God's American Crucible

Tales of Resemblances : III

 

 

 

 

 

 

The title is taken from a quote by Israel Zangwill, British dramatist, from his play ' The Melting Pot.' It ran to popular acclaim in the US from 1909-1910 and was recently revived in 2006 in the Metropolitan Playhouse in New York. In any assessment, that implies a consistency about the American identity that has lasted for 100 years in recent times. A consistency is what leads to an attitude and attitudes are the basis of an individual personal identity.

 

It is not the biggest country in the world. That distinction goes to Russia, followed by Canada and then the United States. But as melting pot to immigrants from all over the world, it is the best representative nation of the world. It conveys this through its aspirations, innovativeness and certainly as the greatest experiment the world has yet conducted about its ability to survive into the future.

 

It is however the largest most successful economy in the world. If the world is father, America is certainly its mother. In such a symbiosis with the world, it merges with the other nations of the world to become its most responsible citizen.

 

By any perception, such a country is the best role model to everyone else. It leads by reason and administers to its political landscape by a journalistic integrity that is second to none. Winston Churchill said of Americans, ' Americans always try to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.' That's called trial and error in a self management in which you do not have any other role model in the world. You have to invent one yourself.

 

It starts with being a Jack of all trades, an appellation that refers to a thespian, one who pursues his dreams. It is a roadmap with a rich tradition. Thessaly in Greece cultivated a rich thespian culture that attracted their countrymen from all other parts to see its plays. But mostly, we remember Thessaly as the legendary place of Mount Olympus, where the Titans fought the Olympians. As in heaven, is the attitude that no effort is too big.

 

In a world in which the physical reality is as big as its plays of manners, factual natures, poetry and survival, being Jack is not such a bad thing. In a full deck of cards he knows that his place is right next to the Queen. That's the way anybody plays in a world that is itself a melting pot today.