds with those of other states and cultures which don’t assign the same value to the individual and their human rights. This is the primary complication facing US foreign policy as we complete our transition from the post-Cold War unipolar moment to multipolar great power competition.
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