Comments on: “A Nation Of Immigrants” http://larison.org/2006/09/05/a-nation-of-immigrants/ n. the principle of good order "Observe the strange inversion of all order and sense! Dignity debased; how vilely is the function of a consul prostituted!" ~The Craftsman Mon, 15 Mar 2010 01:10:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 by: jlbarnard http://larison.org/2006/09/05/a-nation-of-immigrants/#comment-4532 Wed, 06 Sep 2006 14:51:25 +0000 http://larison.org/2006/09/05/a-nation-of-immigrants/#comment-4532 I think you're engaging here in a kind of semantic nostalgia. You're right to point out the contradictions in terms -- but such contradictions might be seen as an inevitable development, and one that can have positive descriptive effects. The U.S.A. is, in many ways, a nation of contradictions, and labelling it so is not necessarily a problem. What is a problem, in my view, is the use to which such labels are put. The phrase "A Nation of Immigrants" might be used to highlight the differences among us, to advocate a less tribal, less reductive stance towards others (both internally and externally). Instead, as you note, this phrase is used to the opposite effect -- to pretend that there is indeed some common or tribal bond after all, that the anglo-saxon and otherwise north-western Europeans (immigrants only via "granddad") have some "blood and soil" (so sayeth Buchanan) connection, not only to one another, but to all other immigrants from all other countires, that surely does not exist. And this is all, of course, bullshit, and is meant to create the conditions, probably through assimilation and loss of cultural difference and identity, favorable to a certain set of policies. Why should we expect a first generation Nigerian, or Yemeni, or, for that matter, a Mexican, to assume some sort of identity with, say, Barbara Bush, simply because they like to say it is so? It's worth thinking about the other contradiction you mention: "a constitution of amendments." Surely, from a rigid semantic perspective, this is a strange formulation. But, the fact is that this is what we have. The process of amendment was, indeed, written right into the constituting document. Here is a relevant passage from Jay Grossman's "Reconstituting the American Renaissance": “The adoption of the first ten amendments to address the Philadelphia document’s ambiguity—or plain silence—on matters of individual liberties deemed by some too important for guesswork establishes the Constitution’s peculiar status as a constituting text that “ambiguously affirms its own transgression…its writing is a rewriting, and its final truth that its truth is not immutable but always open to modification and never final.” Indeed the promise of amendment at the time of ratification was not initially mere afterthought, as the term improperly suggests, but was instead the very condition of Constitutional enactment and ratification” (3). Creating a "consitution of amendments" or a "nation of immigrants" is only a transgression against language if we are insisting on language being static, rather than in flux, somewhat arbitrary, and always created and altered by those who need to use it. It seems that there are two options: either embrace necessary contradictions and acclimate ourselves to a language that admits these kinds of paradoxes, or we must invent new words. How else to describe a place like America in less than a thousand words? We could invent a word, and call it a Widget, but that would be just as arbitrary, and would have even less "meaning" than the contradictory phrases we use now. I think you’re engaging here in a kind of semantic nostalgia. You’re right to point out the contradictions in terms — but such contradictions might be seen as an inevitable development, and one that can have positive descriptive effects. The U.S.A. is, in many ways, a nation of contradictions, and labelling it so is not necessarily a problem. What is a problem, in my view, is the use to which such labels are put. The phrase “A Nation of Immigrants” might be used to highlight the differences among us, to advocate a less tribal, less reductive stance towards others (both internally and externally). Instead, as you note, this phrase is used to the opposite effect — to pretend that there is indeed some common or tribal bond after all, that the anglo-saxon and otherwise north-western Europeans (immigrants only via “granddad”) have some “blood and soil” (so sayeth Buchanan) connection, not only to one another, but to all other immigrants from all other countires, that surely does not exist. And this is all, of course, bullshit, and is meant to create the conditions, probably through assimilation and loss of cultural difference and identity, favorable to a certain set of policies. Why should we expect a first generation Nigerian, or Yemeni, or, for that matter, a Mexican, to assume some sort of identity with, say, Barbara Bush, simply because they like to say it is so?

It’s worth thinking about the other contradiction you mention: “a constitution of amendments.” Surely, from a rigid semantic perspective, this is a strange formulation. But, the fact is that this is what we have. The process of amendment was, indeed, written right into the constituting document. Here is a relevant passage from Jay Grossman’s “Reconstituting the American Renaissance”:

“The adoption of the first ten amendments to address the Philadelphia document’s ambiguity—or plain silence—on matters of individual liberties deemed by some too important for guesswork establishes the Constitution’s peculiar status as a constituting text that “ambiguously affirms its own transgression…its writing is a rewriting, and its final truth that its truth is not immutable but always open to modification and never final.” Indeed the promise of amendment at the time of ratification was not initially mere afterthought, as the term improperly suggests, but was instead the very condition of Constitutional enactment and ratification” (3).

Creating a “consitution of amendments” or a “nation of immigrants” is only a transgression against language if we are insisting on language being static, rather than in flux, somewhat arbitrary, and always created and altered by those who need to use it. It seems that there are two options: either embrace necessary contradictions and acclimate ourselves to a language that admits these kinds of paradoxes, or we must invent new words. How else to describe a place like America in less than a thousand words? We could invent a word, and call it a Widget, but that would be just as arbitrary, and would have even less “meaning” than the contradictory phrases we use now.

]]>