Idealism & Practicality
Atlantic, The, July, 2006
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From the start, a tension has been built into America’s relations with the outside world—a tension between idealism and practicality.
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The idealistic impulse was expressed long before there was an America, in John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon about Boston’s destined role as a “city upon a hill” with “the eyes of all people upon us.” It grows from the assumption that America is a society different from all others, inventing a model of freedom, opportunity, and self-government toward which all others might aspire. America’s duty is to help the rest of the world toward this goal, by example when possible and through force when necessary. America’s responsibility to freedom-seeking people elsewhere rings through a statement as old as the Declaration of Independence and as recent as President George W. Bush’s second inaugural address, with its reminder that “America’s influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently ...
