I really hope that every single person in our class knew about most of the history presented in Manifest Destiny. I hope that as many people as possible have heard more than the fourth grade "America Can Do No Wrong" version of history. I hope that every single high school U.S. History class addresses Stephanson's themes. I hope that people acknowledge the tremendous influence of ultraconservative, Evangelical, delusional Protestantism on which this country was founded and on whose tenets we still adhere.
Unfortunately, I expect none of these things. I have little substantive information to add on this blog because I hoped that many of these themes were self-evident to educated people. Having already read Prof. PTJ's take, I feel it most appropriate to second and expand upon several of his points.
Stephanson's success is in explaining how inextricably linked the United States is with apocalyptic, Calvanistic Protestantism. He does not take it as his purpose to explain why much of the U.S. is in denial about this link. We do tend to fool ourselves into believing that our government is secular because of the Establishment Clause. However, as PTJ points out, the Free Exercise Clause guarantees that religion can survive in perpituity in the private sector. Further, since religion has Constitutional sacred cow status, it can thrive and thus profoundly affect U.S. politics.
How are Americans blind to the Protestantism that is so evident in so much of our public opinion? Americans demonize sex while embracing violence in media, at odds with virtually all of postreligious Europe. How can we not see this as the Puritanism inherent in the American psyche while Catholic/postreligious Europe looks on, confused at sex scandals and wardrobe malfunctions? How can we as a society not see the way religion plays a role in so many of our public issues, especially those of gay marriage and abortion? And how do we turn a deaf ear to politicians closing speeches with "God Bless America" and filling every statement with Christian symbolism?
All these answers and more in Oolon Colluphid's controversial trilogy, Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes, and Who is This God Person Anyway?
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I believe that the reason Americans are "blind to the Protestantism" is twofold. First, the Protestant ideals have been a part of the United States from the beginning. So much of what is considered "American" lines up with what is Protestant that we just don't see the Protestantism in America. It has been there for so long that it has become an ingrained part of American culture, and we don't even notice it anymore. Secondly, we give our protestant ideals different names, we don't say something is a sin, we say it is immoral. Morality has become such a loosely defined word itself, that it doesn't necessarily even bring up religious connotations anymore. As Stephanson pointed out, religion has been a part of the development of the United States throughout our entire history, but people (at least Americans) don't think of it that way. They take the Protestant ideals, wrap them up in political language, and call them the American Spirit.
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