Is America's Cultural Glue Weakening?

A Stark Political Contrast

The political visions of Trump-Vance and Harris-Walz couldn't be more different. As things could potentially get ugly, it's a good time to reflect on what unites us as a nation and a people. America is a nation of immigrants with diverse ideas, but no group has been able to significantly impose its culture on others. This has led to the creation of a melting pot that has united us by creating a new alloy out of many different metals.

The Real Key to America’s Success

However, the true secret to America’s success was not uniting us by homogenizing us. It was the emergence of a uniquely American culture that held us together through shared moral beliefs and principles, while allowing us to retain our personal individuality.

American Civic Culture

In America, heavy investment into our civic culture through these shared moral beliefs and principles produced the freest thinking minds in human history. The founders recognized this and worked hard to preserve it. This is why they wrote a constitution that provided a formula for a government that was to serve the citizens and not the other way around.

America's Distinctive Culture

When Alexis Tocqueville published his first installment of “Democracy in America”  in 1835, he argued that America had a distinctive culture that made it especially capable of self-government. There was something about the American culture that led to the proliferation of mediating institutions that in turn led to an extraordinary level of organic (uncoerced) cooperation. That, in turn, made Americans uniquely well-suited to practice democracy.

How Did This Happen?

As America grew, specific religious beliefs became increasingly subordinated to an overarching moral belief structure. In short, not doing the moral don’ts (not lying, not stealing, etc.) became increasingly viewed as a universal moral duty and a public matter, while doing the moral dos (being conscientious, being generous, etc.) became things that were encouraged but otherwise viewed as a purely private matter.

Shift in Moral Thinking

This shift in moral thinking began long ago in the West. As people in the West lived in ever larger groups, religious wisdom began to reflect and reinforce this shift. As but one example Hillel, a towering figure in first century Talmudic thought, proclaimed: “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow [man]. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”

Emergence of American Ethic

Because of America’s extraordinary diversity, the idea that we should concern ourselves with not doing the moral don’ts above all flowered most fully. This was also consistent with America’s early Protestant nature, which stressed that one’s conscience should guide moral decisions rather than any kind of religious formulary.

Trust in a High Trust Society

Being confident that, in most contexts, no harm would come to us led to a habit of extending trust to strangers unless there was a good reason not to. That is the essence of a high trust society. Since trust is a powerful catalyst to voluntary cooperation, this unleashed the power of freely directed cooperation as never before in human history.

America's Cultural Glue is Weakening

But America’s cultural glue, which makes all of this possible, is weakening. Today’s civic and moral educators don’t stress the primacy of not doing the don’ts over doing the moral dos. Instead, they preach that certain kinds of positive moral actions are duties—like driving an electric car. This is a prescription for a virtue-signaling arms race wherein people indulge their moral vanity by doing whatever they can to appear morally superior to everyone else.

Consequences of the Shift

In most American schools today, children are taught that they should care enough about everyone else to be willing to think, say, and do approved things to produce conformity sufficient to unite us. But that’s not what made America a free and prosperous country. Getting along well enough to freely cooperate even with strangers, while preserving our individuality, is.

Future Implications

Unless we return to prioritizing not doing the moral don’ts over doing the moral dos, our cultural glue will weaken further, and we will become less trusting and therefore less willing to cooperate outside our most intimate social circles. We will increasingly be unable to do that which made America the envy of the world.

Bottom Line

The weakening of America's cultural glue could have significant implications for the country's future. The shift from prioritizing not doing the moral don’ts over doing the moral dos could lead to less trust and less willingness to cooperate outside our most intimate social circles. What are your thoughts on this? Do you agree with this perspective? Share this article with your friends and start a conversation. Don't forget to sign up for the Daily Briefing, which is every day at 6pm.