America: A Secular Nation?
No way. Watch the beginning of a World Series game, and look at the reverential look all of the players feel obliged to adopt when the national anthem is played. Imagine the reaction if one of them refused to stand for this hymn.
America is a religious nation, whose religion is worshipping itself and its own exceptionalism.
America is a religious nation, whose religion is worshipping itself and its own exceptionalism.
Well, it depends on what you mean by "secular nation". If you mean secular government, then sure. If you mean something else, then I don't know.
ReplyDelete"If you mean secular government, then sure."
DeleteThen sure what?
Sure the government is secular.
DeleteNo, it is devoted to the religion of America.
DeleteThis was common everywhere with the creation of the nation – state: The mystical body of the state was put in place of the mystical body of the church as the object of the citizens' worship. But America has one of the worst cases of this phenomenon.
That's an interesting and perhaps insightful way of putting it. I've known for a while that American exceptionalism is overstated and can border on arrogant nationalism if diligence isn't exercised, but I've never encountered an interpretation of it as a religion. Viewed in that light I agree with you that it is probably one of the worst examples of such (I qualify my statement with "probably" since I haven't paid particular attention to the same phenomenon in other countries in the same light). If I fully understand what you mean in, then would I be correct in saying that Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, contemporary China, and contemprary North Korea are possibly the only nations that are greater manifestations of this occurrence?
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